![]() ![]() This can include the day or two before symptoms develop. Michael Head, senior research fellow in global health at the University of Southampton says: “Lateral flow tests are very good at producing a positive result when you are infectious (and so able to transmit the virus). Which means for every 1,000 lateral flow tests carried out, there is less than one false positive result. While lateral flow tests are once again available on the government website and able to be picked up from pharmacies, how accurate are these at-home tests in determining whether or not you have Covid?Ī spokesperson for Public Health England told The Independent that research has found that lateral flow tests have a specificity - a measure that shows how good a test is at detecting Covid - of 99.9 per cent. On Monday last week, the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) said that “due to exceptionally high demand, ordering lateral flow tests on gov.uk has been temporarily suspended to fulfil existing orders.” People who hadn’t already had the booster vaccine were encouraged to do so and we were encouraged to take regular lateral flow tests, too.įollowing this announcement, lateral flow tests were unavailable on the government website for two days in a row. This meant that face masks became compulsory in most indoor settings once again and people were asked to work from home. On Wednesday 8 December, prime minister Boris Johnson announced that England would move to Plan B. ![]() The high cases number continued over the weekend, with 90,418 reported on Saturday and 82,886 reported on Sunday. As a result of the rapidly-spreading Omicron variant, last week saw the biggest spike in Covid case numbers since records began in March 2020, with 93,045 positive tests reported in the 24 hours to Friday 17 December. ![]()
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