Posted on 03/28/2020 8:54:16 PM PDT by SeekAndFind
The UK has ordered 3.5 million antibody tests designed to reveal whether people have been infected with the new coronavirus. The UK’s prime minister, Boris Johnson, who today announced he himself has tested positive for the virus, has said these tests will be a “game changer”, but the reality is they might not have that much of an impact in the short term.
Almost all testing for the virus around the world is based on looking for its genetic sequence. But such tests require nose or throat swabs to be taken by trained personnel and sent to a specialised lab for analysis, and there is a global shortage of equipment. Genetic tests also detect only active infections.
Antibody tests, by contrast, detect the antibodies our bodies produce to kill the virus, which we keep producing even after the virus is eliminated. These tests can reveal who has been infected even after they have recovered. Handheld tests that require only a drop of blood can give results in 10 minutes, and can be mass produced quickly and cheaply.
If we know someone has had the virus, they can potentially leave their home without risk of being re-infected, which would help countries get moving again. However, the accuracy of the tests has yet to be established. “The one thing that’s worse than no test is an inaccurate test,” Chris Whitty, the UK’s chief medical adviser, said on 25 March. Someone wrongly told they have already had covid-19 could go out and get infected.
How accurate do the tests need to be? “It’s very difficult to say,” says Emily Adams at the Liverpool School of Tropical Medicine in the UK, who is helping assess the tests developed by Mologic, one of the companies supplying the UK.
(Excerpt) Read more at newscientist.com ...
And yes it could have gone for good lengths in younger communities without being detected.
If there is a lot of immunity, we need to know and stop this hiding.
I say test everyone.
we are already under house arrest and have spent trillions.
public deserves to know the real number and people should know if they’ve already had it. One less thing to worry about.
I believe that many people had this in December and called it the flu prior to wide spread testing. My prediction is that the collection of antibodies from those that have recovered and giving these antibodies to the serious cases will be an important path to limit fatalities.
We have a winner
and we can still prioritize active cases, symptomatic people, people with conditional risks, etc.
when things ‘normalize’, swab people everywhere
“upon re-entry to offices” etc.
also at gen. practitioner office visits.
also at schools
cover the country at all levels.
we are in a world where those with hiv/aids fight to hide their status from potential sex partners
we are told “don’t stigmatize those with certain diseases”.
Then “we” need to take this same stance on CV19.
I believe that’s the case too
certainly in January and February.
After the pandemic has burned itself out and the bodies are buried, they may decide a treatment is effective or a vaccine is safe. For now, they can recommend nothing.
Meantime, you have a choice between folk remedies, aquarium cleaner, or just sweat it out.
Clearly.
This is a game changer if they rush to make this test widely the default test.
“Genetic tests also detect only active infections.”
That’s the key. You may have already been exposed in the virus failed or you fought it off.
If enough of the population has been exposed and has antibodies then the whole effort to rush out an emergency vaccine is a waste because we would already be building up a herd immunity.
I would laugh if we discovered 90% of everyone has already been exposed and have antibodies.
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