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At first, the beloved boomers in our lives had a hard time accepting the brutal reality of the coronavirus pandemic, despite being among those most at-risk for severe complications. Now that they’ve more or less adapted and are staying home, having their groceries delivered, canceling their cruises, and avoiding goddamn nonessential travel, the nation’s parents seemed to have moved on to another viral fallacy: the enduring hope of the antibody test.Scientists have been discussing the importance of a serological test, or antibody test, for months, and for good reason. Earlier in the pandemic, researchers hypothesized that knowing who’s already had COVID-19 could indicate who’s immune to it, which could have been vital information for essential workers and those working on the frontlines in healthcare.As VICE previously reported, “countless teams of scientists around the world are developing serological tests to detect antibodies related to COVID-19.” The UK recently bought 3.5 million finger-prick tests from China that did not work.Even with a high confidence level in a particular test, large scale testing is still going to return a lot of false positives. “If the prevalence of COVID-19 is quite low in the population—say, 5 percent—and a test can identify people who are truly negative with 95 percent reliability, half of the ‘positives’ it returns will be false positives,” Zhang reported in the Atlantic. “In other words, half of the people the test says have antibodies wouldn’t actually have them.”
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But scientists don’t yet know enough about this coronavirus to sign off on any such thing. That antibodiescouldsignal immunity has been a particularly compelling artifact to wish upon for elected officials who are chomping at the bit to “reopen” their economies. Some have shifted focus togetting everyone antibody tests(even as testing rates for active infections remain abysmal), and are throwing around phrases like “immunity passport.” TheWorld Health Organization has saidthat it’s still way too soon for antibody tests to be the marker of immunity, and an ability to resume normal life.
For now, they remain something of a glimmering promise; they sound great but don’t offer much practical use, outside of maybe a little peace of mind (and even that’s questionable, at best). Here are the facts about why that is the case, framed as good talking points for the next time a boomer relative pesters you about getting an antibody test, and flying home (don’t fly home).
- Scientists don’t yet know how long “immunity” lasts.
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- Scientists also don’t know what level of antibodies confers immunity.
- Early data suggests not that many people even have the antibodies.
- Even the “best” antibody tests can still return false positives.
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- The most important testing remains the test for active coronavirus infections, and contact tracing, a process that the U.S. hasn’t yet implemented.