Antibody Testing Could Help Us Get Back to Normal, but Questions Remain

in the short term. Rachel Becker, reporter at cal Matters, joins us for how antibody testing could help, but there are still many questions left to be answered. Thanks for joining us, Rachel, Thanks for inviting me. Everyone is very curious about how and when we can all get back to normal. When can we start going back to work, when can we start loosening up on the social distancing And one of the things that a lot of people

are pointing to and talking about is antibody testing. You know, it shows that you might have gotten coronavirus already and gotten over it. They're looking to people that have gotten over it to possibly harvest some of their plasma to help others. But the other thing too, is okay, so you have these antibodies, maybe you're immune to it for a few months a short period of time. We can get back into the workforce, we can get back to normal.

So a lot of people are looking forward to something like this, but there's still a lot of questions about it. Rachel tell us a little bit about that. Antibodies are immune proteins that attack viruses and other pathogens, and they form as part of the immune response to a virus like stars Covey to the virus that causes the disease

known as COVID nineteen. And so the hope is that by testing for antibodies, researchers public health workers will be able to identify those who have already had the virus and who have fought it off and survived. There are a couple of ways these antibody tests could be used epidemiologically. They're really valuable for tracking the spread of the virus, understanding the true fatality rate, and for being able to see where it's spread, who gets sickest, who dozen't, and why.

But then there's this other conversation that's happening that you just mentioned about using antibody tests to try to maybe selectively lift the shelter in place order that we have here in California, and that's cropping up across the country. You know, maybe folks who have antibodies should be sent to the front lines. That's definitely a possibility that's been floated. But healthcare professionals, scientists that I've spoke to urge caution.

There's still a lot we don't know about the immune response to uh stars, covie too, to the novel coronavirush. We don't know how strong the antibody response is. We don't know what level of antibodies are considered protective. We don't know if everybody makes the right kinds of antibodies to be protective, and we don't know how long that protection lasts. So they're just still so many unknowns to to start putting people's safety on the line. Testing, testing, testing,

it's all about testing. We're still barely it seems like we're getting starting to gain a handle on actually testing people for the virus. But on the antibody testing side, there are a few tests that are there, and I know in some areas of starting those tests on people, but we're still a little ways from getting this ramped up. Yeah, there have definitely been some studies that are going on

across the country. CDC has one, other research groups, Violent Research Institute, and others are using antibody tests to again, you know, trace the virus um as an academic question. Stanford, though recently launched a lab developed test on April six at Stanford Healthcare and the idea for that test is to determine which healthcare workers might be at lower risk for working with COVID nineteen patients. And I say, you know, lower risk because we don't know exactly how much protection

antibodies confer at this time. Going back to whether you know, you get COVID nineteen, you get over it, and if you have this immunity towards it enough anybodies to help you throughout that. There have been some studies, some preliminary findings that I think they've done these studies and monkeys they were infected maybe a month later, they were still immune to it. Tell us a little bit about what we know on that, and I know we don't know much.

It's just we're trying to piece it together as we go. Yeah, we know so little about reinfection. Still, there have been some reports of people potentially getting reinfected with the novel coronavirus, but there is some doubt that the folks who were reported as getting reinfected had actually cleared the virus from their systems. It may have been more of a flare up of the virus as as they recovered and not reinfection.

But researchers have done some studies and monkeys where they infected the monkeys and then you know, watched their inner bodies go up, and then a month later they tried to reinfect the monkeys and the monkeys were not susceptible to reinfection. So a bunch of infectious disease experts wrote an article d of just assessing the state of coronavirus research,

and they wrote that that was reassuring. So we'll need a lot more of these studies, will need a long term follow up of people who have recovered to really understand it. But as those uh, the infectious disease experts wrote, it was reassuring about short term immunity that's different from long term immunity and stars too, I mean like a

loose cousin of COVID nineteen. They've done some long term follow ups on people that survived that, and they've seen stuff that suggests some of their antibodies lasted for about two years or so. But one of the worst case scenarios that everybody we want to avoid our you know,

this false sense of security from it. These tests are so new and we don't know much about the stars COVIE two yet, is that you know, there could be some false positive test results things like that, and we don't want to get some of these types of test results and then send people back into the workforce and have other outbreaks exactly exactly, and um, it's it's possible with a poorly designed test that it will pick up antibodies to other coronaviruses, you know, not just stars or mirrors,

but also the mild coronavirus is that folks might get seasonal cults from UH and so poorly designed test, it's possible that it could pick up those antibodies and then you get that false positive, and that false positive is the worst case scenario where folks will think that they're

protected and that they're not UH. This could you know, if if this shelter in place orders is lifted too soon on the basis of imperfect tests, it could allow for the spread to ramp back up, which is really I would be a terrible thing for public health and for the hospitals that are already doing the best they can to care for and to cope with the patients

they're seeing right now. We did mention a bit ago about how there are some places that are starting to do this type of testing, either Stanford or the CDC, But do we have a sense of when these might be able to be ramped up and more people can start getting these type of tests. It's really an open question, and it's an important question. Stanford just launched it for healthcare workers. One test has received emergency use authorization from

the Food and Drug Administration. But given the problems we've seen with the supply chain and with ramping up of the diagnostic tests that look for the virus, the called the PCR tests, I think it's really an open question whether antibody tests will be able to ramp up quickly and really, especially at the scale we would need to start saying, okay, like folks can start re entering the workforce,

life can start going back to two normal. Rachel Becker, reporter at cal Matters, thank you very much for joining us. Thanks so much for inviting me. I'm Oscar Ramirez and this has been your daily coronavirus update. Don't forget that. For today's big news stories, you can check me out on the Daily Dive podcast every Monday through Friday, so follow us in I Heart radio or wherever you get your podcast. LAS