Stop overusing lateral flow tests!

[musicalfrog]

How many posts on this forum say "ooh I tested twice yesterday", or "ooh I'm waiting for a pcr result but still taking a lateral flow every day"...

Have some fucking thought for the expense to the taxpayer of all these tests, and the poor folk who are struggling to get a supply of tests to keep their loved ones safe while you fritter them away without a second thought.

You DON'T need to take more than one test a day, you DON'T need to keep testing while waiting a pcr result (you should be isolating) and you DON'T need to be testing every day unless you're a close contact.

Over consumption is killing this planet, these are prime examples.

I've had one DC test LFT +ve then just after their isolation finished DC2 tested +ve. We have to test almost daily again now to work (triple jabbed)..will be 3 weeks min of daily testing. We previously just tested on days not working at home as required by work as going to offices. Now we need to do it to go shops etc as close contact. We skip it if not going anywhere. Still going through boxes of them

People who aren't ill or are asymptomatic shouldn't be testing at all.

🤦🏻‍♀️

Many of the replies on this thread show that the tests should be charged for. So many people don't think through what they are going to do with the information the test supplies when they get it. No point in testing if you weren't going to do something that might pass on Covid if you were positive, anyway. Some people seem to think that testing will magically prevent them from catching Covid.

So, about to go and see someone vulnerable or to go to place where there are a lot of people indoors for a longish period (eg church, theatre, long train journey)? Do a test shortly before you leave home. Just one. Use the information that you are probably infectious. Don't go if positive.

Having an operation on, say, Friday? Do a test on the Thursday before to warn the hospital that you are positive. A negative test on Monday, Tuesday or Wednesday provides no useful information at all about whether or not you will be infectious on Friday. And it's unlikely that warning the hospital so early will be much help as, if you are cancelled, they will have no idea who might be clear to take your place until Thursday.

Visiting a vulnerable person? Test yourself just before you go. If positive, don't go. If you live with other people and are concerned about catching Covid from them you need to isolate from them before they show positive on a test, so their test will tell you that you could well be infectious even if negative, so you should cancel the visit. If you go anyway because you are negative, the other people's tests were wasted.

Testing more than once a day? If you are going to be in contact with a vulnerable person more than once, possibly a good idea, so you can be aware that you are positive ASAP and cancel future contacts, and warn the last person you saw before the test that they are at risk. Testing when you get up in the morning and again when you go to bed? Will you alter your getting-into-bed behaviour to minimise risk to another? If not, bedtime test is wasted.

Daily testing because you are a contact? If you, and everyone you live with are not going out of the house for several days, why waste a test? If you're staying in anyway, how can you change your 'spreading' behaviour if you know you're positive? Test before you, or someone you live with, plans to go out and you know that a) you should stay in and b) the other person should test and be cautious.

None available in the North West. I got a QR code for a local pharmacy but when I went they had none

Yes it’s frustrating op but everyone I know who is using them is using them for a reason. And a lot of them show negatives for a good few goes until they show positive. And there are no pcrs. People need to isolate and protect those around them.

And asymptomatic people should definitely be testing. This is who they’re for!

Is @doublemonkey coming back to explain what they meant?

Less testing = less reporting cases, could it be that this is deliberate along with the failure to change the symptoms list for PCR testing.

@musicalfrog try the website early morning or about 4pm that's usually when kits are available

@amicissimma I disagree with your last comment here about the daily tests for contacts not being required unless you are going out/seeing those outside your household. If you get covid from the contact you want/need to know asap in order to ensure you begin / end isolation at the right time. Eg if you have it but don't know abs don't test on one day, only test 2 days later you will be isolating for 2 more days than if you had tested

UKHSA now reporting an expected shortage of tests over coming days.

Personally I think it’s about time that there was clear advice plastered over all the news sites about when a test is needed and when it’s a waste. ie… don’t test if you’re not leaving the house that day, testing before going to the shops is an absolute waste of time (wear a mask and keep your distance). Likewise it would help if wales and Scotland were marginally constructive about it as well and acknowledged that their advice for everyone to test every time they leave the house (as per comments on this thread) are perhaps not as responsible as they’d like to think if it means that people who actually genuinely need tests can’t get them.

I have two concerns though:

1. WTF happens next week when schools go back if we can’t get tests? All very well for secondaries to be given them but what about primary children? I question whether isolation for kids will be scrapped altogether if that’s the case, they’re all going to get it anyway

2. There’s a risk that a shortage actually curtails the way out of this and forces us into more restrictions. I wonder how this will be managed…. What we really don’t want is to have to bring in more controls because the demand for testing is higher than supply.

What an absolutely pointless thread.

I don't know anyone who tests more than once a day (how would I even know, anyway? It's not like it's a topic of conversation is it? Unless you're very weird?).

I know people who test very often (because they are required to).

I know the tests are made of plastic, and yes it's sad that it all goes in the waste stream. But the environmental angle here is simply virtue signalling. As is much of the greenwash that focuses on individual behaviour - lightly hidden moralising that gives the new priests of the environmental ideology a soapbox from which they can judge others and feel smugly superior. As evidence by the OP.

I suspect personally the requirement for all close contacts to test everyday will shortly be scrapped

Regardless of one's view on how often people should test, it's pretty clear there's a disconnect between advice/regulations and supply. That's not a good thing from any perspective.

I took an LFT this morning and by rights - according to the advice - I should take another before going to the crowded supermarket this afternoon.

That’s a wilful misrepresentation of the advice.

I know the tests are made of plastic, and yes it's sad that it all goes in the waste stream. But the environmental angle here is simply virtue signalling. As is much of the greenwash that focuses on individual behaviour - lightly hidden moralising that gives the new priests of the environmental ideology a soapbox from which they can judge others and feel smugly superior. As evidence by the OP.

Yep. 👍

@BoredZelda

I know the tests are made of plastic, and yes it's sad that it all goes in the waste stream. But the environmental angle here is simply virtue signalling. As is much of the greenwash that focuses on individual behaviour - lightly hidden moralising that gives the new priests of the environmental ideology a soapbox from which they can judge others and feel smugly superior. As evidence by the OP.

Yep. 👍

Anyone desperate to rant against people taking tests - try this lot, they actually deserve a rant:

twitter.com/doctor_oxford/status/1476243604406423557

Most other people are trying to get by, get to work, see family and interpret the every changing "guidelines" from political leaders who apparently don't talk to each other.

Sorry @BoredZelda - had not intended to quote you there!

They’re mad, right enough, but so is that Rachael Clark

[quote breadwidow]@amicissimma I disagree with your last comment here about the daily tests for contacts not being required unless you are going out/seeing those outside your household. If you get covid from the contact you want/need to know asap in order to ensure you begin / end isolation at the right time. Eg if you have it but don't know abs don't test on one day, only test 2 days later you will be isolating for 2 more days than if you had tested [/quote]
I wouldn't bother testing again if I wasn't going anywhere. All it did was make my nose sore and waste LFTs. I didn't test on day 1 anyway, I didn't even think about it, so I did 6 tests from the date I was a contact and didn't need to go out anywhere or see anyone other than DH. Obviously if I'd been going out it would have been different.

@NearlyAlwaysInsane

What an absolutely pointless thread.

I don't know anyone who tests more than once a day (how would I even know, anyway? It's not like it's a topic of conversation is it? Unless you're very weird?).

I know people who test very often (because they are required to).

I know the tests are made of plastic, and yes it's sad that it all goes in the waste stream. But the environmental angle here is simply virtue signalling. As is much of the greenwash that focuses on individual behaviour - lightly hidden moralising that gives the new priests of the environmental ideology a soapbox from which they can judge others and feel smugly superior. As evidence by the OP.

Not pointless at all, people are stockpiling LFTs and there are threads about doing tests for 12 days in a row...

I can simultaneously not believe the gov has forecasted for millions of tests to be used each day but still believe that testing has a place.

But not at the level people are actually doing, which you've made clear.

@BoredZelda why do you think there's a shortage then?
because people are hoarding them or because the government didn't forecast millions to be used daily.
why do you think the guidance doesn't say use them for public transport?

why do you think the guidance doesn't say use them for public transport?

The guidance (in England) says do rapid tests on days when you are more likely to catch or spread covid. Can you explain why you think that doesn't apply to public transport? Given it's the first place the government chose to introduce and then re-introduce masks, one can assume a there is a higher likelihood of catching or spreading covid there.

why do you think there's a shortage then? because people are hoarding them or because the government didn't forecast millions to be used daily.

It isn't an either or situation.

NHS advice is if you are a close contact you should test every day for 7 days, so one can safely assume an element of daily testing has been accounted for.

The supply chain problem can also just as easily be the same supply issue that happens in many other areas over Christmas. We've been waiting 2 weeks for one of my daughter's medications. I doubt that has anything to do with stockpiling.

@BoredZelda

www.gov.uk/guidance/coronavirus-covid-19-safer-travel-guidance-for-passengers

read the guidance & highlight where it says test for every trip on public transport.

I don't believe that gov forecasted that 10s of millions people would be regularly testing daily which is what people are understandably trying to do now.