How accurate are PCRs?

[rainbowraindrop]

Husband tested positive for covid on Wednesday.
Me and 3 kids had PCRs following his.

I woke up this morning with a banging headache, eldest 2 are fine.
1yr old has a high temp and horrendous cough, he was coughing all night.

All PCRs came back all positive today except the baby, the most poorly of all of us with the classic symptoms, could it be wrong?

None of us are going anywhere so it doesn't particularly matter but I can't believe he's the only one negative.

Did you get a good sample from him?
Could have been done too soon and he didn't have a high enough level of virus to be detected
You can get false negatives too

I suspect that it may just have been a bit harder to get a good sample from him. Get well soon to all of you.

30% of PCR negatives can be false , ie the person is actually positive.

It's not as high as 30%, it's more like 5%.

Presumably it’s harder to perform the test accurately on a baby so that could be why.

I believe they're about 95% accurate if carried out correctly

Very. I could barely swab DS's nostrils and it detected a positive.

Mine was negative from the 19th so did it again, and 23rd was positive tested too early

It’s hard to do a test accurately on a wiggly 1 year old. I’ve tried multiple times

Id asssume it's obviously a blip! LFT him in the morning. Or even now, prob be positive!

The 1 year old is easier to swab than the 3yr old! The 3yr old has a complete and utter meltdown.
My mum suggested maybe I mixed up the samples, I thought I was extra careful but I suppose it's possible.

Will do another LFT tomorrow, he's been asleep since 6.30 and has had a really rough few nights so don't want to disturb him. Just worry as he always gets so poorly with his chest and breathing but he seems ok at the moment 🤞🏻

A paediatrician who was treating my child told me that when a PCR is done by a medical professional on children it is only 69% accurate, when done by a non medical professional that drops to 50% accuracy

That was 60% not 69%