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FDA just cleared a $20 Covid-19 antibody test

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Re: FDA just cleared a $20 Covid-19 antibody test

#91

Post by nroets »

erentz wrote: post #57
throwaway2048 wrote: post #42

Earlier quoted context omitted.

There is evidence that people can become re-infected, so antibodies aren't enough.

There’s not good evidence of that. There have been cases of people testing negative then positive again but that doesn’t mean they had cleared the virus and got reinfected. It more likely means they had a false negative. (E.g. I have a friend in hospital right now with COVID-19 that has had four tests, one positive, two negative, then one positive again, all tests within the space of four days.) It also can be the ca…

Wouldn't it then make sense to have camps where young, healthy adults can go to get immunity by intentionally getting infected and recover ? Then they can go back to having normal lives. The epidemiology version of a controlled burn.

If someone take the gamble of intentionally getting the virus, his/her life expectancy is reduced by 3 months (a ballpark figure).

If someone stay in isolation until a vaccine arrives, he/she may consider it a greater loss.

Re: FDA just cleared a $20 Covid-19 antibody test

#92

Post by dmurray »

eps wrote: post #84
absherwin wrote: post #45

This is an antibody test which will only be positive days after the onset of symptoms. This is principally useful for several purposes: 1. Figuring out who to isolate in hospitals if the RNA test isn't available in sufficient quantity 2. Understanding who has already recovered from COVID-19 and is thus immune with all that implies in terms of inability to spread the disease and reduced need for PPE 3. Enabling us to…

Hold on. Has it been confirmed that recovered people do in fact develop immunity?

It's ok to take that on faith. If you recover from the virus, it's because your immune system knows how to kill the virus. We don't know of any immune system interactions that don't work that way.

There's a chance that immunity is short-lived, or that there are multiple strains of the virus which do not produce equivalent antibodies, but 100% of scientists will believe you develop immunity of some sort.

Re: FDA just cleared a $20 Covid-19 antibody test

#93

Post by jamespullar »

classics2 wrote: post #64

Not 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.

It does feel odd that this links directly to the sales page instead of an FDA statement of approval. This headline should be changed. It clearly states on the site that "This test has not been reviewed by the FDA."

Re: FDA just cleared a $20 Covid-19 antibody test

#95

Post by SlowRobotAhead »

erentz wrote: post #34
baybal2 wrote: post #5

That'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…

> Those people can then start to go back to regular life (what’s left of it)

You sure that's not hyperbole? If you believe that, you need to turn off the news.

Re: FDA just cleared a $20 Covid-19 antibody test

#96

Post by orblivion »

There was a speculation I saw on Twitter, apparently considered by some serious people, that COVID-19 already swept through Seattle a couple months ago and was thought to merely be a bad flu season. I personally think this seems rather unlikely, but with an antibody test we could start to check people who had this mysterious flu.

Re: FDA just cleared a $20 Covid-19 antibody test

#97

Post by Gibbon1 »

hackcasual wrote: post #52
frandroid wrote: post #38

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How about a source for that [1]

https://www.jci.org/articles/view/138003 It's far to early to call it a slam dunk for nCov-2, but it is a treatment already used for rabies and hepatitis.

One of my teachers in the 70's came down with HepA. Health department required all of us to get a immune globulin shot before returning to school.

Re: FDA just cleared a $20 Covid-19 antibody test

#98

Post by jacobush »

vscientist wrote: post #65
product50 wrote: post #32

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

Worse, if 10M take the test, 97.90% sensitivity means, 210 000 will show up as positive. (Only 10 000 actually are.)

Re: FDA just cleared a $20 Covid-19 antibody test

#99

Post by acchow »

CriticalCathed wrote: post #40

Is this a serum or antibody test? If so, this is very good news. If mass testing occurs we will know very soon the true nature of the disease. For example, after serum testing for H1N1 we learned -- to our horror -- that 1.4 billion people had it. However, it also meant that H1N1 wasn't as dangerous as we thought it was. I hope this will give the medical community and our governments the clear data we desperately nee…

> after serum testing for H1N1 we learned -- to our horror -- that 1.4 billion people had it. However, it also meant that H1N1 wasn't as dangerous as we thought it was.

Citations please?

Re: FDA just cleared a $20 Covid-19 antibody test

#100

Post by pkaye »

cactus2093 wrote: post #46
baybal2 wrote: post #5

That'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.

I don't know how much precedent there is for this type of testing (have we used similar things for Ebola or SARS or measles or anything else?). I've read that this will be useful in broad studies to track how widely the disease might have spread without being diagnosed. But will this type of antibody test eventually be available for any doctor to order for a patient? I'm just getting over a fairly mild but persistent…

They are called serology tests and widely available for other viruses and bacteria. Its just that Covid-19 is such a new thing that the tests are just being developed.
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