Should you still take a COVID test if you have a runny nose?

COVID is on the rise. So for everyone should we all return to using COVID home-testing kits whenever we get a runny nose, sore throat or cough? COVID testing hit the headlines last week, when Team GB’s Olympic swimming star, Adam Peaty, revealed he’d tested positive a day after winning silver in the 100m breaststroke. Peaty said that he had released his test result as ‘an advocate for complete transparency’.

Team GB said they have been constantly monitoring infection rates in Paris and the UK, as cases were mounting in the weeks before the Olympics began (there is no regular Covid testing of athletes at the Games). UK COVID rates are indeed on the rise, according to NHS data. This may be down to the emergence of a new family of variants called FLiRT.

Latest figures from the UK Health Security Agency (UKHSA) show that in mid-July, hospitals recorded 3,557 new cases a week, increasing by 4.5 per cent week-on-week. There were also 152 deaths in a week, a 20 per cent rise.

But that’s not the whole story, says Stephen Griffin, a professor of cancer virology at the University of Leeds. ‘’Official figures don’t reflect the full picture because we’re not testing and reporting rigorously like we were,’’ Professor Griffin said. ‘’Our only recorded testing now is in hospital patients.

And those figures are two weeks behind what’s happening.’’ Latest figures from around four million users of the ZoE Health Study app indicate the UK had just under 100,000 s.