2 Covid home tests for everyone

[qwerty2]

they arent compulsory...............yet

[Celgar]

It does sound like most of these new tests will be collected by the people that want them. At the moment it is a relatively small percentage of the population that are ordering the tests. These people are the ones that think all us posties have the plague and do things like hanging out of upstairs windows to talk to us or leave parcels outside their front doors in the rain for days in case there is Covid on them. The new tests are known to be fairly unreliable anyway so people are better off using the standard tests instead.

[geordieboy123]

Why do you think most will be collected? This new initiative doesn’t start until Friday and at the moment they are for parents of school children from Friday it could be for 40 million plus people every week for the foreseeable and I think most people will rather the convenience of having them delivered and if it’s us how on earth are we going to cope with it?

[TopperGas]

It's unlikely 40m people will want them delivered, the issue will be if just 10% do twice a week as, that's 100+ (x2) to be delivered every week if you have just 500 houses/1000 adults on your round.

[SpacePhoenix]

Rural areas will probably have a greater % delivered as they might well be a long way from their nearest testing centre

[chickenwittle]

Surely at work testing must be the next step for everyone in "key Worker" Jobs bet Royal Mail will not want this because of the risk of having to send people home from work

You Could be right.
Royal Mail have been offering lateral flow testing in Sheffield for a while ( see latest courier mag) but to my knowledge have not rolled it out.
I wonder why?

I'm all for it Delivery offices are a cesspit.

The Cwu have been complicit in this , they should have encouraged every member to download the track and trace app from the start .

[SpacePhoenix]

Surely at work testing must be the next step for everyone in "key Worker" Jobs bet Royal Mail will not want this because of the risk of having to send people home from work

You Could be right.
Royal Mail have been offering lateral flow testing in Sheffield for a while ( see latest courier mag) but to my knowledge have not rolled it out.
I wonder why?

I'm all for it Delivery offices are a cesspit.

The Cwu have been complicit in this , they should have encouraged every member to download the track and trace app from the start .

Not every member will have a smart phone

[barrychuckle]

If the kits are the same as what teachers and students are using there are 8 tests in each kit so a months worth. After the initial first rush things will even out so no need to think you will be delivering hundreds of kits every week. Panic over.

[SierraOscarBravo]

It does sound like most of these new tests will be collected by the people that want them. At the moment it is a relatively small percentage of the population that are ordering the tests. These people are the ones that think all us posties have the plague and do things like hanging out of upstairs windows to talk to us or leave parcels outside their front doors in the rain for days in case there is Covid on them. The new tests are known to be fairly unreliable anyway so people are better off using the standard tests instead.

The lateral flow tests are actually 99%+ accurate so to say they are "known to be fairly unreliable" is very misleading. In any case, where a positive lateral flow test presents itself, you then must isolate while you arrange for a lab based PCR test. Almost without exception, that will confirm the result of the lateral flow test. However, as with any test, there exists a very tiny chance of a false positive.

As for the delivery of PCR test kits now freely available to everyone, we shall see what the uptake in the delivery option is. I personally have used the delivery service as it is more convenient than travelling across town to pick them up. To say most people will go out of their way to travel and collect test kits is a false assumption.

Those who are panicking about how many we will have to deliver need to chill out. The test kit boxes are small enough to fit through the vast majority of letterboxes and just need to be scanned as any other tracked item.

[Dorset Plodder]

Yes remember the light bulbs , that must have been about 20 years ago .

Our area had them all about 2008. I think the Gov must have had some kind of roll out. Bloody nightmare .... and as it turned out they were those bloody great long ones that wouldn't fit in half the lampshades, and certainly not in those dome light fittings .... Good Research there.

We Red Carded anyone that wasn't in .... Bloody Minded maybe but it amused us. Didn't amuse the customers too much when they turned up expecting a parcel and just got a pack of Light Bulbs!

[SpacePhoenix]

Yes remember the light bulbs , that must have been about 20 years ago .

Our area had them all about 2008. I think the Gov must have had some kind of roll out. Bloody nightmare .... and as it turned out they were those bloody great long ones that wouldn't fit in half the lampshades, and certainly not in those dome light fittings .... Good Research there.

We Red Carded anyone that wasn't in .... Bloody Minded maybe but it amused us. Didn't amuse the customers too much when they turned up expecting a parcel and just got a pack of Light Bulbs!

Don't know if it was just British gas or if it was all electric suppliers at the time:

https://www.centrica.com/media-centre/n ... nitiative/

I can see a good few getting the test kits delivered. Many bus route locally are only 1 an hour and most use full length single decker buses and with them being iirc limit to a maximum of ten passengers because of social distancing. If someone goes into town to get a test kit or get tested, if the test place isn't at the end of the bus route, they could potentially get stranded for a few hours as each bus could have to not pick them up if they're already full

[Gingerbread Fred]

2-3 a day last week

Today I have over 40. The increase here has been massive

[centenaryman]

2-3 a day last week

Today I have over 40. The increase here has been massive

i read a post earlier in the thread hinting that alot of ppl wont want them ordered....lol no.....way sit at home and wait seems to be the mantra for the last year judging by my walks parcel increase sooooo fully expecting a massive amount.....
even had a letter from our union priming us ready for alot

[Wolf91]

Had about 30 at least today. Most of the tracked were Covid kits.

[TopperGas]

Had about 30 at least today. Most of the tracked were Covid kits.

I'd imagine when the first 7 tests come back negative customers will be get bored of using them or might even get off their backsides and actually go out of the house! What's the betting after all this furloughing and WFH the next big thing will be people developing agoraphobia,