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

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201–210 of 275 posts

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

#201

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.)

I had a weird bout of something in the middle of March. It was a mild fever, general weakness, and a strange pressure in my upper abdomen. It lasted a couple of weeks.

Before that I had gone to see my GP for a med update for refills. Apparently my doctor also saw what would be one our area’s earlier coronavirus patients that same day. I’m presuming I got put into the same waiting room as that guy.

I’d like to try an antibody test, too.

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

#202

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Weird cold" in February checking in. I did not have any temperature variations or fevers, but I got struck with a fatigue like no other. For the first time since I was 3 years old, I took afternoon naps three days in a row because I was just completely wiped out. It's rare for me to take a nap at all (happens maybe once a year)! It took two weeks to get out of this fatigued state. My other symptoms were "chills-like…

Crazy, I had the exact same symptoms during last week of Feb / first week of Mar. I was so wiped out that I was taking naps in a conference room at lunch. A friend of mine caught me and was surprised because normally I work through lunch, let alone sleep. No cough, no fever but just this terribly uncomfortable feeling of congestion in my throat and upper chest. Best thing I can compare it to is postal nasal drip like…

I'm a family physician working in an outpatient office... there's just so many viruses that can explain those types of symptoms that are STILL more common than sars-cov-2.

I saw a 31yo 2/18 with primarily sore throat, aches/feverish (not documented), and again on 2/20 because the sore throat got significantly worse. I started feeling iffy 2/21 (Friday) evening and worse Saturday with a bad sore throat and fever around 102F, lymphadenopathy, this persisted for at least 2 days. I went to work on Tuesday and did a rapid strep (I did not feel I had strep but the other doctor wanted to do it)... I'm not really thinking that was covid19.

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

#203

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…

Here's my opposite anecdote: I live in NYC and in mid-March I had all of the headline COVID-19 symptoms, including most notably shortness of breath (which I've never before experienced in my life short of high altitude hiking). I got the Abbott test two weeks ago, and the result came back negative. I was so sure I'd had it, but now it's looking like maybe I didn't.

I remember reading that some people, especially those under 40, don’t develop observable antibodies. Or, could’ve just been the flu. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/07/health/coronavirus-antibo...

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

#204

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…

Is a 99.9% specitivity good enough though to conclude you had covid? Assuming you are in the US, your prior on having been infected in early February is well below 0.1% (not sure how much the covid-like symptoms would boost that). So conditionally speaking, it seems quite plausible this is a false positive.

There's a lot of anecdotal evidence for people experiencing strange flu-like illnesses all around the world as early as January. It's possible GP was infected with the weaker strain that was said to have existed (although I'm not sure if that argument's been refuted by now, I remember it was controversial).

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

#205

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 also had a very sudden onset of a severe body ache around Feb 2020. I started having some pre-flu symptoms. And after one day, I started having a very severe body ace and it came so suddenly. I have never felt sudden onset of body ache from a flu/cold before.

I took a nap for 2 hrs or so and it fortunately went away almost immediately.

I know a family friend who were scheduled to go on a trip in early Feb 2020 but cancelled it because both had very severe flu symptom. This was an important trip (a road trip of few hrs to visit family) that had been scheduled weeks ago.

One of them to told me he had a meeting with a visitor from China who had mask on. And they think they might have had Covid-19 but no way to know until they get the antibody test.

And I did get my flu shot.

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

#206

Earlier quoted context omitted.

hm, care to explain more? that's exactly how I think about it. Total deaths in NYC attributable to covid (~20k) over the total population (8.5M) = ~.25%. In my mind this is a very easy lower bound to estimate, what am I missing here? In anycase, even a rate of ~.1% would be absurd given ~20% of people are testing positive by antibody tests.

Actually, I was asking you to explain, or at least give your source. I subsequently found what I believe you are working from here: https://www1.nyc.gov/site/doh/covid/covid-19-data.page which does specify New York City (as opposed to New York State) so both the numerator and denominator refer to the same thing. Interestingly, they appear to be using a larger denominator than your 8.5 million (NYC metro vs. NYC prope…

whoops, I presumed you were asking about the math. My source is nytimes which pulls from the dataset you linked.

https://www1.nyc.gov/assets/doh/downloads/pdf/imm/covid-19-d...

Specifically has numbers for NYC. You can sum the boroughs or use the total listed below. Using confirmed by pcr cases you get ~15k/8.6 = ~.175% as you said.

Using probable excess deaths adds an extra 5k deaths, hence ~.25%

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

#207

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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 jus…

Keep in mind that many coronaviruses can cause loss of smell/taste.

But which other coronaviruses are widely circulating right now is the question. As in, if you were to lose your smell because of a coronavirus, how likely is it that it was not SARS-CoV-2?

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

#208
post #152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I guess we need to know the total number of cases to figure out what the deaths mean, and until everyone has gotten an antibody test, we can't know that total number. To make the numbers work for the "weird cold" in early February case, I guess we have to work backwards. Assume that when we went into lockdown was the actual peak, 8 million people in New York City had COVID-19. That means that there is one death for e…

1 out of 421 NYC residents have died, based on today's numbers, and recent serological tests estimated that 20% of residents were exposed. If that's right, then the death rate would be about 1/84, or about 1.2%. But I've seen other claims that the exposure rate in NYC is higher, which would give a lower fatality rate.

Don't forget to factor this breaking through to long term care facilities. From the last I looked at this, if it had not hit long term care, the number of deaths would have been low enough that it may have gone undetected longer. (In WA, 92% of the deaths are still folks over sixty! I don't know the numbers for how many of them were in long term care.)

Which is to say, you can't just look at the population death rate and really appreciate just how dangerous this is for older populations. The CFR for over sixty is a staggering 15% in WA. That is ridiculously high and completely masked if you look at all cases.

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

#209
post #143

Earlier quoted context omitted.

People who have diabetes often do blood tests daily, at home, on their own, drawing a drop of blood from their finger with a lancet. If they can get it down to using a drop of blood, I think people could be convinced to test at least one member of the household daily. That should at least give us enough information to measure spread. It would be new for most people but it's not unprecedented and I think people would…

I'm sure you are aware of story behind Theranos - doing complex tests on a drop of blood is currently impossible.

Would there have been a path of honesty at Theranos such that they would thrive in the age of covid-19?

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

#210

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.)

"Weird cold" in February checking in. I did not have any temperature variations or fevers, but I got struck with a fatigue like no other. For the first time since I was 3 years old, I took afternoon naps three days in a row because I was just completely wiped out. It's rare for me to take a nap at all (happens maybe once a year)! It took two weeks to get out of this fatigued state. My other symptoms were "chills-like…

I had similar symptoms. Also in VA, same time frame. I’m going to do the test when it’s available here as well.
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