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New Abbott SARS-CoV-2 antibody test has 99.90% specificity and 100% sensitivity

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Re: New Abbott SARS-CoV-2 antibody test has 99.90% specificity and 100% sensitivity

#31

Post by pjc50 »

Cerium wrote: post #8
pgcudahy wrote: post #6

There seems to be no analysis of whether these are neutralizing antibodies. The idea of using serology for immunity certificates or "golden tickets" is never going to go well. Even with 99.9% specificity, if the population prevalence is 1%, 10% of positives will be false positives. If in real world testing, specificity is 99% and population prevalence is 1%, then 50% of positives are false positives.

If we want to ensure that the active population is always above herd immunity threshold, 10% or 20% false positives would be acceptable, since the population in contact would still be 80 or 90% immune.

Reminder that at the moment this cannot happen without 1% of them dying and many more suffering long lasting or even permanent debilitation.

If we ever get to the point where 80% of the population has had the virus, that would be a massive failure.

Re: New Abbott SARS-CoV-2 antibody test has 99.90% specificity and 100% sensitivity

#32

Post by mlyle »

m4rtink wrote: post #13

Cool, it's nice to see progress on antibody tests - the early Chinese ones in use here in Czech Republic are reportedly (accordingly to local news articles) rather noisy. Still preaty nice when they work, as you only need a drop of blood & get results in 10 minutes vs sample swabbing & complicated PCR sample processing taking up to a day.

A bigger issue than the specificity of the antibody tests is that they're generally not positive until you're nearly recovered. This confines their use to specific purposes (assessing whether someone may be immune, estimating true infection fatality rates, etc).

Re: New Abbott SARS-CoV-2 antibody test has 99.90% specificity and 100% sensitivity

#33

Post by charliea0 »

It is refreshing to read a headline about an antibody test that conveys useful information about specificity and sensitivity rates. This really helps to inform about how useful a test could be for serological surveys.

Well done Hacker News.

Re: New Abbott SARS-CoV-2 antibody test has 99.90% specificity and 100% sensitivity

#34

Post by cma »

pjc50 wrote: post #31
Cerium wrote: post #8

Earlier quoted context omitted.

If we want to ensure that the active population is always above herd immunity threshold, 10% or 20% false positives would be acceptable, since the population in contact would still be 80 or 90% immune.

Reminder that at the moment this cannot happen without 1% of them dying and many more suffering long lasting or even permanent debilitation. If we ever get to the point where 80% of the population has had the virus, that would be a massive failure.

And the immunity may only last a year or two.

Re: New Abbott SARS-CoV-2 antibody test has 99.90% specificity and 100% sensitivity

#37

Post by guscost »

> Our serological validation was chiefly limited by use of excess serum specimens from a mostly hospitalized population known to be very recently infected with SARS-CoV-2.

Basically, this test may not be as sensitive (or patients may not seroconvert as often) with mild or asymptomatic cases. To avoid this problem we should run a two-part study, the first part a PCR test of a large random sample, and the second part a follow-up to measure antibodies. Has anyone heard about a study of this kind that may be in progress?

Re: New Abbott SARS-CoV-2 antibody test has 99.90% specificity and 100% sensitivity

#38

Post by cerebral_oasis »

I took this antibody test through LabCorp on Friday and tested positive. I have been in strict (see: paranoid) isolation with one other person since March 7 and haven't felt sick or anything close to it since then.

I did have what I thought was a strange flu/cold early February with a sore throat, post-nasal drip, wildly varying body temperature, and lower back pains. In hindsight those are COVID-19 symptoms.

the person I live with took the same Abbott Architect antibody test from LabCorp today so that we can compare results and hopefully eliminate any false positives.

more info on the test: https://www.corelaboratory.abbott/us/en/offerings/segments/i...

FDA article from 05/07/2020 on serology test performance including the Abbott Architect from OP: https://www.fda.gov/medical-devices/emergency-situations-med...

Re: New Abbott SARS-CoV-2 antibody test has 99.90% specificity and 100% sensitivity

#39

Post by jedberg »

cerebral_oasis wrote: post #38

I took this antibody test through LabCorp on Friday and tested positive. I have been in strict (see: paranoid) isolation with one other person since March 7 and haven't felt sick or anything close to it since then. I did have what I thought was a strange flu/cold early February with a sore throat, post-nasal drip, wildly varying body temperature, and lower back pains. In hindsight those are COVID-19 symptoms. the per…

I've been waiting for a decent serum test because both my wife and I had "the flu" with symptoms consistent with COVID-19, me in mid-January and her in late February.

How did you get the test?

Re: New Abbott SARS-CoV-2 antibody test has 99.90% specificity and 100% sensitivity

#40

Post by guscost »

cerebral_oasis wrote: post #38

I took this antibody test through LabCorp on Friday and tested positive. I have been in strict (see: paranoid) isolation with one other person since March 7 and haven't felt sick or anything close to it since then. I did have what I thought was a strange flu/cold early February with a sore throat, post-nasal drip, wildly varying body temperature, and lower back pains. In hindsight those are COVID-19 symptoms. the per…

Just took the Quest version today. I traveled a lot in February but only felt mildly under-the-weather once, so it's a long shot. Even if I was exposed, we don't really know the seroconversion rates for mild/asymptomatic cases.
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