Testing positive on an LFT

[Mangosmoothiesprinkles]

I’ve seen a lot of posts recently about people testing positive on LFTS.

What type of LFTS have people been testing positive on? I know the old 30 min ones are generally for asymptomatic use but have heard the new style 15 min ones work at detecting symptoms.

If you’ve had symptoms, what sort of LFT have you been testing positive on? (And how many days into feeling unwell).

My daughters both tested positive on the 15 min ones this week followed by positive pcrs . Eldest just had a blocked nose and sniffles , youngest had a high temperature .

The old 30 minutes one. They do work with symptoms.

All LFTs “work” if you have symptoms, if by that you mean detect the really infectious cases.

What none of them are good at is detecting all positives - therefore when you get a negative it may be a false negative. Because of that the advice is to use a PCR rather than a LFT.

yes as @JanglyBeads said if you have symptoms you always do a PCR not a LFT.

LFT have a really high false negative rate (up to 50% depending on how the test is performed) so are very poor at ruling covid out BUT the false positive rate is really low (less than 1%) so if you get a positive as part of your regular testing regime then you can be be fairly sure that you have covid even if you don't have symptoms.

My LFTs showed negative for five tests, although I was already starting to feel ill and had been in contact with a case and had ordered a PCR.

As soon as I had the spiking temperature the LFT showed a clear positive and that’s when, coincidentally, my PCR result finally arrived and confirmed the positive.

I wanted to know before then so that I could work out whether I was likely to make various commitments and could cancel in good time.

Ds10 woke up today feeling very poorly. Temp 38.3 and clearly not well. Did a test, strong positive straight away, took him for pcr and waiting result.

I did a positive PCR last Sunday (had symptoms) didn’t get a positive lft until Wednesday.

I started to feel slightly under the weather on Wednesday, then lost my sense of taste and smell two days later. At that point I immediately did a LFT (the 30 minute ones) and another one to be sure, which both confirmed almost straightaway that I do have Covid.

There’s been some new research recently showing that LFTs are quite a lot more accurate than was initially thought.

My dc both had some mild sore throat symptoms and tested positive on the original old-style tests.
Dc1 had a sore throat for 4 days and kept testing negative until day 5.

The same thing happened with dc2 and my sister in law - lots of negative tests with mild symptoms (sore throat) until testing positive.

In all cases they isolated after the positive results and no one else caught it in the household - I wonder if it took until the virus levels were high enough for the positive result to show and by isolating then, prevented the spread...

Ds tested positive today on lft. He has cough and temperature. I tested positive but I don't have any symptoms. We used 15 min tests.

The new ones. They were positive within seconds. I took one on day five of symptoms out of curiosity and still very fast positive.

Positive came up within seconds on one of the newer LFTs. Developed minor cold symptoms and tested negative on LFT on day 1, 2 and 3, then woke up worse on day 5 and tested positive on LFT then.

The positives showed within seconds on the old style we used too - as soon as the liquid moved along we could see the positive result.

New ones. 10 positive lfts since halloween, 3 negative pcrs. No idea wtf is happening

@Winterwonder5

New ones. 10 positive lfts since halloween, 3 negative pcrs. No idea wtf is happening

I had that! Although mine are negative now. I've given up on the PCR tests now. I probably did have it but I suppose we will never know? I had to go work 😬 because PCR trumps lft. Did you report to 119?

Yesterday I and ds tested positive on lft. We tested again this morning and both got negative. Ds was quite poorly last night so we went for pcr tests. Both negative.

@Neena86 yes! Spoke to them a couple of times, they do seem to have a script of pcr trumps all.

Not sure why when there's a 1 in 3000 chance of a false positive

They should consider changing the guidance to isolate with either a positive LFT or PCR result since a false positive with either is fairly unlikely. Would have prevented the Immensa debacle too.