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Covid antibodies, are you going to do the test? No test promises protective immunity yet....

pattismith

Senior Member
Messages
3,931
Coronavirus antibodies found in 21% of New Yorkers in early testing
Published: April 23, 2020 at 6:51 p.m. ET

FDA approves coronavirus antibody test that boasts near-perfect accuracy


By Jackie Salo


May 3, 2020 | 1:03pm | Updated


The Food and Drug Administration gave emergency approval to a COVID-19 antibody test that boasts near-perfect accuracy, the company said Sunday.
Swiss drugmaker Roche said the new test, which determines whether someone had a past infection, has proven 100% accurate at detecting antibodies in the blood and 99.8% accurate at ruling out the presence of them.
The company said the test requires intravenous blood draws, with higher accuracy than finger-prick tests.
“If you take blood from a finger prick, you will never be able to achieve the same level of specificity that you will achieve … when you take blood from the vein,” Thomas Schinecker, the company’s head of diagnostics, said.
“You have to have very, very high specificity. Even 0.1% or 0.2% makes a difference.”
Schinecker said the tests are an important step in determining whether someone may have immunity, but acknowledged that more research is required to determine whether antibodies protect people from being reinfected.
“Since this virus is not well known, one can hypothesize, but the proof will take longer,” Schinecker said. “Testing these people … is key to seeing whether or not people really have developed immunity.”
 

pogoman

Senior Member
Messages
292
It would be something I'd like to be tested for once things settle down.
I tested high for IGA and IGM antibodies beginning of January with no obvious infections or illness.
With news of asymptomatic covid spreaders and a pretty high percentage of those from a certain country in my neighborhood it makes one wonder :wide-eyed:
 

Judee

Psalm 46:1-3
Messages
4,461
Location
Great Lakes
I would want me and my mom tested so that we could move about again if we already have the mature antibodies. We both felt sick back in March but we never get the flu like other people get the flu so it makes me wonder.

When she went into the hospital in January, they were almost full capacity with "flu" patients. I wonder if some of them were actually covid-19 patients. The medical staff didn't wear any masks around us so I do think it's possible we got exposed already.
 

pattismith

Senior Member
Messages
3,931
All the antibody tests available for now are supposed to tell you if you were infected.

Pasteur-TheraVectys Lab in France revealed they made the first test that can tell if you have protective immunity against covid (test for seroneutralizing antibodies).

But the french health authorities said no to commercialization (they don't want to make it available to general population)...yeah...o_O

https://www.time24.news/t24/2020/04...-precision-on-the-degree-of-immunization.html


;;;
 
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Pearshaped

Senior Member
Messages
580
I wanted to get tested but have become wondering if it makes any sense,bec if the virus is going to mutate in Autumn,one could fall ill with it again,hypotethically,right?

Roche is first and foremost BIG PHARMA,I dont trust them TBH.

I mean,they could claim the test IS accurate,but how do we know for sure?
There has so much baloney benn going on fir the past weeks.I became totally insecure in what to believe and what not to believe.
 

andyguitar

Moderator
Messages
6,595
Location
South east England
@andyguitar Dont you suppose it was in the UK too?
Yes I do. In the last couple of months a dozen or more people (some I know very well) have said they had something they thought was the same as covid, but that they thought it could'nt be as they were ill last December long before it was here. As the date for probable community transmission has moved back in usa and France to Dec/Jan I don't see why it would not have come here last year.
 

Booble

Senior Member
Messages
1,397
I'm curious as well if my Dec/January virus was COVID-19 and will be interested in the antibody test at some point. The thing to keep in mind though is that we don't yet know if those antibodies provide immunity from re-infection. So at this point if you take the test and find that you did have COVID-19, you can not assume that gives you a free pass. Hopefully they will find that to be the case and will also know how long that natural immunity lasts.
 

Booble

Senior Member
Messages
1,397
I'm in Hawaii, Andy. I got sick around December 5th/6th. I was living in downtown Honolulu (I go back and forth between Kauai and Oahu) at the edge of Chinatown. It was an odd feeling cold focused heavily around my vocal cord area. About 5 days in I got conjunctivitis in my left eye. Coughing got bad. I thought I was turning the corner after about 15 days and I went home to Kauai. I then I got the stomach problems, loss of appetite, loss of smell and really bad fatigue.
 

andyguitar

Moderator
Messages
6,595
Location
South east England
Coughing got bad. I thought I was turning the corner after about 15 days and I went home to Kauai. I then I got the stomach problems, loss of appetite, loss of smell and really bad fatigue.
Sounds suspicious to me. Cough is the common symptom that I've heard about. And the loss of sense of smell. You sound like someone who should be a candidate for a test when they come available.