Lateral flow test

Ministers hope plans to wind down COVID testing and payments for isolation will save more than £10bn, reports say.

"No decisions have been made on the provision of free testing. Ministers hope plans to wind down COVID testing and payments for isolation will save more than £10bn, according to reports in The Guardian and The Times. The government has said it is keeping its provision of free lateral flow tests under review as reports say they are due to end.

A reduction in free Covid testing will "jeopardise lives", says leading scientist.

This means planning for future surges of infection by ensuring we have the ability to rapidly detect outbreaks with targeted approaches to test, trace and isolate. “It is inevitable that we will experience new variants over the coming months and these can only be monitored and traced using PCR coupled with virus genome sequencing.” “We need to find a new normal where we maximise our freedoms while recognising that Covid will always be present,” he says. “Living with Covid doesn’t mean ignoring the virus and letting our guard down. In their place, a new online ordering system for PCR tests could be introduced, with pricing for the public yet to be set. Any significant reduction in testing will jeopardise lives and compromise our ability to monitor the appearance of new variants.”

Lateral flow tests (LFTs) are an increasing part of our everyday lives. But for some individuals, a persistent clash with their PCR test results is ...

Petersen stressed that from a public health perspective, such cases are likely to be so rare as to be inconsequential for the overall validity of the tests. The simplest technical explanation would be some kind of interference in the assay – similar to reports of schoolchildren pouring orange juice or cola on their LFTs to fake a positive Covid test. In reality we will need to undertake a more detailed study to understand why some people consistently light up lateral flow tests.” With so many LFTs and PCR tests being done at the moment, some people will get a run of false positives and false negatives, even though the statistical probability of this is low. “There are always two lines, sometimes the second is faint, sometimes strong,” she said. “We have no way of telling when he actually gets Covid and I have vulnerable family members that we want to see,” she said.

After following the instructions on the leaflet included with testing packs, there's often a clear result. A line next to the 'C' on the test simply means the ...

"However, if a line appears *after* the interpretation window then this does NOT count as a positive test. If you get a positive lateral flow test result, you do not need to confirm the result with a PCR test unless you: You do not need to isolate and you do not need to book a PCR."

Public health experts criticise expected plans to drop free tests for all, saying it would compromise the UK's capacity to detect new variants.

What will be different next time, especially in the light of not having started the Covid inquiry yet to identify previous mistakes?” Any significant reduction in testing will jeopardise lives and compromise our ability to monitor the appearance of new variants.” By contrast, the ONS figures are based on analysis of nose and throat swabs taken from a representative sample of more than 150,000 people in private households. This means planning for future surges of infection by ensuring we have the ability to rapidly detect outbreaks with targeted approaches to test, trace and isolate. Reducing the use of PCR will compromise our capacity to detect these new variants.” Lawrence Young, a virologist and professor of molecular oncology at the University of Warwick, said: “Living with Covid doesn’t mean ignoring the virus and letting our guard down.