Thread by @deeksj

Testing in schools has been finding close to zilch!

Just located the Test and Trace figures for testing in schools.

They are on this webpage
gov.uk/government/pub…

In Table 6 of this downloadable file

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To interpret these results remember all tests give false positives (FP). For Innova DHSC says about 3 per 1000 (0.3%), were FP in Liverpool it was about 1 per 1000 (0.1%). So only event rates above these figures indicate that a test is usefully detecting real cases

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First Primary schools (presume teachers and staff)

2,031,296 tests; 4,232 positives - that is 0.21% - stable for the past month. This is below the 0.3% false positive rate stated for Innova - so many will be false positives.

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Now secondary schools

1,918,823 tests; 2,986 positives - that is 0.16% over two months and has been below 0.1% for the past fortnight. Well below the 0.3% false positive rate stated for Innova - so many will be false positives.

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These data make clear

(1) all LFT positives MUST be verifed by PCR - the Government is risking wrongly putting staff and students unnecessarily in isolation for 10 days.

(2) the case that doing this at all will make a difference to cases and spread is less than wafer thin.

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think about the cost (~£10K-£30K per case detected)

think about the time and effort

think about children who get stressed by tests and swabs

think about what else we could provide to schools

many harms, unlikely there are going to be benefits

why are we doing this?

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