Nearly two months ago, the community coronavirus group that I help to run in Stroud started getting reports of locals receiving negative “confirmatory” PCR tests after they had tested positive with lateral flow tests. Despite often having multiple positive lateral flow tests, and symptoms, they were being told to go to school and work – and they were worried.
On 18 September, I circulated a weekly summary of local data (as I’ve been doing throughout the pandemic), and noticed a steep and sudden drop in the number of people testing positive throughout Gloucestershire. Nearly overnight, we had plummeted from slightly above the national average to apparently having the lowest rates in the country.
The situation was clearly weird. In my community report that day, I publicly questioned whether “a problem at a testing lab might be involved”.
