Teenagers across the UK, inspired by a TikTok trend, are faking positive tests for Covid-19 in the hope of getting sent home from school.
A number of videos uploaded to the popular social media platform show British teenagers mixing various liquids to get a positive test.
Videos are uploaded under the search term #fakecovidtest where other teenagers can find them with more than 6.5 million views.
A dedicated account called @.fakecovidtests has more than 20,000 followers.
Fizzy drinks and acidic fruits are known to have the potential to display a false positive result which has called into question how reliable tests can be.
Clips on TikTok show youngsters mixing various liquids including apple sauce, Coca Cola, vinegar and kiwi fruit to trigger a positive reaction in the test and get sent home from school.
It comes as schools across the UK are being forced to send children home amid outbreaks of the virus.
Education leaders have described the new social media trend as “massively unhelpful” as schools continue to battle the ongoing health crisis.
Geoff Barton, General Secretary of the Association of School and College Leaders, shared an urgent message with parents via the i.
He said: “We are sure this involves a very small minority of pupils, and that for the most part the tests are used correctly.
“However, we would urge parents to ensure that tests are not being misused, and we would suggest to pupils who are interested in chemical reactions that the best place to learn about them is in chemistry lessons in school.”
A TikTok spokesperson added: “Our community guidelines make clear that we remove content which includes misleading information that causes harm, including medical misinformation related to Covid-19, and anti-vaccine disinformation more broadly.
“Since the start of the pandemic, we have worked to provide our community with access to trusted information, and through our partnership with Team Halo, scientists from all over the world have shared how vaccinations are created and tested for safety.”
Why are you making commenting on The Herald only available to subscribers?
It should have been a safe space for informed debate, somewhere for readers to discuss issues around the biggest stories of the day, but all too often the below the line comments on most websites have become bogged down by off-topic discussions and abuse.
heraldscotland.com is tackling this problem by allowing only subscribers to comment.
We are doing this to improve the experience for our loyal readers and we believe it will reduce the ability of trolls and troublemakers, who occasionally find their way onto our site, to abuse our journalists and readers. We also hope it will help the comments section fulfil its promise as a part of Scotland's conversation with itself.
We are lucky at The Herald. We are read by an informed, educated readership who can add their knowledge and insights to our stories.
That is invaluable.
We are making the subscriber-only change to support our valued readers, who tell us they don't want the site cluttered up with irrelevant comments, untruths and abuse.
In the past, the journalist’s job was to collect and distribute information to the audience. Technology means that readers can shape a discussion. We look forward to hearing from you on heraldscotland.com
Comments & Moderation
Readers’ comments: You are personally liable for the content of any comments you upload to this website, so please act responsibly. We do not pre-moderate or monitor readers’ comments appearing on our websites, but we do post-moderate in response to complaints we receive or otherwise when a potential problem comes to our attention. You can make a complaint by using the ‘report this post’ link . We may then apply our discretion under the user terms to amend or delete comments.
Post moderation is undertaken full-time 9am-6pm on weekdays, and on a part-time basis outwith those hours.
Read the rules hereComments are closed on this article