Close contact and faint line on LFT but…

[BewareTheLibrarians]

lighthearted lateral flow test “fun”

Guess my future results!
Having to take daily LFTs as a close contact of a positive case. Did my third one this morning, and it was fine at 30 minutes - no line, even checked with my phone torch to make sure. Left it on the table (slattern), came back an hour-ish later and there was a faint but noticeable line.

What do you reckon the next one will show?

Negative? (because the line was just because of leaving it too long)

Positive? (Because close contact)

Obviously you have no way of knowing, but I’m not doing another one until tonight as I’m not going anywhere so I’m really just feeding my curiosity here.

I’d be interested to hear if other people had no line at 15/30 mins, a faint line after the time was up, then tested positive on their next test. Or not!

It's not necessarily a "mild" cold for many people.

For me at the time it felt like a mild cold but I've lost a lot of fitness from it - I've lost probably 2 minutes a mile off my "easy" pace since I've come back to running from Covid, more than any other cold since I started running. Wouldn't have kept me off work in the period after I tested positive though - if not known to be covid.

For my DH it was an unpleasant flu type bug, he needed the full isolation period to be properly fit to work (fatigue, aches, major brain fog, needing an afternoon nap). Longest lingering flu type thing we can remember in a long while
We also both felt very shit before testing positive when the kids were heavily positive. Muscle aches, nausea, fatigue, headache symptoms, would have kept both of us off work.

Both adults early 40s, up to date with boosters.

Both kids seemed to have limited symptoms (1 day of fever) although both remain snotty 3 weeks later...

For my family it is definitely not a mild cold, somewhere between a nasty cold and a lingering flu (in contrast to a 24h bug that wipes you out completely for a day but buggers off quickly).

Also assumption that OP is in England, very much doubt Scotland, Wales and NI will be ditching isolation completely.

@randomsabreuse Sorry to hear you’ve been through all of that, it’s a bugger isn’t it. It’s a weird feeling to not bounce back, and for your body to not behave properly! Hope you all get back to normal quickly