Would you count this as positive...

[Indecisivelurcher]

I know we should know by now! But help me out on this one please. My Dd is positive, day 5. My dh tested positive today. My ds who is 4, twice today he's had a faint positive come up but not straight away. Negative after 15 minutes. On both tests we then got distracted and left them, and on return more than 30 mins later found a faint positive. Tests were over the 30 min limit but within 1hr. Given there's covid in the house I'm taking these as positives. But dh disagrees.

Given the other household positives I’d err on the side of caution and test him again tomorrow.

You need to do another and read it properly.

I'm arguing that these are positives so he should just isolate on this basis. Dh wants to test him again in the morning. Ds gets upset about being tested so I'm just thinking about saving him another one.

Given Covid is in the house, yes.

Do another tomorrow and set a timer and actually read it in the 30 minute window.
I’d assume it was Covid for now…

Assume it’s covid but test again tomorrow.

I'm having the same issue again this morning. Photo 1 is after 30 mins. Photo 2 is after 1hr, next to mine for comparison. Defo no line or hint of line after 30 mins. Hint of line after 1hr, which is outside of the time.

Either assume they are positive or redo them properly. My DD went from faint positive to symptomatic within 5 hours.

So if it were me I’d either

• stop doing all these tests on a child who is probably finding it all quite unpleasant, go for a PCR as the LFT is inconclusive and then count that one single test as your answer
• just say it’s positive and keep him home? He’s only 4 so possibly even only at nursery. If he is at school, 1 week off reception isn’t the end of the world.

Book a PCR to be sure.

Even if I pcr him I would still have to do daily lft before school as we have covid in the house. Well, I don't HAVE to as he's 4 not 5 I suppose. But I have been doing as it seems socially responsible.
If this was my daughters test (she's got a strong positive) I would be saying brill, that's day 1 of negative testing. For sure.

I've done loads of that type of test, only ever had one that the t line developed after the time limit, and that appeared overnight. Every other negative test stayed completely clear, no trace of a line even after the time limit.
Since you know you have covid in the house, I'd be treating that as a weak, early positive, despite 1hr being a bit outside of the specification. Get a PCR if you want, but even they aren't 100%.

For anyone else in this situation, ds eventually got a positive within the time window 3 days after I made this post. 119 have advised to ignore the tests on 23rd,24th,25th that came up faintly outside of the time and take 26th as his day 0. Not sure I agree but this is what they said.

Another factor is it was one of the newer nose only tests used on 26th that gave the definite positive. So I personal feel they're better than the older tonsil and nose ones, especially when testing young children, perhaps because it's easier to get a good sample.

Thank you for coming back to update.