IMMUNITY IS KEY TO UNLOCKING LIFE AGAIN
The U.S. is looking to ramp up coronavirus antibody testing in the next month with tens of millions of tests, the White House testing czar said Monday as a Massachusetts lab launched its test to determine who is immune to the highly contagious disease.
The blood-based antibody testing could be key for getting people back to work, and may help hospitals assign immune doctors and nurses to more effectively fight the battle against COVID-19, infectious disease experts tell the Herald.
“We could use this testing to get many people who are no longer at-risk back to work,” said Dr. William Schaffner, an infectious diseases expert at Vanderbilt University, who noted that researchers are working under the assumption that someone who recovers from coronavirus cannot get it again for at least one year.
“In health care, perhaps we could get workers who are immune closest to the sick patients who need face-to-face intensive care,” Schaffner said.
The White House testing czar, Brett Giroir, told ABC News on Monday that he’s “very optimistic” there will be tens of millions of these antibody tests across the U.S.byMay1.
“They’re very, very quick,” said Giroir, assistant secretary for health at the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. “They will be scaled to the tens of millions very quickly. They will tell you if you’ve been exposed to the virus, if you’ve had the virus.
“That’s very important as we think about reopening the country and the economy,” Giroir said. “Because if you have had the virus and you have immune response to it, in all probability you are immune and safe from the virus.”
Boston Heart Diagnostics in Framingham on Monday rolled out the coronavirus antibody test for area hospitals — where the
need is the highest ahead of an anticipated surge in the coming weeks. The test will eventually be offered more broadly.
The Framingham lab is a subsidiary of Eurofins’ U.S. Clinical Diagnostics — a network that will initially run nearly 5,000 tests per day, or 200 results every hour.
Many companies and academic centers are working on quick antibody tests, Schaffner noted.
“We’d love to get a sense of how widespread this is across the country,” Schaffner said. “If we can figure out a certain area of the country hasn’t had many cases, we could alert them and tell them, ‘Congrats so far, but get ready because it might come back harder next time.’
“This allows us to use data for decision making,” Schaffner said. “Officials can be more thoughtful in making their decisions, rather than operating by the seat of their pants.”
Plasma taken from those who have recovered from
COVID-19 contains antibodies that can be isolated and then given to very sick patients, said immunologist Ann Sheehy, a professor of biology at the College of the Holy Cross in Worcester.
“They would start to beat back the disease,” said
Sheehy, adding that the method had been used successfully during several other epidemics.
“We need things that are going to buy us time because time is everything with this virus,” Sheehy said. “Time is everything.”