Antibody tests

[Mordac]

I'm surprised you sleep at night. You seem to be in a constant state of panic. Stress and tension are the lasts things you want at the moment fella ..... they will lower your immunity and open the door to illnesses like a cold, flu or some other such virus

Instead of worry about all the stuff you have no control over, just worry and act on those areas of your life that you can control.

Steady on, he can barely control his bladder...

[malvolio]

Our body takes some time to generate an antibody against a virus when our body is infected. So, would antibody testing be useful to identify infected people quickly?

Yes, if it is both Covid-19 specific and 100% reliable. That may take a while; there are lots of coronaviruses, there was a nasty one going around just before Christmas for example.

The other factor that has a bearing is that any such testing of samples has to be done in a certified Cat-3 containment cabinet or you risk wiping out the testers. Such things are not all that common outside virology and bacteriology labs and a few specialised private companies.

[AtW]

“ Senior health officials are facing demands to reveal how much has been spent on millions of inaccurate coronavirus antibody tests, after it emerged that payments had been guaranteed even if the kits failed to work.”

“ Health chiefs said kits could be made available through Amazon and Boots once they had been proved to work. ”

“ Scientists have discovered that although the tests can show that a person has been infected with a coronavirus, they cannot adequately differentiate between the virus that is causing the current Covid-19 outbreak and other types of coronavirus –which just cause colds.”

Reveal cost of 3.5m unusable Covid-19 tests, health chiefs told | World news | The Guardian



I reckon Ministers of the Crown were promised test would detect coronavirus (which includes common cold), so it probably technically works so no refunds, fkining morons

[AtW]

UK coronavirus antibody test validated – but results show under-40s may not be immune

[Hobosapien]

Any actual news of an antibody test for this specific virus that works as needed?

Without one then a vaccine is a non-starter if the antibodies either don't exist for long, or are indistinguishable enough from other coronaviruses that these tests so far are obviously made to detect and being sold to muppet governments wanting to test for covid-19 only.

[Old Greg]

Any actual news of an antibody test for this specific virus that works as needed?

Without one then a vaccine is a non-starter if the antibodies either don't exist for long, or are indistinguishable enough from other coronaviruses that these tests so far are obviously made to detect and being sold to muppet governments wanting to test for covid-19 only.

Effective vaccines existed before antibody tests.

[Hobosapien]

Effective vaccines existed before antibody tests.

Cool. It'll all blow over soon.

[NotAllThere]

Yes, if it is both Covid-19 specific and 100% reliable.

It's never going to be 100% reliable. But 99.99% certainty that a positive result is correct will do. 10% chance of an incorrect negative result, for example, isn't an issue,

UK coronavirus antibody test validated – but results show under-40s may not be immune

Perhaps you'd like to quote the bit that says that. The first paragraph says

Tests aimed at determining whether Britons have recovered from coronavirus may not be useful because younger people do not produce sufficient quantities of antibodies to the virus, early research suggests.

That at least doesn't mean that they're not immune. It just means they don't produce enough antibodies for the test.

Effective vaccines existed before antibody tests.

Effective vaccines existed before any virus was observed. They assumed that if they couldn't find a bacterial agent, then it was probably caused by something too small to detect - and they called that "a virus".

[vetran]

Not refused. Just not responded. Only they have!

PHE said that they only have a “very small number” of positive blood samples containing coronavirus antibodies, so had not been able to share them with private companies.

“The Government wants as many labs as possible to support the scaling up of the UK’s testing capacity and any commercial companies that can help should contact the DHSC,” said Dr Yvonne Doyle, Medical Director at PHE.

“PHE has only a very small number of positive blood samples. It takes time for an immune response to develop; for most people infected in the UK, this will have been in the past six weeks and so their blood is only now reaching maturity to be used in this capacity.

hmm so Mike the patient tested positive and saw no ill effects. Next question "Hey Mike can we take a pint of blood to share with the labs making vaccines & tests? You get a free cup of tea and a biscuit"

John the patient died from Covid is he a donor? Ask the family can we take the blood? The undertaker would remove it anyway while embalming.

[NotAllThere]

UK coronavirus antibody test validated – but results show under-40s may not be immune

OK, I've read the whole article now - using a browser with java script switched off means you don't need to register - and there are two points.

1. Younger people are producing fewer antibodies. This does not mean they are not immune.
2. Younger people may be fighting of the virus without creating antibodies. Instead they use Natural Killer Cells. This could mean that they risk reinfection.