Any updates on testing for covid antibodies to get a feel for how many people got it but never knew or were tested for the active virus?

Agreed! This should be a national priority. If this virus has been circulating in the populace for the past 2 or 3 months (or maybe even longer) there should be a large number of persons that show antibodies. Knowing that would (should?) give the entire country a great sense of hope and would cause further questions about whether the various other approaches we are taking are really needed. Either way, at least we would know.

I am slightly intrigued by this topic.... So I will bump it.

In 2012, I had contraced something that the doctors could not diagnose but it displayed the exact same symptoms as COVID-19.

103 degree fever for 5 straight days
A fever for 7 total days
Loss of appetite
Constant, uncontrolable coughing
Congestion
Negative flu tests
Constant fatigue

I lost about 7 pounds but made it through it.

Best thing is people would know they've had it, and assumed immunity

It would be huge for updating models of spread rate and upper threshold for number of cases.

This thread has some good information about serological testing
for SARS-CoV-2

Using antibodies as treatment is also being studied

Looks like the UK has one.


https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8152117/Millions-new-coronavirus-testing-kits-ready-order-Amazon-matter-days.html

Quote:

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Millions of finger-***** coronavirus home-tests could be ready to order on Amazon or pick up in Boots in a matter of days, according to Public Health England.

Sharon Peacock, of PHE's National Infection Service, said 3.5million antibody tests the Government has bought will be available in the 'near future'.

Asked whether these could be within several days, she told the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee 'absolutely'.

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texaggierm said:

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Looks like the UK has one.


https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-8152117/Millions-new-coronavirus-testing-kits-ready-order-Amazon-matter-days.html

Quote:

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Millions of finger-***** coronavirus home-tests could be ready to order on Amazon or pick up in Boots in a matter of days, according to Public Health England.

Sharon Peacock, of PHE's National Infection Service, said 3.5million antibody tests the Government has bought will be available in the 'near future'.

Asked whether these could be within several days, she told the House of Commons Science and Technology Committee 'absolutely'.

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"Professor Peacock explained a small number of tests would be tested in a laboratory before being distributed via Amazon and in places like Boots.

She added: 'Once we are assured that they do work, they will be rolled out into the community. Testing the test is a small matter, and I anticipate that it will be done by the end of this week."

They don't even know if they work yet.

Henry Schein announces the availability of a Covid-19 point-of-care antibody rapid test

austinaggie2003 said:

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Henry Schein announces the availability of a Covid-19 point-of-care antibody rapid test

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That seems huge.

Not just for the antibody angle. Would be awesome to relieve stress from folks that already faced this thing.

The town of telluride and the county is getting the antibody test. 8000 residents and it requires a blood draw. A part time T-ride residents owns a multinational biomedical testing company

Perhaps some of our experts would have an answer. Could we take blood samples and store them while we wait for accurate and inexpensive tests? That is surely cost prohibitive on a big scale, but carefully selected smaller populations with testing at intervals might provide some really helpful information about rate of spread.

That information might be particularly valuable for designing an ongoing testing strategy. I hate to think we will still have enormous data holes when trying to decide how to plan for next Fall and Winter.

the telluride test is good because you can see if the test works and get an accurate view of the community. sampling could definitely help develop a community overview. lots of disparity betweens communities on infection rates. More testing is needed both for the antibodies and current infections

The antibody test is the test that restarts the economy.

that an effective treatment regimen that keeps people from needing ventilators

plain_o_llama said:

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Perhaps some of our experts would have an answer. Could we take blood samples and store them while we wait for accurate and inexpensive tests? That is surely cost prohibitive on a big scale, but carefully selected smaller populations with testing at intervals might provide some really helpful information about rate of spread.

That information might be particularly valuable for designing an ongoing testing strategy. I hate to think we will still have enormous data holes when trying to decide how to plan for next Fall and Winter.

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yes we should be able to do that. That will be one of the most important studies we do when this is over and one that everyone will want to see.

The question will be can we get enough samples (the N) that are truly representative of a large region, or will we only have studies of a smaller geographical location say of Washington state and not the country.

plain_o_llama said:

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Perhaps some of our experts would have an answer. Could we take blood samples and store them while we wait for accurate and inexpensive tests? That is surely cost prohibitive on a big scale, but carefully selected smaller populations with testing at intervals might provide some really helpful information about rate of spread.

That information might be particularly valuable for designing an ongoing testing strategy. I hate to think we will still have enormous data holes when trying to decide how to plan for next Fall and Winter.

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Plasma can be stored a while but it is unlikely. The real goal is a viral load test that requires fresh samples (less than 30 days old). Theoretically it can be done on blood spots/dried samples but it's not anywhere near as useful/good.

Any real population study would want fresh samples, is the bottom line...

Just my naive spitballing but I was thinking such things as:

Take samples from ER and hospital staff and see how the spread through the population evolves.

If there are places with schools still open, take snapshots of school age children, and the local ER, and clinic traffic over time.

Get samples from staff and residents in Assisted Living facilities and for all new arrivals and deaths.

I'm sure others would have better and certainly more informed ideas.

Thanks. Texags expertise coming through. :-)

Squadron7 said:

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The antibody test is the test that restarts the economy.

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Well, then it sucks that HS will only have 100s of thousands of tests by the 30th and "ramp production significantly after that". We are still seeing problems with people getting tests when there are millions of the RT-PCR tests a week.

nortex97 said:

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plain_o_llama said:

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Perhaps some of our experts would have an answer. Could we take blood samples and store them while we wait for accurate and inexpensive tests? That is surely cost prohibitive on a big scale, but carefully selected smaller populations with testing at intervals might provide some really helpful information about rate of spread.

That information might be particularly valuable for designing an ongoing testing strategy. I hate to think we will still have enormous data holes when trying to decide how to plan for next Fall and Winter.

---

Plasma can be stored a while but it is unlikely. The real goal is a viral load test that requires fresh samples (less than 30 days old). Theoretically it can be done on blood spots/dried samples but it's not anywhere near as useful/good.

Any real population study would want fresh samples, is the bottom line...

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Looking at antibodies, not viral load.

BiochemAg97 said:

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Squadron7 said:

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The antibody test is the test that restarts the economy.

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Well, then it sucks that HS will only have 100s of thousands of tests by the 30th and "ramp production significantly after that". We are still seeing problems with people getting tests when there are millions of the RT-PCR tests a week.

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As an old, I don't see myself watching any sports not on TV before 1) I either contract and recover from the virus, 2) treatment regimens along with improved stats show that the virus kill rate is way lower than what is being thrown about now, or, ultimately, 3) a vaccine. Not just sports. Any big events.

It was probably something else, but it is quite a coincidence that myself and several people in my area got sick in October and November 2019 and had very similar symptoms and duration. Since the disease hasn't been detected in my county, I wondered if I could have blood drawn and tested when an antibody test is available.

Yes, I was thinking about whether antibodies are easily preserved.

Here is an article about the effort to run a serology test on all 8000 people in San Miguel County, Colorado.
Their plan is to gather samples from everyone at one point, then retest everyone 14 days later.
https://coloradosun.com/2020/03/20/telluride-san-miguel-county-coronavirus-covid19-testing/

Here is another general article about serology test efforts

https://www.wired.com/story/researchers-push-for-mass-blood-tests-as-a-covid-19-strategy/

highlights....

The Netherlands is going to start testing each blood donation for Covid-19 antibodies.

and

"Of all the data out there, if there was a good serological assay that was very specific about individuating recent cases, that would be the best data we could have," says Alex Perkins, an epidemiologist at the University of Notre Dame. The key, he says, is drawing blood from a representative sample that would show the true scope of unobserved infections.

Normally, to do that, serological testing might be done in the twilight of an outbreak, as a kind of epidemiological postmortem. Researchers might do a randomized survey, picking 1 percent of people in a particular area for testing, says Martin Hibberd, a professor of infectious diseases at the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine. Then they would gather samples and run them in big batches. After the 2009 H1N1 outbreak in Mexico, such testing allowed researchers to determine that the mortality was far lower than initially feared.

But with the severity of the Covid-19 outbreak, researchers around the world are racing to get tests out there quickly. "We haven't really rolled them out on a very large scale for any other disease," Hibberd says. The first serological tests for Covid-19 were developed in China and Singaporepartly because both had cases early on, but also because both places were hit hard by SARS and continued to invest in understanding coronavirus-related diseases while funding dried up elsewhere. That gave the countries a head start in developing the tests, due to similarities in the antibodies the two coronaviruses cause our bodies to produce.

Really good idea to test every donation for antibodies. If it comes out antibody positive, could use the IgG for treatment.

If this test is accurate, easy, and about to come online, why is this not bigger news?

RandyAg98 said:

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If this test is accurate, easy, and about to come online, why is this not bigger news?

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Good question. This is just speculation, but they probably haven't made enough of them yet to really be an option. You know one of those, "hey we have this test to show who has had the virus already, but we can only make a million tests a week right now and there are 7 billion people in the world, so just be patient"

RCR06 said:

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RandyAg98 said:

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If this test is accurate, easy, and about to come online, why is this not bigger news?

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Good question. This is just speculation, but they probably haven't made enough of them yet to really be an option. You know one of those, "hey we have this test to show who has had the virus already, but we can only make a million tests a week right now and there are 7 billion people in the world, so just be patient"

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We need to shark tank this sh*t. Bezos, Gates, Cuban...scale it up!

RCR06 said:

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RandyAg98 said:

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If this test is accurate, easy, and about to come online, why is this not bigger news?

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Good question. This is just speculation, but they probably haven't made enough of them yet to really be an option. You know one of those, "hey we have this test to show who has had the virus already, but we can only make a million tests a week right now and there are 7 billion people in the world, so just be patient"

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Exactly, they are talking about having "hundreds of thousands" by the end of the month and scaling from there.