Covid-19 test - anyone else?

O

oldgitdave

Senior member
 Derbyshire
Evening all.
Last Monday a letter came through the post inviting me to take a swab test for Covid-19. It's a joint survey from the government, Imperial College London & the NHS. Apparently they are testing across the UK & using NHS records to randomly pick folk for the survey. I decided to go ahead & after agreeing through a short survey online I received the swab kit on the Wednesday.
The detailed instructions stated I first needed to book the collection day which I duly did & turned out to be the very next day on Thursday. So I did the swab on Thursday morning (not the most pleasant experience I must say) & popped it in the fridge as requested whilst waiting for collection. The courier (Yodel in my case) texted me a 2 hour window early on Thursday & arrived bang in the middle of the given time slot. He put a cool box by the front door for me to put my test swab in. He said I was the first one he had done like this so I dont know if this is a relatively new venture from the government or not? After taking the test I then completed another short online survey & was informed that I should receive the result within a week.

Anyone else on here been invited to take this test?

Tbh as I'm retired I've not been in contact with that many people so I'm not expecting a result other than negative. Both my wife and I are in good health so keeping fingers crossed. Having said that wifey still works & social distancing is nigh on impossible in the small butchers shop. Yes they've restricted the number of customers in the shop & put screens up etc. but behind the counter it's very restricted so staff cannot really avoid each other. Not that there's many of them but it only takes one doesn't it?
 
Crazy Harry said:
Is that the 'DO you have Covid' test or the 'have you ever HAD Covid' one?
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It's the 'do you have Covid' i.e swab back of the throat & up the nose jobby. I think the 'ever had Covid' test a blood test?
I think they're looking to see how much Covid has spread across the UK other than official figures, covering folk that have no or minor symptoms I guess. The surveys are very much slanted towards past & current symptoms.
 
What's frustrating is that by the time the test comes back and says you're negative, you could well have caught it.
I guess NHS etc must need checks every other day or so to be sure?
 
There is no doubt we need more testing but, sending active virus tests to shut ins seems silly. Free test the people who are out and about. For hire shoppers & food delivery people need testing.
 
scootr said:
There is no doubt we need more testing but, sending active virus tests to shut ins seems silly. Free test the people who are out and about. For hire shoppers & food delivery people need testing.
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Yup, our boiler failed it's annual check up on Friday, so we have gas a fitter in and out of the house today, fitting a new one. It's not that easy to avoid him and he's in all sorts of spots checking radiators and isolating this and that. Testing should ideally be widened to such groups and carried out regularly, but the resource required to do that would be huge.

MrsG's test came back within 48 hours along with every one else in the home customers and staff alike. So some one has it together locally. :thumbsup:
 
I did a drive through test. Done at 6:30pm, got the results at 10 the next morning. All very straightforward, although the nasal swab stings more than you’d imagine.

Shame the testing accuracy is so low at the moment, but it may improve and it’s probably already good enough for track & trace to be effective.
 
Got my result this morning. This is what it said:

"DHSC, Imperial College London, NHS and Ipsos MORI

Dear MR. OLDGITDAVE,

Thank you for completing the COVID-19 swab test.

The analysis of the swab test was NEGATIVE. This means the COVID-19 virus was not detected on your swab sample.

However, a negative result is not 100% conclusive and you and your household should continue to observe social distancing rules.

If you or anyone in your household has or develops symptoms you must follow the self-isolation guidelines even if you have a negative test result.

For the current Government guidance about COVID-19, please visit https://www.gov.uk/coronavirus

Thank you for taking part in this important study about the COVID-19 testing process."

It does seem they're being fairly quick to get the results out tbh. My test was only collected last Thursday.
I agree though that it does seem wrong to be doing these tests totally at random while some key workers, particularly those who look after folk haven't had a test yet. I would have much preferred Mrs OG to have had the test rather than me who's staying fairly isolated.

One thing I've found disturbing is that I know of 2 people that have recently died in care homes & both were recorded as dying of Covid by the coroner. However neither of them had Covid according to their relatives & nursing staff & neither nursing home has had any cases. So, what's going on there?
 
It is as good as an MOT

You did not have it at the time of testing but moments later you could contract it.

If you can only get it once the test to have is the, have you had it test.

If you have not had it you are still at risk.

If you can get it twice or more times we are all at risk of an almost never ending cycle.

I am a key worker involved in the food supply chain so have worked throughout and in engineering maintenance social distancing is almost impossible so other measures are in place to try and minimise the potential spread.

I think I would have gone mad if I had to have stayed indoors for 8 or 9 weeks, I would have made friends with my road bike and done several 1 hour laps of where I live could have been very fit but with no races to go to....
 
I'm a courier (not Yodel, incidentally, so they must be using several companies) and we did our first sample collections today. We have a large polystyrene box with freeze packs inside and the samples go off that evening. Bloody depot looked like someone had built a massive igloo this morning with a couple of hundred large white boxes!
 
oldgitdave said:
Got my result this morning. This is what it said:

"DHSC, Imperial College London, NHS and Ipsos MORI

Dear MR. OLDGITDAVE,

Thank you for completing the COVID-19 swab test.

The analysis of the swab test was NEGATIVE. This means the COVID-19 virus was not detected on your swab sample.

However, a negative result is not 100% conclusive and you and your household should continue to observe social distancing rules.

If you or anyone in your household has or develops symptoms you must follow the self-isolation guidelines even if you have a negative test result.

For the current Government guidance about COVID-19, please visit https://www.gov.uk/coronavirus

Thank you for taking part in this important study about the COVID-19 testing process."

It does seem they're being fairly quick to get the results out tbh. My test was only collected last Thursday.
I agree though that it does seem wrong to be doing these tests totally at random while some key workers, particularly those who look after folk haven't had a test yet. I would have much preferred Mrs OG to have had the test rather than me who's staying fairly isolated.

One thing I've found disturbing is that I know of 2 people that have recently died in care homes & both were recorded as dying of Covid by the coroner. However neither of them had Covid according to their relatives & nursing staff & neither nursing home has had any cases. So, what's going on there?
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I hear that here they are getting govt funding based upon how many people die of coronavirus so doctors being pressured to call every death virus related. :cry:
 
scootr said:
oldgitdave said:
Got my result this morning. This is what it said:

"DHSC, Imperial College London, NHS and Ipsos MORI

Dear MR. OLDGITDAVE,

Thank you for completing the COVID-19 swab test.

The analysis of the swab test was NEGATIVE. This means the COVID-19 virus was not detected on your swab sample.

However, a negative result is not 100% conclusive and you and your household should continue to observe social distancing rules.

If you or anyone in your household has or develops symptoms you must follow the self-isolation guidelines even if you have a negative test result.

For the current Government guidance about COVID-19, please visit https://www.gov.uk/coronavirus

Thank you for taking part in this important study about the COVID-19 testing process."

It does seem they're being fairly quick to get the results out tbh. My test was only collected last Thursday.
I agree though that it does seem wrong to be doing these tests totally at random while some key workers, particularly those who look after folk haven't had a test yet. I would have much preferred Mrs OG to have had the test rather than me who's staying fairly isolated.

One thing I've found disturbing is that I know of 2 people that have recently died in care homes & both were recorded as dying of Covid by the coroner. However neither of them had Covid according to their relatives & nursing staff & neither nursing home has had any cases. So, what's going on there?
Click to expand...

I hear that here they are getting govt funding based upon how many people die of coronavirus so doctors being pressured to call every death virus related. :cry:
Click to expand...

Ummm.. it's all a bit worrying isn't it :cry: . One of those I mentioned managed to force a change in what was recorded, the other was told by their doctor that their hand were tied :o .
 
PDJ said:
It is as good as an MOT

You did not have it at the time of testing but moments later you could contract it.

If you can only get it once the test to have is the, have you had it test.

If you have not had it you are still at risk.

If you can get it twice or more times we are all at risk of an almost never ending cycle.

I am a key worker involved in the food supply chain so have worked throughout and in engineering maintenance social distancing is almost impossible so other measures are in place to try and minimise the potential spread.

I think I would have gone mad if I had to have stayed indoors for 8 or 9 weeks, I would have made friends with my road bike and done several 1 hour laps of where I live could have been very fit but with no races to go to....
Click to expand...

I think the term now is simply 'worker', seeing as most of the population seem to be back in work now, me included, building very non essential diesel engines :lol:
 
ben g said:
PDJ said:
It is as good as an MOT

You did not have it at the time of testing but moments later you could contract it.

If you can only get it once the test to have is the, have you had it test.

If you have not had it you are still at risk.

If you can get it twice or more times we are all at risk of an almost never ending cycle.

I am a key worker involved in the food supply chain so have worked throughout and in engineering maintenance social distancing is almost impossible so other measures are in place to try and minimise the potential spread.

I think I would have gone mad if I had to have stayed indoors for 8 or 9 weeks, I would have made friends with my road bike and done several 1 hour laps of where I live could have been very fit but with no races to go to....
Click to expand...

I think the term now is simply 'worker', seeing as most of the population seem to be back in work now, me included, building very non essential diesel engines :lol:
Click to expand...

I love non essential Diesel engines. I have one in my BMW X5 3.0L/255-hp/413-lb-ft turbodiesel DOHC 24-valve I-6 mated to an 8 spd transmission :driving:
 
ben g said:
PDJ said:
It is as good as an MOT

You did not have it at the time of testing but moments later you could contract it.

If you can only get it once the test to have is the, have you had it test.

If you have not had it you are still at risk.

If you can get it twice or more times we are all at risk of an almost never ending cycle.

I am a key worker involved in the food supply chain so have worked throughout and in engineering maintenance social distancing is almost impossible so other measures are in place to try and minimise the potential spread.

I think I would have gone mad if I had to have stayed indoors for 8 or 9 weeks, I would have made friends with my road bike and done several 1 hour laps of where I live could have been very fit but with no races to go to....
Click to expand...

I think the term now is simply 'worker', seeing as most of the population seem to be back in work now, me included, building very non essential diesel engines :lol:
Click to expand...

But is that workers as those that go to work officially or those that are furloughed and still go to work as usual unofficially? :x
 
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