Corona virus testing

2 of my extended family members have symptoms, the male is short of breath, wife lost sense of taste (teacher). Male was sent home from work as feeling unwell. Both tested quickly in different centres, male is positive and wife has not had her result yet. Took one day for that result. Both are feeling rubbish

Me too GrannyGravy13. My daughter has always been so blasé about it in the past though. For her to suggest it might be Covid she must be worried.

Gagajo there are lots of other seasonal bugs and viruses around at the moment I do hope your DD and GS have just picked up one of those.

Worried sick WWM. Worse because I'm overseas. I've warned my school that I may leave with no notice. No one else to care for grandson if she's incapacitated.

Efficient testing would mean that:

1 people don't self-isolate unnecessarily
2 infections would be picked up early and further spread would be stopped.

Viral load starts to decrease after five days, so a test result has a high chance of being inconclusive or giving a false negative.

Nevertheless, any contacts within those first few days could be infected. That's why people are told to self-isolate for ten days, but their contacts are told to self-isolate for 14 days.

GagaJo

Daughter and GS have symptoms. No tests available. The NHS site says no testing after day 5 of symptoms. Is this for a medical reason?

You must be worried gaga how are they?

Yes I’ve read that about no test after so many days. No idea why though.

So will they self isolate for how long? Have they had advise?

Daughter and GS have symptoms. No tests available. The NHS site says no testing after day 5 of symptoms. Is this for a medical reason?

Growstuff, your post of 15th at 13.10 re parallels with Nazi Germany, I totally agree. This Government can do and say what the hell it likes and no one can gainsay them. That's normally bearable with trustworthy, decent people in charge. That's not where we are now, unfortunately. I despair!

?

Have I got this right? If I, or DH, feel ill, have a temperature, cough etc. and think we have covid, we should try to book a test, and if we are successful, we have to get in our car, and drive, although unwell, for many miles, probably needing a loo break on the way, and queue with many other people. Surely this is the best way to spread infection, and make the illness worse?

For now.....

Mogg has told the peasants to stop carping. We are lucky it is free.

He was ranting on again today about it being free.

It was eminently foreseeable wasn’t it Franbern? Except of course to Boris and the Buffoons.

Nobody can 'pop along for a test, free or not;. It is dreadful and long process to get one of these.

I can only thing that such a comment is preparing us to be charged for these tests in the not too distant future.

Am happy to report that my daughters test results came back within 24 hours, and as we expected was negative.

However, if every time a staff member at the school is told to get such a test each time they catch a cold or cough from either their own children or from pupils, I do wonder how the educational system will manage to survive this winter.

Cannot understand why anyone is surprised that demand for such tests has increased with opening of educational establishments and getting people back into their workplaces.

It’s because testing is free: it’s because people are being tested that don’t need to be. It’s always other peoples fault never due to government incompetence is it.

Let’s face it Johnson is a laughing stock, and lacks any authority, with his bumbling rhetoric. I thought it very ominous that Hancock said that many were being tested because it was “free”.

It was always going to be the perfect storm as we were encouraged to go about our daily activities whilst the infection rate remains high and rising in the community, and probably well under reported.

No lessons learnt in forward planning after the early debacle at the beginning of the Pandemic.

I think most commentators have concluded it is an absolute shambles.

We passed our local testing centre yesterday and there were about three people waiting and yet our local MP reported that she had received many calls from people who had been trying for hours but were unable to get an appointment on line.

My understanding is that in many other countries people can get tested several times. A relative of ours working in Luxembourg has been tested several times. Surely that is the way to to prevent asymptomatic people from passing Covid on to others?

Johnson spoke of "unleashing Britain's potential". So far, that confident boast seems very hollow - though not because of British people but because of this useless government.

That was an odd thing to say.
I thought he was implying that people were popping along for a test whether they needed or or not just because it's a freebie.

Hancock now saying it’s because it’s a free test. Hmm: maybe it would be better if we all paid fir such things. Wonder where this is leading (as if we didn’t know).

My daughter has finally got an appointment for a test later this afternoon, about a half an hour drive from where she lives.
Two minutes walk away from her house is a testing centre, and no-one is ever seen in it. Yesterday she drove into it and asked the two very young people there if they could do a test. No-one was waiting. They told her they were not permitted to test anyone who does not have an appointment and also admitted that most of the time they are just sitting around doing nothing.
Still, she finally got an appointment (not thee though), but only because she and her husband took it in turns to man the computer for this - it took then a total of nearly 30 hours!!!!

EllanVannin

Growstuff, the only reason everyone was running around like " headless chickens " was the fact that many had travelled TO Liverpool from other areas of the country thus infecting them. Not particularly bothered about Liverpool itself !

I meant the whole government running around like headless chickens, not Merseyside or Liverpool or even Liverpool FC specifically.

I don't understand why you mentioned Merseyside, if you're not bothered about Liverpool.

Growstuff, the only reason everyone was running around like " headless chickens " was the fact that many had travelled TO Liverpool from other areas of the country thus infecting them. Not particularly bothered about Liverpool itself !

I didn't get what I deserve either, although some people undoubtedly will.

One of the most powerful videos I've ever seen is when the American Army took ordinary German citizens to the newly liberated concentration camps. The Americans forced the Germans to look at the corpses and the people on the verge of dying from disease and starvation. The Germans were in tears and muttered they just didn't realise what they'd voted for.

Many people claim that the Germans deserved what they got in 1945, but it was more complicated than that. The Nazis never won a majority in a free election, although the electoral system meant they could seize power. Even those who voted for the Nazis very often thought they were voting for something else. By 1933, the Nazis were firmly in power and there was little anybody could do.

If people can't see the parallels, they are truly blind. We are now virtually powerless. Johnson was dreadful yesterday. There is no doubt that in a debating competition, Miliband would have won. The law is on Miliband's side too, but the electoral system means that the Tories have a majority which is going to be very difficult to beat. The Tories themselves will bring down Johnson to watch their own backs. At the moment, they don't want to lose the whip, so do as they're told. The MPs with a backbone were kicked out before the last election.