Thread by @karamballes

1/ Thread: Testing in schools! Great, but...

LFT tests were abandoned in Manchester due to having a 50% failure rate.

https://twitter.com/educationgovuk/status/1338821695772250112

2/ And LFT are particularly bad at picking up asymptomatic cases, the effectiveness of a policy like this is completely unproven.

3/ The policy is students don't isolate if they agree to daily testing

For seven days!
So gov has moved isolation from 14 to 10 days against WHO recommendations, a move @ReicherStephen said on @lbc wasn't based on reliable evidence, and now students only need 7 days of testing?!

4/ LFTs are antibody tests, @DrZoeHyde has written about how a different immune response means we are most likely missing many asymptomatic cases in children.

LFT'S in schools could well be a chocolate teapot at catching cases.

5/ No isolation, and only 7days of testing with unreliable LFTs doesn't sound like effective control, students can start seeding a viral load before they begin antibody production at a rate that can be picked up by LFTs.

Harvard on use of antibody tests as diagnostic tests

6/ Realistic scenario

Student infected by close contact
Daily testing begins
Day 3 begins seeding viral load at school
No or minimal antibodies=negative LFT
Day 7 antibody production still too low to trigger LFT positive result

Testing ends, student continues to infect others

7/ Why only 7 days of testing when even if a LFT works it won't pick up antibodies until after the student has spent time being infectious in school? Most likely we will stop testing on day 8 before antibodies are picked up.

8/ Then there is also the logistics 800k students were isolating the other week, does the government actually have that many LFT tests?

As for workload, just use an Inset day! Unless you moved the date like DfE said you could, once again assuming Insets are doss days

9/ Neighbouring school to mine had 800 pupils isolating, will be interesting to see how schools manage this.

Gov promising reasonable costs but they promised the same with other costs and then let us down, trust in DfE is rock bottom

10/ Of course DfE are keen to stress all the additional measures already in schools that they haven't funded like increased ventilation eg, keep your window open (if you have one,if not tough luck)
Germany spent 500m on improving school ventilation

11/ However you can always find a pro gov MAT CEO who will back the government to the hilt. This guy said we should go back mid April when we were still in the first wave without even a crap T&T system.
Well on the way to a gong or honor

12/ In summary
I saw the headline and got excited but
Only testing for 7 days is clearly inadequate and dangerous, without any period of isolation even if a positive case is picked up transmission is likely to have occurred in school before antibodies present.

13/ Government is treating isolation as the problem that needs fixing NOT transmission, they are taking no action to reduce transmission, in fact they are seeking to reduce isolations at the risk of increased transmission.
They don't care about infections, just attendance rates

14/ Whats the cost of this? I assume its part of the ridiculously priced operation moonshot, so they refuse to fund measures to reduce transmission but will spend a fortune to reduce isolation with half arsed LFTs that will miss many cases, where is the sense in that?

15/ SAGE say just allowing schools to move to blended learning would cut RO by more than closing all pubs and hospitality and would just cost the price of remote learning tech that should have been provided already.

16/ Why this measure?
They spent a fortune on LFTs that don't work well but I believe cronies profited, is it simply a case of "give them to schools that will keep them quiet and make the public think we are taking action"?

17/ Of course some might suggest a darker motive, children aren't to be vaccinated as it hasnt been tested on them,so could the government still be hoping that by allowing children to be infected we will reach herd immunity quicker and be able to fully open up the economy faster?

18/18 I had abandoned the later thought, however now knowing government had secret meetings with those behind the GBD, there is worry in the back of my head that they think natural immunity can save on vaccination time.
Either way its still negligent and dangerous.

19/ Always willing to be corrected, so worth reading Trevor replies to me, and thank you to him for answering some questions

20/ Possibly more to come as I have more questions

21/ This section of the DfEs statement doesn't make me feel comfortable

22/ We will have to wait for the full details, Trevor has possibly mitigated some of my initial concerns and reinforced others, main concern is the reliability of tests if we face a potential 50% failure rate.

23/ Yes the devil will be in the details, exactly which test is being used is important to find out

I'm not an expert on the intricacies of different covid tests, happy to have any mistakes explained to me by knowledgeable Dr's and Professors.
Would love to discover I'm being a pessimistic prick

So the details are out.....

Wrong link in the first tweet, so tired and incredulous

https://twitter.com/karamballes/status/1338951923089764355?s=19