You should also use them before visiting people who are at higher risk of severe illness if they get Covid or if you are a contact of someone who has tested positive for the virus. According to the NHS, you should use a lateral flow test if you are going to be in a high risk situation that day – for example, meeting up with friends at someone’s house or in a busy restaurant. If you have symptoms you should do a PCR test. Lateral flow tests are for people who do not have symptoms of Covid but are worried about spreading the virus unwittingly. The technology is well established and is the same that is used in a pregnancy test. This is then applied to a paper strip which shows up two lines if you’re positive. The virus sample – taken from the back of the nose and throat – are mixed with a solution that unleashes viral proteins. Sometimes called rapid antigen tests, they look for proteins on the surface of the virus. Lateral flow devices detect the presence of a target substance in a liquid – in this case the Covid antigen. The Government hopes the tests will give people the confidence to meet up with family and friends.īut how do the tests work, how accurate are they and where can you get them? What is a lateral flow test? With a rise in cases, there has been a run on the tests, with the Government distributing more than 2.5 million on December 12 2021, compared with half a million on the same date in November. Alongside booster jabs, lateral flow tests have become the backbone of the UK’s response to the omicron variant.
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