Member Info for AgentB

So why can't the Gov trust us with this information instead of allowing us to think that they are just bumbling along making it up?

Good point Bodeswell, hadn't thought of it that way.

“Government U-turns on policy – positive lateral flow tests taken in schools should now be followed up by a confirmatory PCR test.

The move came after an announcement from health officials that all Covid cases picked up by lateral flow tests must be confirmed by a second check, amid fears over false positives and missed new variants.

Prof Deeks said the DfE's U-turn meant that pupils will no longer have to "unnecessarily" self-isolate following a false positive. He said he was "bewildered" as to why it took the Government so long to come to this position but said it was "better late than never".

The policy is being changed because the cheap mass testing becomes less reliable as overall cases of Covid falls, and does not allow results to be genetically sequenced.“

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/2021/03/30/vast-majority-positive-covid-tests-taken-schools-likely-false/

HP - That’s the combination of Affimers and Aptamers - which bodes well for the new test we are working on with mologic. Looks like Gerry was a bit ahead of the game here!

Also covered in Daily Mail

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-9420839/Team-British-Covid-scientists-set-rake-150million.html

Who did that? Own up!

Also, the more the media whip themselves into a frenzy about how unfair the concept of a vaccination passport is, the more welcome The LFT alternative will be when revealed. Boris will want the fact that a hugely accurate Sovereign test has been developed and produced in vast quantities, ready to properly release us from lockdown, to be hailed as the phenomenal achievement that it is.

Timing is everything for HMG at the moment. They have an obligation to push for maximum vaccine take-up - especially in the reluctant BAME community. Hence Sir Lenny Henry will be ubiquitous over the next few weeks. Similarly, all the talk of needing a vaccine passport to open up pubs and foreign travel is all part of the continuing drive to get jabs in arms.
Unfortunately, the arrival of highly accurate testing will be seized upon by those who are opposed to vaccination as the get-out card. It’s going to be a very tough call deciding when the big reveal happens.

Hi Andre,

One line of attack could be through the UN PRI (Principles for Responsible Investment). They are hugely influential in the financial services industry and are strongly against the idea of stock lending - for precisely the reasons given, but also because it results in a lack of stewardship (voting) on ESG issues by the original shareholders. They could perhaps be persuaded to put their weight behind a campaign to stop this practice.

An afternoon RNS certainly captures attention (assuming it’s not about boring stuff like e-communications or directors retiring).

BRH so gonna get dumped in the last 30 mins of trading! Their piece of kit looks like something made by Blue Peter out of an old shoe box.

I’m really not sure what advantages there are to being in these FTSE categories rather than AIM. Judging from other stocks I’ve invested in, it certainly doesn’t seem to offer PIs any protection against the machinations of the market makers.
No doubt there are costs and regulatory issues involved as well which might make companies think twice about effort v reward. I note that Boohoo for example (market cap £4019m), despite easily qualifying size wise for FTSE 100, chooses to remain on AIM.
I’m sure that Nasdaq would be a different matter entirely, putting us in front of a vast new market of pharma fanatics.

Shame!

As of today, our market cap is £626m so we are certainly big enough to qualify for FTSE 250.

The links below show current constituents of FTSE 250 and 100. In each of them you can sort by market cap (top of column 4, choose lowest to highest). Results of the lowest market cap for each index currently shown below.

https://www.londonstockexchange.com/indices/ftse-250/constituents/table
Provident Financial PLC @ Market cap £547.81m

https://www.londonstockexchange.com/indices/ftse-100/constituents/table
Renishaw PLC @ market cap £4,272.69 m

The final sentence intrigues me...'Erection for hours? Let yourself be bitten by a spider'.
Who knew that they had such dangerous spiders in Scandinavia?

The best answer to 'Why Avacta?'
https://youtu.be/Pgmvuj86VcA?t=1782
https://youtu.be/Pgmvuj86VcA?t=252

* deramp not decamp!

I sometimes feel as if I’ve picked my portfolio on the basis of the entertainment that I get from the associated message boards. I love the nautical naughtiness and camaraderie on here, the scientific knowledge from Avacta and the intriguing glimpse of a blockchain-driven future from ARB. But my latest addition, FUM is also proving highly entertaining. This is the company that has just announced a gel that works much faster than viagra to relieve erectile dysfunction.
So I was very amused when someone posted a description of the product that had appeared in a Scandinavian newspaper. It turned out to be an unintentional decamp, because this was the google translation back into English....

“Expected availability (at least in British pharmacies) should be from spring 2021… and in addition without a prescription. The application is simple. It is enough to apply the erectile gel in a fine layer for about 15 seconds on the genitals and devote it to preheating, after about five to ten minutes the desired awkward effect will appear. The manufacturer states it as a breakthrough product in achieving an erection. According to the volunteers who tested the gel, a very cool feeling appears after application. It suddenly changes and the ***** begins to bleed intensely. Initially, the cooling effect is replaced by a warm feeling.”

“the ***** begins to bleed intensely” ?!! That sounds scary!

Deems needs to be gagged! According to him we “may already be at the point where we should stop lft testing because it’s too inaccurate.

Lateral flow Covid testing too inaccurate to be used in mass screening, review finds
A study found that asymptomatic testing only picked up around 50 per cent of cases

“Jon Deeks, the review author and a professor of biostatistics at the University of Birmingham, said it was "shocking" that the Government had allowed the rollout of such a "large, invasive and expensive" testing programme without the data to back it up.

“It is being used in ways which actually risk people getting false reassurance when they miss cases, and getting false positives, and that has been a big problem in schools. There are instances when whole classes have been sent home – effectively, 100 people put into isolation."

Prof Deeks added: "So I think there are big problems in the way that we're using this. And when prevalence drops you get more false positives and fewer true positives, that's a mathematical certainty, and there is a point where you should stop. We may already be at that point.”

Prof Deeks said the tests could be used on a "test to detect" basis but should not be used for "test to release" or "test to enable" but added: "A better role with these tests may be putting them in testing centres, where we would enable people to get those results before they leave a test centre – they work better for people with symptoms.

He said that, in schools last week, 2,500 tests were conducted to find just one case of Covid.

Public Health England defended the testing programme, with Dr Susan Hopkins, its Covid-19 strategic response director, saying: "Rapid tests are effective at detecting Covid in people that are highly infectious, both with and without symptoms.

"Every day, rapid testing is helping us find cases of Covid-19 that we wouldn't otherwise know about, breaking chains of transmission and potentially saving lives."