How will I read this lft? Is this a negative or a positive?

[SummersBreeze]

I have a close contact and I am on 4 days of symptoms. My cough progressed over night and my throat is raw. Definitely feels like a heavy cold.

I tested this morning. The result definitely shows a negative. I will attach a picture. I set my alarm to 15 minutes and came back and it shows negative. There is one line at the 'C' mark.

I took a flashlight to the back of the test cartridge and it shows a very faint line at the 'T'. It can only be picked up from the flashlight at the back of it. Also attaching picture.

Attaching an edited picture to show where I am seeing the 'T' line.

What do you guys think?

As you have symptoms I’d say have a PCR.

Why did you use the flashlight? Surely it's just showing up where a line will develop? Try it on an unused test. Or one you've added water to.

It's negative. You're just seeing the indentation line probably by shining lights on it.

PCR if you want to be really sure, yes. Or test again in 48 hours.

In the interest of science I just held a flash light behind an unused LFT… very faint colourless lines at C and T. If there’s no colour to the line I’d say negative, if you see pink I’d say positive. But either way, if you have symptoms you need a PCR.

I don't want to open another test disc to shine a light on it.

I was shining a light on my other tests too before today but I never saw another line.

What's the reasoning fir the flashlight? Fwiw, I've had a stinking cold, and tested negative every day for 10 days. The school is half empty due to covid, sat next to someone who tested positive later tgat day. Colds do still exist