{"id":26718,"date":"2021-02-24T19:29:03","date_gmt":"2021-02-24T18:29:03","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=26718"},"modified":"2021-03-11T12:14:48","modified_gmt":"2021-03-11T11:14:48","slug":"how-should-we-test-for-coronavirus","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/?p=26718","title":{"rendered":"How should we test for coronavirus?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p>There are two tests to determine whether someone has coronavirus (and one &#8211; a blood test &#8211; to establish whether someone has actually had the virus).<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The first test for the virus is called&nbsp;polymerase chain reaction (PCR). This involves swabbing the back of the throat and the nostrils. The swab has to be sent to a specialist lab that typically takes 24-48 hours to determine the result. The test has a high degree of accuracy. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>The second test for the virus is called lateral flow device (LFD). This involves swabbing the nostrils only and gives a result on the spot in 30 minutes. It is reasonably accurate but certainly not as sound as a PCR test. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>For various reasons &#8211; mainly because I am a volunteer with the National Health Service (NHS) &#8211; so far I have done four PCR tests and 21 lateral flow tests (all negative, thank goodness).  My poor nostrils!<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Now we have promising news from France about a test that can be done faster than the lateral flow one &#8211; just 10 minutes &#8211; but with the accuracy of the PCR one.  You can learn more about this proposed new test <a href=\"https:\/\/www.theguardian.com\/world\/2021\/feb\/23\/new-covid-test-delivers-results-three-times-faster-than-lateral-flow?fbclid=IwAR2a75oTeImQbVs7GDR7NJQ4Twjv3lCPnTH0gkZVcUCSmIafTFZQZSogwCU\">here<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>There are two tests to determine whether someone has coronavirus (and one &#8211; a blood test &#8211; to establish whether someone has actually had the virus). The first test for the virus is called&nbsp;polymerase chain reaction (PCR). This involves swabbing the back of the throat and the nostrils. The swab has to be sent to [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9,5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-26718","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-my-life-thoughts","category-science-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26718","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=26718"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26718\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":26762,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/26718\/revisions\/26762"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=26718"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=26718"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.rogerdarlington.me.uk\/nighthawk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=26718"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}