Lateral flow tests

[Timeforredwine]

Hello, just wanted to know peoples views on asking visitors, friends, relatives to do a lateral flow before meeting up in your house.
Thank you for your opinions

I didn’t say it was time-consuming, but it does require a certain amount of building into your plans, so I would require more notice. Not all of us are at home all the time in between meet-ups with friends, so an expectation of an LFT conveyed in the manner of a message an hour before being due to meet up would not necessarily result in me being able to do one in time.

@RichTeaRichTea

I didn’t say it was time-consuming, but it does require a certain amount of building into your plans, so I would require more notice. Not all of us are at home all the time in between meet-ups with friends, so an expectation of an LFT conveyed in the manner of a message an hour before being due to meet up would not necessarily result in me being able to do one in time.

Yes, I would say at least half of the time I spend time with friends or acquaintances it’s spontaneous.. eg run into someone I know at the leisure centre or on the school run and we end up going for a coffee or someone asks if I fancy coming round for a play date when I’m at toddler gymnastics and I go straight on to their house. For DH now (and myself back when I was working pre-Covid) it was pub trips after work, organised about twenty minutes before going. My life isn’t dinner parties arranged two weeks beforehand where we all WhatsApp round our LFTs.

Is it that people would LFT before these every day things like going to the gym / school run / toddler classes / work (in which case you’d literally be doing a LFT 30 days a month? And I am not under the impression that we’ve ever been advised to do this?) or is it that people are less spontaneous now? I really don’t consider that I have any kind of madly sociable life at ALL - it generally consists of school runs, activities with a pre-schooler and going to the gym regularly but all of that pretty much means close physical proximity to other people every day of the week.

um... I have decided not to do this if asked. I dislike the sensations, the plastic, can't agree with any argument that this is necessary safety behaviour -- I can't agree or feel ok about it.

If I'm uninvited -- that's perfectly fine.

When I test I do it in the morning. I know you can test positive later on but I'm not doing it every time I see someone. Like @RichTeaRichTea says, it's not always convenient just before you're seeing someone

So I think most people would just say once a day i don't think anybody would suggest before each activity, on the other hand it is still said to minimise contact where you can.

I've done one to go to the fireworks, and they didn't even ask for proof when we got there.

I asked people to do them when dc was born last year and everyone was happy to.

I did them before Christmas and we all got I to the habit of texting pictures of the tests to each other.

I do if I’m seeing a pregnant friend or similar just in case. The same with my elderly grandmother.

I don’t if I’m just meeting young, ‘healthy’ friends etc as I feel if we’re happy to meet then it’s fine.

If anyone asked I would of course do one happily. It only seems to be on MN that people that it as a personal affront. I’ve even seen posters asked to take them before meeting newborns saying that they just won’t go rather than take a test. Not quite sure why.

@Timeforredwine

So I think most people would just say once a day i don't think anybody would suggest before each activity, on the other hand it is still said to minimise contact where you can.

Ok. I guess this is Scotland or Wales then?

I’m in England and we’re definitely not told to test daily or to minimise activity. It’s test twice weekly.

I’ve even seen posters asked to take them before meeting newborns saying that they just won’t go rather than take a test. Not quite sure why.

For me it's because I find the tests painful (I think I have an issue with my nose after an accident a few years ago) and therefore only do them when I feel I should, i.e. to see elderly family or go to the hairdresser.

So I think most people would just say once a day i don't think anybody would suggest before each activity, on the other hand it is still said to minimise contact where you can.

No way once a day. Been asked to do one before an event Fri will do for that. Am not limiting social contact either, vaccinated thrice. Appalled by the cost to the taxpayer and the environmental burden of all these wretched tests.

No one in our family has a problem with the process.
Getting hold of the things though, whole other issue 🙄

I test twice a week for work and have normally done a third party well for hospital/midwife visits. My DS 6 had done tests everyday day last week due to cases in his class and tested positive yesterday (7 days after the first child, however about 3 or 4 cases were found each day) I'll now be testing everyday for 7 days.

I'm also 37 weeks pregnant so will test before any appointments and will be shipping people to test before seeing baby, if my family's health isn't important enough for a quick nasal swab you don't need to meet the baby.

I tested before I meet my friends to newborn, I think peace of mind if negative tests every couple of days is worth it.

The government guidance is you should only do them if you’re going to be mixing in a crowded indoor space or visiting someone cev.

The government will soon stop the testing and stop making tests available, I think round about March or April. It’s costing a lot of money for what is really just a cold now.

@Timeforredwine

Thank you for your views so far, I know people that are testing when they go out it was advised to do so if you leave your house. As far as I am concerned this possibly helps with not transmitting to other people I.e you may not show symptoms so how would you know you aren't spreading the virus. Just curious as to the reasoning of why you wouldn't? Is it perhaps you haven't been vaccinated and don't wear masks or do you/have you done these basics but just not testing?

I don’t really understand this. I have already left my house 3 times today (6am for the gym, home for a shower then the school run, home to grab some breakfast then back out to work). When I get home from work I’ll have to leave the house again to take my children to an activity. I leave the house 3-4 times a day on average. At I supposed to be taking one each time??

I had a baby during the first lockdown (when we weren’t allowed to see anyone) and of course LFTs weren’t available but I don’t know whether I would have asked people to do them if they had been (parents of recent babies born in the family have sometimes asked for tests before visits but most have not). At the time my baby was born, it was made very clear to us that we (parents and baby) were much more a risk to others than they were to us as we had been in hospital and in contact with HCPs. The risks were about us passing it on to family, not them passing it on to the baby. It’s interesting how things change.

@RichTeaRichTea probably because at that time neither yourselves or hcp were vaccinated and obviously we knew alot less about spread etc.

50% of my son's class are positive and only 1 parent (fully vaxed but CV) has caught it.

Things change with knowledge.

Yes indeed - there was a lot less community infection at the time - but still, I don’t know that I would ask people to LFT now. But then the isolation was always worse for me than the worry of covid. If there had been some mechanism by which I hadn’t been alone with a baby and toddler for weeks on end then I would have grabbed it. We’re all different and things have changed a great deal.