Caring for you, all year round

We have all been affected by COVID-19. The disruption it has caused to our lives since 2020 has been immense. The UK has tried to cope with this huge unknown, and advice and guidance have changed.
The initial strategy was to try and prevent the spread of the virus, but this was not possible, and COVID-19 is moving from a Pandemic to an Endemic, meaning we will live with it like we do colds and flu with seasonal variation and its evolution over time.
As with many diseases, vaccination is the quickest and best way to provide some protection against infections, and over time these are refined and adapted to improve and maintain protection. Most of the UK has now been vaccinated, infected or increasingly both. This provides us with some protection which will reduce over time, and depending on our health and changes in the virus, our risk of serious illness is unknown.
Testing remains a helpful tool in knowing if the illness we have is COVID or not and vital in our efforts to protect the most vulnerable. PCR testing is the most sensitive way of finding out if we have COVID. Lateral Flow testing is accurate when we have very high virus levels but can miss up to 50% of cases. This is why The World Health Organisation recommends testing to help control the spread of COVID and why many countries only accept PCR as evidence of infection. Testing works best when done as soon as we develop symptoms or after the incubation period to see if we are infected.
There are two types of COVID testing. Antigen Swab Testing looks for the virus when we are first unwell, and Antibody Blood Testing looks for the body’s response about 3 to 4 weeks after the illness starts.
With as many as 80% of infected people having no or ‘mild’ symptoms, the virus spreads rapidly. Antigen testing one week after exposure or Antibody testing four weeks after can confirm if you were infected.
If you do become unwell, testing as soon as possible is advised and no later than five days after the onset of symptoms.
The problem with all tests is that there will be errors, and it is essential to use test results in context. Positive swab tests are likely to be accurate, but 7-16% are falsely negative. Antibody tests have a higher number of false-positive results with a lower number of false negatives, but this depends on the test’s timing.