What does a faint line mean on a lateral flow test?

Sign up for our free Health Check email to receive exclusive analysis on the week in health Get our free Health Check email Get our free Health Check email SIGN UP I would like to be emailed about offers, events and updates from The Independent. However, the uptick now appears to be subsiding, with the UK Health Security Agency recording 281,269 positive tests within seven days on 11 April, as well as 1,613 deaths and 16,438 people admitted to hospital. Boris Johnson’s government ended all social restrictions in England on 24 February and followed that by scrapping the provision of free lateral flow tests on 1 April as part of its pivot towards a “Living with Covid” strategy, assuming the worst of the pandemic to be over. Still the most straightforward means of determining whether or not you have contracted Covid from home, LFTs typically retail for £2.50 each or £12 for a pack of five and use a test strip that changes colour to indicate whether the saliva sample you provide contains traces of the coronavirus. “Even faint lines indicate the test is positive,” the official advice states, adding: “Result lines may appear smudged or faint, but they are still valid results and must be reported.” However, no test is 100 per cent accurate all the time and it is possible for the LFTs to return a false positive, typically if the sample you provide has inadvertently been contaminated or if you wait beyond the 15-30 minute recommended in the instruction ket to determine your result.