Chance of two false positives?!

[LifesTooShortYOLO]

Did a lateral flow on DS on Sunday and it was negative.
Did two lateral flows last night with the Flowflex and very strong positives.
Did another today just to be sure and used the old style nose and throat swabs and it looked negative unless you really really squinted and there may have been a faint line. Then did another flow flex and two clear lines like yesterday. Couldn't believe the difference in tests!!
Started our isolation period today.
Any chance they could be false positives?!
In totally I did 3x FlowFlex (positive) and 1 x old style (very very faint positive)
Or they pick up a cold?!
Just wondered how many people are getting PCRs after positive lateral flows now as the guidance says unless you have symptoms no need to get a PCR.

Flowflex picked our positives up before the old style ones (confirmed with PCR) so I’d say v likely positive x

I only test when meeting people indoors so have only done 5 tests in total since September. All LFTs were positive. All PCRs negative. Never had symptoms.

It is really difficult for me now that I can't get a confirmation by PCR. But I also understand that the taxpayer shouldn't have to fund my social life.

For me they have been totally unreliable.

So since last night you've done 4 LFTs and they've all been positive - albeit one faint?

Why?

Three obvious positives and you're still questioning the validity?

Stop wasting tests. He has covid. Assuming he is under 18 he now doesn't need to test until day five at the earliest.

My son had a positive today turns out he had a slight nose bleed which i didnt notice when I tested him first so i tested again using the side with no blood it was negative 119 are confident he is negative (he literally had it three weeks ago) but suggest waiting 24 hours and trying again before he goes to school Monday

Seriously this testing sucks

You’ve tried two different brands and four tests and they are all positive. A faint positive is still a positive. I’m not sure why you’d think they were false positives. Some tests are better at picking up an early viral load.

False positives are v rare. It doesn't matter that you've got some negatives too. No they don't pick up colds.

Your son has Covid. Hope that helps!

@JanglyBeads not true, A lot of people always get false positives especially with the flowflex brand. There's been lots of threads on it on this board and I am one of the people that always gets a faint positive with that brand when ever I use them.

@LifesTooShortYOLO stay away from flowflex as they give false positives to a lot of people!! Have you booked your DS in for a PCR as the PCR will trump the LFT?

@frenchiemummy92 it happens to me too, an absolute joke and unnecessary stress for nothing! I got a faint positive in Flowflex despite 3 negative orient gene and a negative PCR. I’ve reported it in yellow card and encourage others to do the same

My dd tested positive on Flowflex for 3?months - negative old style lateral flow and PCR.

False positive rate is around 0.03% that's 3 tests in 10000 tests.
If you have a positive lateral flow and a negative pcr it's more likely that it's a false negative on the pcr.

The problem is the reason why you get a false positive hasn't been looked at thoroughly.
If it's just down to test error then the chance of you getting 2 false negatives is 9 in 100 000 000, or approximately 1 in 10 million.
However that doesn't look into the reason why you got a false positive. If it's something that if it's occurred once then is likely to occur again, then having had one false positive, then you're likely to get another.

However you can be pretty certain that your ds is positive-even a faint line is a positive, so you've had 4 positives, and no, they don't pick up colds. However omicron's presenting like a cold in many people, so if he has a cold then he's also potentially got symptoms.

@MargaretThursday can you tell me why I've been positive then since about August? If that's the percentage on almost every flow flex test. I think that percentage is far to low for false positives.