Why Antibody Tests Won't Help You Much

[Yo_Mama_Been_Loggin]

Getting an antibody test to see if you had Covid-19 months ago is pointless, according to guidelines issued this week by a major medical society.

Many tests are inaccurate, some look for the wrong antibodies and even the right antibodies fade away, said experts at the Infectious Diseases Society of America, which issued the new guidelines.

Because current tests cannot determine if someone is immune, the society said, they “cannot inform decisions to discontinue physical distancing or lessen the use of personal protective equipment.”

Antibody testing generally should be used only for population surveys, not for diagnosing illness in individuals, the panel said. But its guidelines described two situations in which antibody testing could be used when the normal diagnostic tests for the virus — called PCR tests — failed or were likely to fail.

https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/why-antibody-tests-wont-help-you-much/ar-BB18f4ge?li=BBnb7Kz

[SunSeeker]

1. Antibodies disappear after 3 mos., these tests are mostly useless. nt

[bamagal62]

2. I am almost certain I had it the beginning of March.

I had almost all of the symptoms except a fever. I was ill for about 3 weeks. One night I almost went to the hospital. My heart was doing weird stuff and I couldn’t breathe. At that time, I wasn’t “sick enough” to get tested. I think the lack of fever disqualified me.
I got the antibody test the end of May. It was negative.

[Ms. Toad]

3. The article assumes the only value to the test is in being free from the need to take precautions

I am interested in information. The more, the better. I am very glad the doctors who discovered suspicious scarring in my coworker's lungs did not follow this guidance but, instead, tested her for antibodies. She tested positive. She had been diagnosed with walking pneumonia. Her husband with a sinus infection, and her child had the classic skin lesions (but no specific diagnosis). This was back in January - months before it theoretically hit Ohio.

As to the point of the article - she is (now) even more cautious than I am - even though she had the disease, and has antibodies. But knowing what she had eases her mind.

Similarly, I know I was exposed (at least two hour long meetings in which I sat direcly across the conference room table from her in a small, closed conference room). Although it will not change my behavior, I want to know whether that exposure was enough to create antibodies in me.

My daughter also had an intense fever in March. It lasted less than 24 hours - but I was her primary caretaker at the time. We believe it was influenza, because it seemed to respond to antiviral medicines. But I would like to know if she has antibodies - and if I do.

Information allows me to make informed decisions. So I disagree that the test is (generally) pointless - although I agree it should not be used as a get-out-of-jail-free card.