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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

#111

Post by kevin_thibedeau »

ardit33 wrote: post #101

I took this test this Friday (Quest Direct) in NYC and tested negative. In late Feb. I had a 'flu like symptoms' with fever and massive headache for few days. What worried me later is that I had the 'can't taste anything' symptom a week later. No coughing though. If you read online, you see people swear they had it at some point this winter. So, if you had a 'flu like' symptoms in Feb or early March, perhaps it was j…

If the government was serious about homeland security and restoring the economy they would be subsidizing testing full boat.

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

#112

Post by CameronNemo »

rconti wrote: post #79
danans wrote: post #53

It seems like a voluntary test for someone without symptoms is of limited value to the individual (beyond their individual curiosity) since we don't know enough either way about reinfection risk at this point, and the result is not terribly actionable - you can't just walk into stores without a mask because you have a positive antibody test - nobody is going to trust your lab result printout as a reason to avoid publ…

Agreed, but even on the individual level it could be helpful. Visit family members, while still taking precautions, for example.

Just because you have antibodies does not mean you cannot spread the disease. Antibodies relate to your own body's ability to resist an infection from what I understand.

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

#113

Post by dbancajas »

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…

> 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

where did you get the test and how much?

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

#114

Post by zajio1am »

s1t5 wrote: post #64
jariel wrote: post #52

'Specificity and Sensitivity' are new words that are now going to enter the public consciousness with regards to testing. Before Iraq War 2, in 2003, absolutely nobody knew the difference between a 'Shia' or 'Sunni' Muslim, and then it became more common knowledge. It's neat to see how these events shape awareness. Now every time a Nurse does a test, people will ask "What's the specificity?!" which can be a good or b…

Specificity and sensitivity feel really poorly chosen and difficult to remember. You could swap their definitions and the names of the terms would make just as much sense. I much prefer true positive rate and true negative rate.

Seems to me like pretty intuitive terms. If the test is not sensitive enough, it may miss some cases and have false negatives. If the test is not specific enough, it may be triggered by something different and have false positives.

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

#115

Post by timr »

Scipio_Afri wrote: post #100
timr wrote: post #95

Earlier quoted context omitted.

MERS and SARS are not a huge concern (they never achieved wide circulation), but coronaviruses make up ~40% of what we know as the common cold. That said, if the false positive rate were that high, the specificity of the test would be low.

These tests are not FDA approved, they're being allowed under emergency use authorization. They're not subject to the same rigger as tests normally allowed on the market and the manufacturer's specifications may be overstated.

"They're not subject to the same rigger as tests normally allowed on the market and the manufacturer's specifications may be overstated."

"rigor"

Also, the error bars on these may be wider than is usual for an approved test, but they are just as likely to be understated as overstated.

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

#116

Post by TallGuyShort »

jrockway wrote: post #68
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…

Good anecdote. I also had a "weird cold" in February with symptoms that are unusual for me but typical of COVID-19, and have been waiting to get the antibody test. I kind of expect it to turn out the same way. (Otherwise, I would really like to figure out what the "weird cold" that everyone had in February was. Because it sure was weird, and everyone I know had it.)

This is really only a step above anecdote in terms of sample size, but I know from nurses and doctors at all the nearby hospitals that they reached their capacity for respiratory / ICU cases (which is exceptionally unusual for them) right when the outbreak was supposed to be flaring up here (and what I mean by that is that there was the outbreak in China, then it was reported breaking out in other countries, then it was reported breaking out in Seattle, NY, and the Bay Area, then it was reported breaking out in our state capital and tourist hotspots, and then it broke out here, all in pretty regular succession).

Now, maybe more people went to the hospital precisely because that sequence of reporting led them to think it was serious when they may not have before, so the timing was a self-fulfilling prophecy. Ultimately, we'll really know so little for certain until we've had ubiquitous testing and a lot more time to study this, and the best we can do until then is extrapolate & theorize from what little data we do have. But the "weird cold" stories I've heard from February and even as far back in November just don't seem consistent with what pneumonia patients hospitals have seen - because that's how this was initially noticed as being unusual in Wuhan.

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

#117

Post by bsder »

ardit33 wrote: post #101

I took this test this Friday (Quest Direct) in NYC and tested negative. In late Feb. I had a 'flu like symptoms' with fever and massive headache for few days. What worried me later is that I had the 'can't taste anything' symptom a week later. No coughing though. If you read online, you see people swear they had it at some point this winter. So, if you had a 'flu like' symptoms in Feb or early March, perhaps it was j…

> So, if you had a 'flu like' symptoms in Feb or early March, perhaps it was just that

Please do remember that this was apparently a bad flu season before everybody locked down and the flu vaccine was less effective than average.

It was odd, because, anecdotally, in Southern California flu season seemed to be much better than average, but apparently other parts of the country were getting pounded.

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

#118

Post by JohnTHaller »

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…

The weirdly varying body temperature bit is what most folks I know who were symptomatic had at one point. Not a typical cold or flu response.

Side note: Anytime the rest of my sense of smell wants to wake up would be nice. Sooner would be better.

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

#119

Post by risaacs99 »

elorant wrote: post #110
weaksauce wrote: post #104

Earlier quoted context omitted.

different strains?

Viruses tend to become less lethal as time passes, not more.

I keep reading people asserting this, and I assume it's because we believe that a virus that becomes less lethal would have an evolutionary advantage.

But, wouldn't lengthening the incubation period also be a successful evolutionary strategy regardless of lethality?

It seems to me that there are many possible strategies that a mutating virus might gain an advantage and we shouldn't just assume that the only one that they would use would be to become more mild.

Luckily, sars-cov-2 seems relatively stable.

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