USA_flyer

To be fair, I like to know the people I am rubbing shoulders with on the plane are not infected. But as I'm triple vaxxed, the risk of a problem for me, is trivial. I'd be ok with ditching it all.

DaveS

I would keep the pre-departure rapid test and dump the rest. But that would not would not suit Randox.

On the data, hopefully towards the end of the week we will know where we are. The signs in England at least are looking encouraging. In South Africa they reported 3,232 cases today which is down from a peak of 37,875 just 3 weeks ago. For them the rate of fall almost matches the rise. Their omicron started after mid November and if the fall carries on they could be out of it before the middle of the month.

nk15

I transited LHR twice in mid-late December, nobody asked me or wanted to see the pre-departure test anywhere and at either outstation, did not even look at Verifly, told me it was not necessary, lol...I do not know what this all means...

KARFA

if you used verifly then that's where they were checked - they know you have used it. had you not used verifly you would have had documents checked at check in.

nk15

That's the only explanation, it was cleared internally and it was visible to the GA.

nk15

Probably staggering profits...I have a pharmacist friend in Greece and she says that on a busy day she makes several thousands of euros just from doing cheap rapid tests alone. It is a goldmine.

bluemoon68

The value of pre-flight antigen tests, where self testing is allowed is really a waste of time. You may as well just ask people not to fly if they have covid.

SherlockMiles

As an example, a typical French person flying to UK, would go to a pharmacy and get the pharmacist to carry out the test for free. If it was positive, they wouldn't fly at least 10 days, and the test result would be recorded centrally.

It's only well-informed people like Flyertalkers who would know that they could buy a self-test and get a UK company to issue a certificate remotely.

sbs2716g

Anyone know how many positive cases were detected daily based on the day 2 tests?

just for info, Taiwan, Malaysia, Singapore and Hong Kong all reported increases number of positive cases based on arrival tests.

singapore were reporting around 10-20 imported cases daily before omicron. But this have increase to 30-40 in early dec. and now it is 200-300 daily by end dec/early Jan.

same go for Malaysia who have been reporting 200-350 imported cases daily compare to 30-50 daily.

even Hong Kong with strict entry requirements are reporting increase with imported cases detected upon arrival even with many flights banned.
on one of the flight PR 300 from Manila to HKG, 7 were detected upon arrival and another 13 days were detected on day 3 tests. 11 cases were detected on 5J272 from Manila and 6 detected upon arrival on CX906 from. Manila as well.

Dan1113

So my grand travels to multiple countries over the holidays went well. Four countries went down to 3, but that was even before it started since Germany banned entry. Two PCRs during the travels to enter the new countries went fine - PCR in Hungary for Dubai, and in Dubai for Romania. Total tests is four, since you add in the predep for the UK and the day 2 too.

We were super careful the whole time, however, Dubai was hard. The metro was jam packed, and the worst was our PCR. To get a PCR there we had to go to a hospital clinic, and I didn't expect the clinic to be utter chaos. Tests for travel were in the same place as people who were sick we're getting tests, and the tiny room had dozens of people in it. We managed to find a room nearby that was empty (for radiology...) and waited there but I still had to keep going back to try to figure out what was happening and when it was our turn. Utter chaos and it had all of us completely freaked out. All in all it took 2hrs there, and may I never have to be in such a situation again.

Thankful we are all triple dosed. We took lots of LFDs with us and we stayed negative.

bluemoon68

Fair enough. I was thinking of people not doing the test very well, either deliberately or subconsciously not probing too deep for fear of a positive result.

13901

When I was positive over Xmas I run a brief experiment. I tested every day or so with LFTs I took from the UK and purchased locally, but on one occasion I decided to do another test to see how well the LFT performed if I didn't do a proper job. I basically just touched one nostril, about half a centimetre up the nose. No double nostril work, no five turns of the swab, just one brief touch. It still tested positive.

A friend who has a 2 year old kid, who also tested positive, told me that they had to do the same thing with their little one as it was the only way to test him (don't know why such a young lad needs to be tested...) and his swabs "worked" too.

corporate-wage-slave

I had a swab taken by another healthcare professional for one of my travel escapades and he dipped it in almost more quickly that I give a vaccine, compared to the deep digging that I would do to my own tests. But the advice is a good swirl around the tonsil area about 2 - 3 cm up a nostril. It's better to do it slowly, to minimise reflex gagging, than quickly to try and beat the gagging. Some people don't seem to get a positive Lateral no matter how hard they try, even when clearly symptomatic.

But generally I don't know where we would be without Lateral Flow Devices, they have really helped keep a lot of COVID people out of circulation all over Europe and a few other places. In the longer term it may be useful to offer them in chemists for flu epidemics. We now suspect that Omicron is more upper respiratory based, rather than infecting the lower respiratory passages down to the lungs, which also helps explains why it is about 3 times more infectious than Delta, the virus has halved its journey distance. This probably helps LFDs to get a good result with Omicron, but in the early days it will be more the throat affected, spreading up the nasal passages a bit later. So the throat test is probably more useful for Omicron than Delta, in the early part of the infection process.

13901

Side question. I was bingeing on a podcast about Theranos in the last few days and that got me thinking... Could we ever get to the point where an LFD-like concoction can be built to be reusable and, perhaps, app-based? The LFDs have an enormous amount of wastage inbuilt with all the contaminated plastic that cannot be recycled....

KARFA

Have you got to the end of your podcast yet? When you do you will get your answer