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FDA just cleared a $20 Covid-19 antibody test
61–70 of 187 posts
Re: FDA just cleared a $20 Covid-19 antibody test
#62Earlier quoted context omitted.
It's important to test the public to see the penetration into the population. People who test positive should get an RNA test to determine if infected. People who are not infected become valuable assets to keep logistics and supply chain up and work front line tasks as they have little risk of getting infected. This group people can return back to normal life and don't need to be lockdown.
I can't help but ask... How much risk is "little risk" here? Can they still contribute to the spread? And what percentage of population can fall into this group?
If you're testing positive for antibodies and negative for the virus RNA itself it means your immune system has been exposed and recovered. This is also what you'd expect to see in someone that has been vaccinated. They would not be contagious at that point because the virus is not present. This is not the same as someone that gets infected but is asymptomatic - they would still test positive for RNA.
The percentage of the population that would naturally fall into this group would likely be very small given this is a novel virus so pretty much nobody's immune system had been exposed prior to a few months ago, and we're seeing pretty massive infection rates globally.
Re: FDA just cleared a $20 Covid-19 antibody test
#63> The sensitivity is 97.90 %, the specificity is 91.77%. This seems like it could provide a false sense of security to many if used widely by the general population.
So other people don't have to google like I did: this means this test should correctly diagnose 97.9% of people with the disease, and should correctly diagnose (i.e. give a negative result to) 91.77% of people without the disease.
Re: FDA just cleared a $20 Covid-19 antibody test
#64Not fda reviewed, they don’t even have permission to ship it yet, per their own sales page.
Probably violating the master merchant agreement of every card network by selling it at this point, so proceed with caution.
Re: FDA just cleared a $20 Covid-19 antibody test
#65> The sensitivity is 97.90 %, the specificity is 91.77%. This seems like it could provide a false sense of security to many if used widely by the general population.
Some smart ass always has to comment how this is not perfect and thus not useful. Look at the alternatives. Should we just keep on waiting otherwise?
jupp0r is correct; this is a real problem for a disease that is so contagious.
Lets say the covid-19 (real) prevalence is 0.1% in the US now. That means 10k infected people for every 10 Million people. If 10M take the test, 97.90 % sensitivity means, of the 10k (true) infected people, 210 will show up as negative. If these people go out and "mingle", there is potential for the infection to pick up again.
Re: FDA just cleared a $20 Covid-19 antibody test
#66That's an antibody test, not an RNA test. Quite a different thing. It will only detect an infection when you have an immune response already. It will not if you don't. RNA tests can detect the virus even if it doesn't turn a person diseased.
One reason people seem to be missing for why antibody tests are very useful is it will allow us to confirm those that are now immune. We can’t get this from the RNA testing because it’s primarily being used on only symptomatic people at the time they have symptoms (and then only if they can get the test which typically means severe symptoms) But if we start to test widely for antibodies we can start to clear people f…
> I don’t know if this is something that anyone official is talking about yet, but it seems like it should be.
I agree. I think this will greatly help with people's mental state, etc, plus they can help family and friends who are under quarantine. The question of how long immunity lasts, is it effective, etc is still a bit open. Also, how in a Western democracy do we distinguish (from the point of view of law enforcement personnel) between those who are immune and those who are breaking quarantine?
Re: FDA just cleared a $20 Covid-19 antibody test
#67They need to be free, universal, and possibly mandated in some areas. Given the 'cost' is shutting down the economy and 1 trillion Fed bailout, it's probably worth widespread distribution of these things, and nailing down 'everyone' who has it, just as S. Korea is doing. They have not 'shut down' their country, they're just aggressive at going after cases.
This test will not be able to help by shipping it out to everyone. As someone else in this thread already described, if you give everybody in the US this test, the probability that if someone tests positive he/she is not actually infected is well over 99%. Also there will be a lot of cases where people are infected but haven't had an antibody reaction yet. Those will not test positive.
Re: FDA just cleared a $20 Covid-19 antibody test
#68Isn't "cleared" status the same thing that those laser hair regrowth hats get?
-exactly- and why it's a bit concerning but I guess right now it's all they can do to rush it out the door and cover all the mistakes made to now
"cleared" is like "won't kill you" status and that's about it
Except I guess in this case if you get a false negative you can accidentally kill someone else?
The hindsight on this disaster a year or two from now is going to be stunning.
Re: FDA just cleared a $20 Covid-19 antibody test
#69This group (Christian Drosten and the Dutch virologists who found a human monoclonal antibody against COVID19) has published a paper today which seems to be a better test:
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.03.18.20038059v...
Re: FDA just cleared a $20 Covid-19 antibody test
#70That's an antibody test, not an RNA test. Quite a different thing. It will only detect an infection when you have an immune response already. It will not if you don't. RNA tests can detect the virus even if it doesn't turn a person diseased.
One reason people seem to be missing for why antibody tests are very useful is it will allow us to confirm those that are now immune. We can’t get this from the RNA testing because it’s primarily being used on only symptomatic people at the time they have symptoms (and then only if they can get the test which typically means severe symptoms) But if we start to test widely for antibodies we can start to clear people f…
Having antibody doesn't mean you can't spread the virus. For example, antibody tests are often used to diagnose HIV, but testing positive for HIV antibody (i.e. you are infected) doesn't mean that life will be normal.