Antibody testing to begin next week

How reliable is the antibody test?

Can I go somewhere and get the test?

I know that it's no guarantee of immunity, but it would be reassuring to know that you did have it and have probably built up some immunity.

Brendan
 
I presume you can volunteer but I am guessing it will be controlled to ensure they get a proper selection of the population.
 
A recent study in Stockholm showed just 7% had antibodies by the end of April. They were expecting 30%.

Roche and Abbotts lab based blood tests claim close to 100% sensitivity (ability to detect positive samples as positive) and greater than 99% specificity (ability to detect negative samples as negative).
 
What's the danger of a false positive for antibodies? This could lead inadvertently to very risky behaviour for the tested person and his/her contacts.
 
Good explanation of it here but it's from the 8th May with the Biomednomics test. (More recent tests may be more reliable)

www.theguardian.com

How to understand Covid-19 antibody testing in 10 steps

Inaccuracies in the testing, such as false negatives and false positives, are potentially harmful
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com

For those who suspect that they had it

18% false negatives
13% false positives



losttheplot said:
Roche and Abbotts lab based blood tests claim close to 100% sensitivity (ability to detect positive samples as positive) and greater than 99% specificity (ability to detect negative samples as negative).
Click to expand...

If these figures are accurate, the Guardian article needs to be rewritten.

Brendan
 
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I had mild symptoms back in March. I don't know if I had it or not.

If I could do a Roche test with 100% correct positivity, I would certainly do it.

If I get a positive result, what are the implications?

1) There is a 99% chance that I had Covid.
2) I have probably built up some immunity
3) But I am not completely immune
4) I will continue to be cautious until there is a vaccine.
5) I will continue to keep an eye out for symptoms e.g. fevers or coughs.

I will certainly visit friends and go into their houses which I am not doing at present.
I would go to a restaurant or pub with seating
I would definitely cycle and drive further. The thing I miss most is walking in the mountains.
I don't need to attend any mass gatherings, so I won't.
If I were allowed to travel abroad, I would probably do so. But it would not be essential, so, on reflection, I probably wouldn't.


If I get a negative result
1) There is a 99% chance that I have no immunity
2) So I would continue to be very careful

But it depends on personal circumstances
I am retired so I don't need to commute to a working environment with other people.
 
I for one would like to know if I already caught the Covid-19.
I would pay for my own antibody test. Provided that it was under €10 or €20. And not €150 or more like the official test up to now.
I was abroad in early January and had a bit of a cough and sniffles when I came home for a couple of days. I was blaming it on bad beer.
 
Brendan Burgess said:
Good explanation of it here but it's from the 8th May with the Biomednomics test. (More recent tests may be more reliable)

www.theguardian.com

How to understand Covid-19 antibody testing in 10 steps

Inaccuracies in the testing, such as false negatives and false positives, are potentially harmful
www.theguardian.com www.theguardian.com

For those who suspect that they had it

18% false negatives
13% false positives





If these figures are accurate, the Guardian article needs to be rewritten.

Brendan
Click to expand...
I think the Guardian article is only considering the rapid tests.

I think the intention of antibody testing is more for a snapshot of the overall population rather than for the individual. For mass population testing, sensitivity below 99% would probably be no use.
www.evaluate.com

Resources

Read Evaluate's latest blogs, reports, webinars and thought leadership for detailed analysis of the state of the biopharma market.
www.evaluate.com www.evaluate.com
As the prevalence of the disease is quite low, the overall false positives would be high.
 
Purple said:
Does that mean the disease is far less contagious than previously thought or are Sweden's control measures effective (or both)?
Click to expand...
It could be both. It knocks the herd immunity approach back, they were expecting a much higher infection rate.
 
RichInSpirit said:
I for one would like to know if I already caught the Covid-19.
I would pay for my own antibody test. Provided that it was under €10 or €20. And not €150 or more like the official test up to now.
I was abroad in early January and had a bit of a cough and sniffles when I came home for a couple of days. I was blaming it on bad beer.
Click to expand...
The lab based test cost are being estimated between $25-$50. This would only be the cost of the test. Additional cost would be taking the blood sample, transport etc. Costs would go down as volume goes up.
 
Roche, Abbott Siemens are now all offering antibody testing (Siemens claim theirs is the best) so most of the big boys are in the game. Expect prices to drop.
 
Abbot tests are more accurate up to 40 days since suspected infection.
Roche tests are more accurate after 40 days since suspected infection.
The wholesale cost of these tests (not including lab work) is about €6.

Brendan, there is a company in Dublin offering the test. The name escapes me. They were advertising on google ads last week. They were charging €120. Their ad is not coming up now but they may disable ads over the weekend. I got an antibody test from the UK.
 
Great article on the topic in the FT by David Crow is the FT’s US coronavirus correspondent

www.ft.com

Will antibody tests be our passport to normality? | Free to read

David Crow on the complications — and consequences — of testing for coronavirus immunity
www.ft.com www.ft.com

I think that the FT is making its Coronavirus stuff free to read.


“The hope was that we’d roll out the testing, find lots of people with antibodies, infer many people are immune, and we can start going back to our regular lives,” says Lloyd Minor, dean of Stanford University’s school of medicine. “By anyone’s measure, we’re nowhere close to that.”

...

Given all the uncertainty, it is perhaps unsurprising that many public-health experts have greeted the arrival of antibody tests with scepticism. Some fear that people who do test positive for antibodies will start behaving irresponsibly and stop adhering to blunt but effective measures such as lockdowns and social distancing that have managed to slow the spread of the disease. “If you test positive for IgG, I don’t think there is any science out there that says you don’t have to follow the rules,” says Dr Rajiv Shah, who ran the US Agency for International Development between 2010 and 2015 before becoming president of the Rockefeller Foundation. “If we start using the results in a way that’s not backed up by science, people could end up doing some risky things. It is not a licence to do anything that you’re not already allowed to do.”
 
I can't find any recent data on testing figures. Did the HSE get to their figure of 100,000 tests per day by the 18th of May?
 
Some good news about resistance and immunity levels. Those who were exposed to SARS still show high levels of reactive T-Cells 17 years later and those T-Cells also protect from Covid19. It was also found that about 50% of those examined who were never exposed to SARS or Covid19 had high levels of resistive T-Cells. In other words there seems to be a high levels of natural resistance to Covid19 in the general population.
 
My wife is being antibody tested. There are three separate tests:
Pin-prick
**************************
ANOther

She’s had the pin-prick test.The results came back within an hour. She tested negative for antibodies. There were 49 others tested that day. They all tested negative.

When she was sick with the virus she was ill for 15 days. I’ve read that you need to be sick for 10 days or more to develop antibodies and that’s why the very mild cases have zero antibodies and there have been re-infection cases.

I think they’re focussing on those that tested positive for C19 first, then their close contacts. I’ve been lined up (I had the bug but wasn’t tested for it) for the test but it could be a few weeks.
 
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