Anyone else no longer testing WITHOUT symptoms?

[Throwawayy]

I know I'll get the typical "so selfish how COULD you" type posts but is anyone else no longer testing when they have no symptoms?

I've had PCRs a few times with colds and things this year and have done LFTs too. I've ran out though now and I don't intend on getting more right now and will go for a PCR if I have symptoms.

If someone I was meeting asked, I'd do one. But other than that I feel like no longer testing when I feel fine.

@Userrr

I've never tested, I bet people wouldn't be so eager to test if they had to pay for them

Would the price of a test not be outweighed by the cost saving of not infecting hundreds of others if it turned out to be positive?

[quote pucelleauxblanchesmains]@multivac I'm actually in the "so mentally ill that testing more than twice a week would send me into a debilitating OCD spiral" camp, thanks for asking. Constant checking was part of my symptoms before COVID, for other diseases, and I absolutely know that asymptomatic testing every day would send me over the edge. I'm pretty sure a non zero number of people have also developed health anxiety over the last couple of years & I'm frankly worried that the health anxiety mindset is being encouraged and enabled because I can see it playing out in so many people's logic on here.[/quote]
Don't think I did ask, did i? But if you can't test, for whatever reason, so much the better that those of us who can, do. Same as vaccination. And masks - my best friend can't wear one, for reasons that are none of anyone's fucking business but hers. I mask for her, as well as for me, and mine, and you.

@amicissimma

I don't know its utterly bizarre yet here we are in a situation where people just believe it and don't even stop to question it

@Userrr

I've never tested, I bet people wouldn't be so eager to test if they had to pay for them

This is absolutely true. Check out the situation in the US right now. Keen to imitate?

@multivac Well you did post on a public forum about there being two different types of people on here, the Good and the Bad, based on ho woften we are prepared to test, so I'm not sure why you didn't expect any replies to that?
Anyway, I think my more general point stands in that when this is finally over I expect there to be a lot more people on CBT waiting lists for health anxiety which has developed as an unfortunate but unavoidable side effect of the pandemic.

@Svara

No, I will get a PCR if I have one of the three main symptoms or am otherwise directed to. Think there should be more limits placed on free tests tbh, so many people on here admit to using LFTs daily when already isolating! Such waste and it is taxpayers paying for them as well.

I wish everyone would think like is. All ultimately subsidised by us and our children in years to come. The environmental damage must he enormous: to manufacture, transport, distribute and discard billions of bits of plastic. PCR for symptoms only, which we never had yet, or if required for attending a medical procedure plus I did 2 or 3 through Zoe app but stopped all that ages ago. LTF: DCs would do if required for attending events or for being allowed certain places. Occasionally I had to some for work but entirely voluntary. DH never did a LFT. I'm hoping they will gradually be limited in availability to stop all this utter waste.

@Nidan2Sandan

Have just showed this thread to DH - a doctor. His comments are not repeatable about the lack of understanding about testing

Couldn't care less about what your "doctor" DH thinks tbh.

Looool, literally.

I’m a ‘vulnerable person’ and I only test if I have symptoms. My world has become drastically smaller so I don’t mix very much at all, and the anxiety it causes me just isn’t worth it.

I tested yesterday as we were visiting a friend who is helping a vulnerable relative at the moment, so I’m not ‘sod everyone’ about it, but I need to balance my sanity as well.

Before proclaiming that not doing lfts is saving on plastics, perhaps it would be good to calculate if and how many hospital and itu admissions it saves.

1 a&e attendance would probably be at least 3 lfts - probably need to take bloods. 1 hospital admittance may be more and Itu admission even more. I guess it is the balance of how much plastic is used then vs how frequently lfts are done.

I understand that some people have to LFT for work or household contact reasons (eg triple vaxed person living in a household with confirmed pcr positive, but unable to wfh). But surely daily testing if you are isolating anyway isn’t v helpful?

Doesn’t mean that all lfts are not useful. Asymptomatic testing before going to high risk situations (eg indoor meetings with multiple people or CEV) - could prevent many infections.

Before proclaiming that not doing lfts is saving on plastics, perhaps it would be good to calculate if and how many hospital and itu admissions it saves.

That's assuming that those people admitted to hospital with covid would not be infected anyway at some point and ended up in hospital.

In other words, this omicron wave is unstoppable and we're all going to get exposed at some point.

By testing and avoiding going out if positive you're just delaying this spread.

Surely we are just trying to avoid it being a massive tidal wave of cases happening at once, and to spread them out a bit?

No. They aren’t given out like sweeties here, you have to pay for them. Would people really be testing daily in uk if they had to pay for them? Here any symptoms it’s pcr ( which are then free) the lateral flow doesn’t count in most places anyway.

We work from home, no school or nursery, no public transport, no family visiting, no cafes or restaurants visits, fairly remote.. It’s not a high chance of us catching it.

@Caspianberg

Well yea I’m your situation easy not to test daily.

My OH works construction and has every day since pandemic, my eldest is at school, youngest at nursery and I teach in a school with 2000 unmasked teens! So all high risk situations 5/7 days a week!

@Caspianberg which country are you in?

One arguement why UK figures are so high is the UK is doing so many tests that they are picking up asymptomatic people.

We’ll we won’t anymore as we can’t get hold of any LFTs.

One arguement why UK figures are so high is the UK is doing so many tests that they are picking up asymptomatic people.

That's interesting. I guess they take a PCR test as ltf tests aren't counted in official figures.

Yes lots of people in England will take a PCR test (free) if they have a positive lateral flow. It will be very useful data for the state to track strains of the virus although I think I read only 1% of PCRs are officially analysed for that kind of thing which seems a bit of waste...okay looked it up - by last July we had analysed 600,000 PCRs. www.gov.uk/government/news/uk-exceeds-600000-covid-19-tests-genomically-sequencedOne reason South Africa (and Israel) have picked things up too is their competent testing regimes like the UK's.

@LifesABotch

LFT devices are meant for asymptomatic testing, to catch asymptomatic, infectious people and (in theory) alert them and stop them from mixing with others and spreading the virus... PCR when you have symptoms. If this is still not clear, then the communication by the gov and NHS has not done its job! No wonder omicron is everywhere

Crazy isn't it. So many people say to me - oh it's only a cold, I had a negative LFT, no idea that they should be taking a PCR with cold symptoms so they are walking around with their 'cold' because they tested negative! 🤦🏻‍♀️

I don't test without symptoms unless visiting vulnerable relatives

I won't lft or pcr unless ill with the 3 main symptoms - the idea of being scared or being highly tested for an infection you have to test to even know you have it is bonkers to me!

To pp - cold symptoms alone do not warrant a pcr.

I never test. I get migranes and nausea (menopause) as would be forever testing and anxious

I’ve just read an arrival about excess deaths - not all of them are hospitalized - so numbers do count!

Where are they giving excess death figures? Are we actually having more people dying than in the average year when flu and complications from it kill thousands?