https://cimg3.ibsrv.net/gimg/www.fly...c8b7bee53.jpeg

Image from the BMC

Most surprised that RM appear to have delivered the PCR test kit yesterday (didn't realise they delivered on bank hols!). Will take it later on just before last post.
Assume today is a good day to do it anyway? 2 days post ping, so between 3-4 days post contact.
Daily lateral flows have all been negative so far.

I got a very faint T line on a lateral flow test, this morning. I've booked an appointment at a nearby walk-in for this afternoon. I'm guessing that too will come back positive. Woke up Sunday with a bit of a nose and throat. Negative tests Sunday/Monday; positive today.

Yes, a faint T line, particularly if it take a bit of a while to show, is indicative of a positive case scenario and should prompt a PCR to confirm one way or the other. If PCR is negative I'd do another LFT on the following day. The main reason this could be false is if you were eating or drinking in the 15 minutes before the test, some acidic products can give a false positive, that includes coffee. The guidelines say not to have anything to eat or drink in the 30 minutes before the test. I hope this works out ok, just keep hydrated and have paracetemol handy. Keep an eye on your breathing and very high temperatures.

Thanks, and fingers crossed it is a false positive - I have no been so disciplined about the before bit (and do drink strong coffee first thing). Apparently, it is not unknown for children to take Orange Juice so they can bunk off school....

Daily data:

Cases 32,181 (30,838 last Tuesday)
Deaths 50 (174)
Patients admitted 901 (864 on the 20th)
Patients in hospital 7,015 (6,473 on the 20th)
Patients in ventilation beds 988 (955 on the 20th)
People vaccinated up to and including 30 August 2021:
First dose: 48,048,009
Second dose: 42,790,585

The rolling seven day daily average for cases is now up 0.7% on the previous week and the same measure for deaths is down 3.4%. The rolling 7 day daily average for deaths is 97.3 today. A fall in the daily average for deaths is welcome but may be just down to the bank holiday and reporting delays.

Is this the Innova / Xiamen Biotime Biotechnology test by any chance? I've heard stories about these giving false positives, but anecdotes are dangerous when it comes to this sort of thing!

If you're double jabbed there's a decent chance the PCR will come back negative. Nerdy details in Table 8 of https://www.gov.uk/government/public...g-surveillance. In short, what you're after is the PPV (the positive predictive value), which is the chance that someone with a positive lateral flow goes on to test positive on PCR. This turns on the prevalence, which is lower in the double jabbed cohort.

Thanks. Just looked at some of the packaging. Turns out it's got Xiamen written all over it. I will be sleeping with fingers crossed tonight.

Thanks for putting this together every day. I would hope we've all learned to take that kind of fluctuation with a pinch of salt by now.

I’m positive. Now in isolation through to the end of next Wednesday. Throat has thankfully abated. Nose a little worse plus a bit of a productive cough. Other double vaccinated people I work with have reported similar experiences over the past several weeks (and short lived, so fingers crossed).

Oh dear. This is a highly infectious disease and very difficult to avoid. I hope you have plenty of good things to keep your spirits up, Keep hydrated too, and keep track of how your body is responding to the infection. The up side is that in a few days when it is over, the general evidence is that you will be well protected against any further infection.

I hope it is not too uncomfortable for you. Best wishes anyway. You will have to spend some more time here with the rest of us :)

So, I've now told absolutely everyone I've had close contact with, in the last ten days, about my positive PCR result. Mostly, it was the people I was out with on the annual software engineers' afternoon out (Buxton, this year), last Thursday, and one has already confirmed a positive LFD result, so I think that's the event vector sorted out.... However, I'm now being repeatedly harassed by NHS Test and Trace. Is this mandatory? It seems awfully invasive on friends and colleagues given they are all double jabbed and symptom free, bearing in mind double jabbed people do not now have to isolate unless they have symptoms (and I've told everyone anyway)?

Does anyone have any idea what current turnarounds are for NHS PCR Tests?
Royal Mail tracking showed mine as delivered at 8pm last night, so I was hoping to have the result this morning. Annoyingly no real way of tracking it with the barcode number either.

It should be fast. For a walk in test at 2:30PM, yesterday, I got my results notification at 07:30 this morning (in the middle of what turned out to be my last exercise walk). For a postal test, you need to factor additional postage overhead.