Olle Pridiuksson

For me, the test day is Thursday, every week. As I said, the test is the same. Back in June/July when I started taking the tests, I would have tested and taken it to the correct post box within an hour-ish of the mail being collected, and gotten the result the next evening.

The quickest result I got was around 26 hours to discover I tested negative (all my results were negative btw). They send it to you via text and email, so it gets to you when they do. Again, that's the same process as for everyone else.

Now, I've noticed the time it has taken to get to the result has been increasing, progressively. At first, there would be an occassional Saturday. Sure, it's the weekend, no biggie, right. Then, the results started to arrive on Sunday....

I'm writing these tweets on a Monday evening, and still haven't received my result from Thursday. That's bad for at least a couple of reasons.

Our nationwide reported infection rates are increasing, and quickly. With our tests taking longer and longer (over half a week for me now), it makes any quick resolve in stopping the spread increasingly difficult. You can't stop what you don't know.

Secondly, the test itself has an expiration date. From the moment you take the swabs, and put it into the vial, the effectiveness of the test drops every hour. According to the test material itself, the sweet spot between testing and analysis is 48 hours.

They even ask you to take your swab and post it as close to the last collection time of your priority postbox. Less time your swab spends in the red post box, the more time they have in the lab for analysis.

Now, I'm sure that they have some buffer time set up - so the 48 hours is more like 72 hours (or more, hopefully), but increasing waiting times don't instill much confidence.