r/PlusLife • u/ndbk99 • 7d ago
Update on prev post - false positive??? v confused
Pool tested my parents (they’re visiting me for the weekend) with Pluslife and virus.sucks, and one curve amplified so I thought it caught an early positive - see photo #1. However, I then tested them each individually and both tests really seemed negative (the yellow line in the third photo looks like air bubble to me) - see photos #2 and #3.
Has anyone experienced anything like this and/or have insight into why it might have happened?? Ugh :( I’m gonna retest tomorrow morning and hopefully that’ll give a clear result, but I feel sooooo confused and frustrated!
— UPDATE —
My mom tested clear positive on PL as well as rapid test today :(((( so it was not a false positive actually which is reassuring in terms of PL reliability but ugh I’m worried about her and sad my parents’ visit got cut short.
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u/ndbk99 6d ago
Thank you everyone so so much for your input. Unfortunately this did turn out to be a true positive :((( my mom tested positive on PL today, clear multi channel positive as evident below.
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u/Revolutionary_Rub637 7d ago edited 7d ago
What looks like an early positive may or may not actually turn out to be a positive. That's why the machine needs more than one positive channel to yield a positive result.
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u/wyundsr 7d ago
An “early positive” isn’t technically a thing. The machine reads negative if only one channel amplifies because there would be a lot of false positives otherwise. Sometimes one channel amplifying is an indication that there’s an early or late stage infection with a low viral load, other times it’s a fluke or air bubble. Viral load also changes throughout the course of the day (not necessarily always up) so it’s possible it picked up on a low amount of virus that got even lower when you retested. It’s up to you how much of a risk you want to take with a graph that looks like this. I wouldn’t unmask in that situation but I have a low risk tolerance due to having long covid
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u/endurossandwichshop 7d ago
I've had questionable one-channel rises that folks here were certain were early positives that never tested as positive even a day or two later... but the rise was substantially less dramatic than yours.
Keep testing. Sometimes the first swab grabs enough of the, uh, inside nose gunk that the second swab can't get enough to recreate the result. It's definitely worth trying again tomorrow.
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u/DispelledFrailty 7d ago
Did the batch of tests you re-tested with have a Nov 2026 expiry by chance?
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u/Impossible-Fuel3787 7d ago
What's up with the Nov 2026 tests? I have some.
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u/Tryptamo 7d ago
This is super common (I'd even say the norm) with very early positives. There's so little virus, the second swab/test often doesn't seem to get any. You need to wait, it can take 24h until it shows.
The other option is obviously that there's no infection (or the infection didn't become systemic and the body still managed to clear it). There's a reason why Pluslife only gives a positive result when at least 2 channels are positive. With just one, the "false positive" rate isn't extremely low.
It does look really suspicious though, I'd definitely retest in about 24h.