Question For The Prof Or Other Sciencey Type

[woofgang]

We are told that LFT's should only be used before there are symptoms. I have been trying to find out what the science is behind this (not that i disbelieve it or am against testing) Someone who understands a bit has told me that the reason is that too high a viral load on the test denatures the enzyme used and therefore the test doesn't work. I have hunted and hunted but can't find any research or evidence on this and wondered if anyone with proper knowledge can help?
Thank you.
Yes I know I have put this in the "wrong" category but covid testing IS news and I thought I'd get more traffic here

[pixie374]

Thanks pp x with all respect to every other poster... theprof is the one person where I actually feel quite honoured he responds at all. Let alone with such courtesy.

[jim360]

Far be it form me to speak for theprof, but for what it's worth, NJ, my interpretation of his "I'm with the great and the good" is that it was more about the reality of the threat -- than about what should be the appropriate response to it. The latter is political; the former much less so, since it can be assessed based on objective criteria eg data on hospitalisations, death rates, etc, or on an assessment of the properties of the variant as compared with other Sars-CoV-2 viruses.

For example, it's clearly a political decision to accelerate the booster programme to the extent that was announced earlier this week. Since achieving the target of everyone being offered a vaccine by the end of December is extremely difficult without sacrificing other services, perhaps you could argue politically that it would have been better to aim for a slower response that, yes, is riskier with respect to Omicron but allows other NHS services to operate as normal (or at least nearer to normal).

It's the difference between "a storm is coming and it's a strong one" (apolitical) and "let's leave the area before it hits"/"let's wait out the storm in the basement" (political choice). Anyway, that was my take on what was meant.