Anyone else in the U.K. had a letter about a covid testing study?

Turns out my eldest was invited to do this, but she had just moved from the address the letter was sent to and they said she therefore couldn't participate (despite moving within the same town).

It would have been useful for her as a secondary school teacher. Her school had been doing well with only a couple staff members testing positive which they suspect were infected outside of school, weirdly no Year 9 students (usually the worst behaved year group in a school), and no whole school closures.

Things have changed dramatically over the holidays, with 9 staff members testing positive over the last 2 weeks. They suspect the changes happening in schools are due to the new Covid strain being more transmissible as it appears to be happening across all the local schools.

Glad of the announced school closures as my daughter has to take me to a number of medical appointments over the coming months, including an orbital MRI next week! So far she hasn't displayed any obvious symptoms, but she is relatively young (early 30s) and very healthy with no medical conditions, so feels she could easily have been asymptomatic over the last term if infected.

Teachers are told to turn off any tracing apps when in school, so there's no way she could know if she was close to any staff member or young person who later shows up positive, they have to try to work it out manually by discussion.

 

Feeling some relief as my teacher daughter (the only family member who helps me/provides some care) has just told me she will now be getting a weekly test. However, I don't think this will be the more reliable PCR test, I haven't asked her which type they will be giving teachers (as opposed to students) yet.

 

I didn't realise this thread was so old - had a hell of job to find it!

Has anyone else been asked to continue for a year and/or take blood tests this time? I have.

Copied from Covid-19 vaccination experiences | Page 20 | Science for ME (s4me.info)

"Being on the testing programme, I was about to try to sample my blood the time before last, when the person visiting me stopped me, saying that she didn't have the proper paperwork.

Last time I tried again, the person having the go-ahead, but I couldn't get enough blood out.

So next attempt will be in about a month..."

 

I've had my first blood test today when I was actually able to get enough blood! There may have been cat hairs in it though - that's the problem with testing at home...

It took ages to get enough from my finger, and I think that as much blood was wasted (wiped away as it got all over my fingers) as ended up in the tube, and it must have taken at least half an hour. The bloke overseeing it was very helpful and patient.

Now just waiting to see if the sample was OK or not.

 

I've had my antibody result - negative.

I don't know whether this is because any antibodies have now gone, whether I haven't had COVID, or whether it was just a duff test, maybe because it took so long to get the sample, because there were cat hairs in it, etc.

To recap, I had what may have been COVID around March 2020 (i.e. before I was invited to join the panel) and a bit earlier this year, the symptoms being mainly like gout.

 

I've had my second blood test (yesterday), and goodness-knows-what-number nose-and-throat swab test. The person said that the last blood test may have been no good as it tends not to be after 15 minutes, and mine took half an hour!

This time I failed again from the first finger, but I took a second test from a different one and boy, did that flow! I got more than 0.5 ml. I hope it won't mess things up putting the blood in the same test tube as the first test.