Testing after covid

[WaterAndTheWild]

I had covid in November and thought the advice was not to test for 90 days afterwards. Does anyone know if this is true? I assume it's different now even if it was true?

The advice is not to test unless you have new symptoms.

Why do you assume it's different now?

@elelel

Why do you assume it's different now?

Because they're saying to make sure to have two negative LFTs before ending isolation

But the 90 day thing is for PCRs

You only get a new PCR if you have new symptoms, otherwise you don’t test using these. LFT are OK to use apparently for picking up new infections.

Chris Whitty explained it quite well yesterday- the gist of what he said is that PCRs are so sensitive that they may pick up the remnants of the virus when you're no longer infectious, and so you shouldn't take another PCR for 90 days unless you have symptoms as they may show a previous infection. The lateral flow tests are less sensitive, but when you currently have covid you tend to shed larger amounts of virus which would be picked up by the LFT, so they work well at telling whether you are currently infectious and still need to isolate.

Latest advice is that you can use Lateral Flows for asymptomatic testing even if you have had covid in the previous 90 days. Secondary pupils were all asked to test regardless of having covid before.

I was told by T&T not to do any testing for 90 days because even if you're no longer contagious, there can be leftover infection in your system which could make the result inaccurate.

@CouldThisReallyBe

I was told by T&T not to do any testing for 90 days because even if you're no longer contagious, there can be leftover infection in your system which could make the result inaccurate.

But that is the advice for PCR.