"Scottish universities and colleges tested students from 30 November to 13 December, conducting a total of 43 925 lateral flow tests across all test sites.2 Of these, 79 (0.2%) were positive, although preliminary analysis of 31 of these positive samples showed that only 13 were positive on PCR testing, giving a false positive rate of 58%."
and "Annex B says “The virus prevalence is around 1% in the country, so we expect around 7 true positives and 4 false positives for every 1000 people tested.”" - from Liverpool testing.
False positives
are an issue, and false negatives too.
"Jon Deeks, professor of biostatistics at Birmingham and leader of the Cochrane Collaboration’s covid-19 test evaluation activities, explained the results. “We found two positives in 7189 students, which scales up to 30 per 100 000 and was shocking in itself, as Birmingham has a rate of 250 cases per 100 000,” he said. “These results are especially worrying for schools: the government should not be proceeding with plans for schools testing until they have a proper evaluation of the test.”
Using polymerase chain reaction (PCR) testing, the team retested 10% of the samples that had been negative with the Innova test and found six false negative cases, raising the rate to 60 per 100 000.
Deeks said on Twitter, “We thus estimate that we found 2 cases and will have missed 60 (because we only double tested 10%). We estimate the true prevalence to be 0.86% (95% [confidence interval] 0.40% to 1.86%) which is much more credible than the 0.03% test positive rate. Our estimate of overall sensitivity is 3.2%.”"
I proudly opt out. People are luckily free to do so. I don't want to contribute to a system that is not fit for purpose- I don't agree with it.
And actually I think the government is highly accountable for misinformation. People do not know how to interpret numbers. Yesterday for example there were 4712 cases out of 1.5 million people tested. That is a very small number, but will be viewed as high by the general public. They spread propaganda-like messages on social media platforms:
shorturl.at/mvzJT
"Look me in the eyes" and tell me that advert is not only exaggerated but scaremongering to a young audience on tiktok. The advert is laughable and compares COVID to something like ebola.
What is this "Greater good" you speak of? For the 16 million people who have been vaccinated, which reduces the risk of the most vulnerable being hospitalized by 80%? 4 people off after being tested 2 days ago is ridiculous, does show there is issues with the tests and will affect at least 50 students in this single instance whos education and future matters, perhaps even more than the lives we are being told we are protecting.
Sources
https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4744 (Liverpool)
https://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4744/rrhttps://www.bmj.com/content/371/bmj.m4941 (Birmingham and scottish uni statement)
https://www.nihr.ac.uk/news/vaccination-reduces-covid-19-hospital-admissions-nihr-study-suggests/27032