While millions of students worldwide are being forced to miss school because of the pandemic, British teenagers are reportedly using TikTok to learn and share tips for faking COVID-19 positive tests.
Videos uploaded under #fakecovidtest have been viewed more than 6.5 million times, with the dedicated account @.fakecovidtests having gained more than 20,000 followers within a few days.
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Since 1 July 2021, videos featuring youngsters taking ‘rapid antigen COVID-19 tests’ have been trending, prompting a team of researchers at the University of Liverpool to study the effects of applying soft drinks and artificial sweeteners to test swabs.
The findings that have been published in the healthcare journal medRxiv show that the team had observed that “10 out of 14 soft drinks produced positive or weakly positive results, with no apparent link between the test results and the soft drinks’ ingredients”.
It was also learned that substances such as apple sauce, vinegar, hand sanitizers, and kiwi fruit are being used by students in COVID-19 testing in the hopes of getting testing positive and being allowed to skip school.
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The concerned authorities in the UK have advised the parents of youngsters to ensure that the COVID-19 tests are not misused because a single positive test can cause all the people in an entire class or even a school to be quarantined.
As far as the fake testing videos on TikTok are concerned, they are still online and are free to be viewed under the hashtag #fakecovidtest.
