Ending of free testing in England

Hubby and I have covid at the moment. Luckily we're just suffering from severe head cold symptoms. I'm aware others get it worse. My point is, we wore masks until a few weeks ago. Now we've stopped and suddenly get covid. One in fifteen has it in Northern Ireland now. Our figures are slightly better than the rest of UK.

Rosie51 the CEO of Boots is a mate of the Prime Minister. He is in that notorious Bullingdon Club photograph. Not that anyone would suggest for a minute tye reason LFTs are not being provided at cost price because there is cronyism and profiteering from the pandemic by this government and its associates.

Next week will be a triumph at PMQs as the covid rate will have reduced substantially, Boris will crow.
Only because hardly anyone will be testing as they don't want to pay for the kit. And who can blame them, given the current financial fiasco?
And no, it's not like flu. I've had flu. I didn't end up in ICU with flu. And I didn't have to give up work because of flu. And I didn't suffer the after effects of flu 15 months later. But I did with covid.

I think it is now up to ourselves, to take the care we need, to keep ourselves and our families safe. I will continue to wear a mask, just as the Asian tourists used to, in the years before the pandemic began. I will acquire tests to take, before mixing with vulnerable people. I will go along for the next booster jab when offered.

Only people who are eligible for Covid treatment will have free test kit sent to them.

I am part of the ongoing 0NS testing programme and have been for nearly two years. Have just been notified that it is going to be extended for another year beyond what was planned. I answer a questionnaire every month, do a PCR test and also a blood test. It has been very successful apparently. My blood test is showing strong antibodies and I am 6 months past my booster jab. All very encouraging.
People can always buy LateralmFlow Tests now, why are we so hung up on expecting to get everything free ? If we lived almost anywhere else we would have to pay for elements of health provision and a lot more than the cost of a test kit.

I had a bet with myself that Amazon would have LFT tests available. But so far, they don't. Not that I was intending to order one - just inquiring!

I have the virus ATM. Day 6 still positive. I have been very ill and it was not just like a cold, it put me in bed for 4 days and I'm not right yet. I'm fit, no underlying conditions, but it hit me badly. I think testing is still essential but £2 a test is too much for lots of people. I thought if I caught COVID I would be fine, but you just don't know

i still wear a mask when going to supermarket or any shop not because i have COPD and a heart problem even if i didnt have health issues i would still wear a mask and continue to do so

When I arrived at my mother’s care home yesterday it turns out that I no longer need to do a Covid test before I visit. I’d already done an LFT test and tried to register the result but received no text to show at the home. I explained to the deputy manager who let me in and she told me about this new arrangement. Apparently their staff still have to test but not the visitors. In the last few months they’ve had three Covid outbreaks all very successfully contained by their outbreak policy. Now visitors no longer need to test to visit a care home are we looking at many fatal outbreaks in care homes like at the beginning of the pandemic?

I quite agree, boris once said he thought this country was overcrowded and you can't help but wonder if he saw covid as a chance for a good clear out, and a chance for his pals to earn a tidy packet

I get that the Government want us to get back to life as normal and have ended free testing. What I find difficult to swallow is the end of free testing for care home visitors. Along with my husband, I visit my Mum in one care home and my Stepdad in another (sadly they could not be placed together). It is a requirement of the homes that we have to test to visit. That's going to be quite expensive for us going forward. I don't think it's fair that we are charged to visit our loved ones.

I think Indy Sage has a better track record than the government with regard to covid, but that’s not hard.

Indy SAGE have no responsibilities as regards COVID and have the luxury of making forecasts and recommendations that are not subject to public scrutiny or the exigencies of actually having to run a country. They have called for lockdowns when no lockdowns were required, they have forecast huge numbers of cases and deaths, forecasts which did not prove to be true.

I'm not defending the Westminster Governments handling of the pandemic, not in any way, but a self appointed group of unaccountable scientists shaking their heads at me and telling me they know best, just doesn't work for me.

I don’t agree with you about Prof Pagel or indeed Indy Sage volver.
These myths as growstuff said are quite common, many people have voiced similar to me and indeed on Gransnet.
I think the government has been irresponsible in dropping all protection, including testing, when we are in the middle of a huge surge in infections, which is disrupting hospitals, and schools and workplaces.

Indy Sage has made numerous suggestions with regard to mitigations for living with covid such as funding for ventilation systems, and better funded public health departments, which the government has ignored.

I think Indy Sage has a better track record than the government with regard to covid, but that’s not hard.

I accept that what we choose to believe is never free from political bias, but to me politics affects everything to some extent.

www.thetimes.co.uk/article/92b46368-b0d0-11ec-8570-b43daaf58ea1?shareToken=e2e37c00640bab752102b6e7df158927
Hopefully the price will fall as outlets try to undercut each other

lloydspharmacy.com/

Sorry, £1.86 per test. These are nose only, I just have two individual nose and throat tests left.

I've got lost with all the changes, thanks for posting this. It's rife in the small village I live in.

I've just ordered my LF tests, at £1.79 per test (non travel) from Lloyds pharmacy. No free collections available at any of my chemists. I want to be able to test before I see my son.

I interpreted the cost incorrectly. I now understand that the cost is approx £2 per test. I thought it was £2 for a full kit of 7 tests! Silly me.
That is ridiculously overpriced £14 for a few bits of plastic made in China.

Family and spouse carers are the most likely people to be living in poverty and will not be able to pay for tests and they need them the most. Some of you seem to lack the imagination to think or feel anything outside of your own lives. I could give other examples but I am losing the will to live atm (and I have covid)

Bingo!!

PS. No, you don't know what you're talking about.

volver

I have no time for Christina Pagel; her three myths in the article cited:

1. Covid is endemic: Nobody has said this and she is using it to create a false environment of discord, to suggest that we are being lied to.

2. People believe that COVID is evolving to become milder. That has never been proposed in any communication from anywhere, because it would be a lie. If you think that COVID is evolving to become milder, you’re not paying attention.

3. Nobody thinks we are “finished” our vaccination program. We’ve just started the second booster program for the elderly and vulnerable. Hardly “finished”.

Mathematician Pagel is part of Indy SAGE who are hardly exemplars of good pandemic forecasting. And are suddenly finding themselves irrelevant.

Sorry, but she gets on my wick. Please feel free to tell me I don't know what I'm talking about, I'm sure somebody will.

You're wrong. I can't be bothered scouring the internet for people who have claimed any of those myths, but GN would be a good place to start. There are plenty of people who have perpetuated the myths.

They were never free. We have been paying for them all along. Now there are more urgent things that need paying for out of the general tax purse.

Australia’s LFT tests were $20 for 2 single ones.

Have always had to pay, unless you went to a testing centre, with huge queues,