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> the 5 tests is clearly a better outcome for society. I don't think that's obviously true. Misread pregnancy tests are fantastically common, and someone mista
by wyattpeak 5y ago
> the 5 tests is clearly a better outcome for society.
I don't think that's obviously true. Misread pregnancy tests are fantastically common, and someone mistakenly believing they don't have covid is going to be a significant negative for society.
Instructions simply don't work, a large number of people don't read instructions. Heck, I might not read the instructions for this if it looked understandable at first glance. Decades of pointless barely-understandable instructions on cheap devices have trained me not to bother.
- leoedin 5y agoIt's pretty tricky to self-administer one of these lateral flow covid tests without reading the instructions. There's a whole sequence of steps - swabbing, mixing the swab in the buffer solution, dropping a set number of drops into the sample window. This device doesn't appear to get rid of any of that complexity - instead adding significant complexity and to the simplest part of the test - look for a line.
- alexfoo 5y agoIndeed, there's also considerable variability in the different lateral flow tests. If you don't read the instructions then you may not work out the differences when the next set come along. In the UK we have, amongst others I'm sure, the NHS branded boxes, Flowflex, and Orient Gene. Some require swabbing nose and throat, some are just nasal swabs. Some require 2 drops onto the device, some require 4. Some require a certain amount of time to be left in the buffer solution, others just a set of steps of pushing/turning/squeezing the swab in the buffer. Some require waiting 30 minutes (minimum), some are 15 minutes (minimum) and 30 minutes maximum. etc.
- andybak 5y agoI somehow managed to miss the critical fact that the line can be very faint for quite a long time. I'm a developer. I suck at reading documentation.