Coronavirus antibody tests

[newborn]

Hi all,

I earlier read news in yle regarding Coronavirus antibody tests and in the Helsinki area, 750 tests were supposed to be performed per week. Later, I came to know that it will be done by Finland’s Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) on people chosen randomly by lottery.

Can anybody tell me the name of research institutes or health centres other than THL, where one can do this type of test?

Can anybody ask for such a test in public health centres or in any private clinic at one's own costs?

Please stay safe.

[inkku]

It was a study run by THL where 750 people were randomly selected. there is no reliable test in the market at the moment. All these tests work well only when there are more cases, it might be too early now.
you need to practice your text understanding, you would not pass any exam at school.

[FinlandGirl]

I earlier read news in yle regarding Coronavirus antibody tests and in the Helsinki area, 750 tests were supposed to be performed per week. Later, I came to know that it will be done by Finland’s Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) on people chosen randomly by lottery.

Can anybody tell me the name of research institutes or health centres other than THL, where one can do this type of test?

Can anybody ask for such a test in public health centres or in any private clinic at one's own costs?

Why do you want that?

Currently antibody tests are relatively useless at an individual level since individual results are often wrong.
Often a positive antibody result still means that you did most likely not have a COVID-19 infection.
Some people seem to not have any antibodies at all after a confirmed COVID-19 infection.

Whether people have immunity after a COVID-19 infection, and if yes for how long, is not yet known.

[newborn]

you need to practice your text understanding, you would not pass any exam at school.

What did you mean by that?

[newborn]

Why do you want that?

There was a COVID-19 patient at our shared apartment. I would like to know about my situation whether I have been infected (many do not show any symptoms) and developed antibody against COVID-19.

If you know more information regarding the test places/centres/research centres/health centres, please inform me.

[FinlandGirl]

Why do you want that?

There was a COVID-19 patient at our shared apartment. I would like to know about my situation whether I have been infected (many do not show any symptoms) and developed antibody against COVID-19.

A common misconception is that a positive test result in an antibody test would imply that you are immune to COVID-19.
It is actually dangerous if people misinterpret the results of antibody tests this way:
https://www.who.int/news-room/commentar ... f-covid-19

People who assume that they are immune to a second infection because they have received a positive test result may ignore public health advice.

A positive result of an antibody test does not imply it is 100% certain you had COVID-19:

These tests also need to accurately distinguish between past infections from SARS-CoV-2 and those caused by the known set of six human coronaviruses. Four of these viruses cause the common cold and circulate widely. ... People infected by any one of these viruses may produce antibodies that cross-react with antibodies produced in response to infection with SARS-CoV-2.

There is no proof that having antibodies after a previous COVID-19 infection would prevent you from getting it again:

As of 24 April 2020, no study has evaluated whether the presence of antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 confers immunity to subsequent infection by this virus in humans.

If immunity will be proven, the next question will be for how long it lasts:

We don't know how long that protection, if it exists, lasts.
Is it one month? Three months? Six months? A year?

Based on past studies with infections of the other six human coronaviruses lifelong immunity is not expected, you can get a cold from the same coronavirus every year.

[newborn]

Thanks for the important information with the link.

"Most of these studies show that people who have recovered from infection have antibodies to the virus."

Of course, there is no certainty at this point. I want to believe what we know rather than what we do not know. Knowing is better than not knowing. That is why it is important for me whether I have developed antibody or not. However, research is done to find out what we do not know and therefore, if they do not do tests and do not do research, they/we will never know whether one will be infected the second time or not.

[FinlandGirl]

"Most of these studies show that people who have recovered from infection have antibodies to the virus."

You should practice your text understanding.
This does not say that all people with a positive antibody test had the infection.

Knowing is better than not knowing. That is why it is important for me whether I have developed antibody or not.

What knowledge do you gain when a positive antibody result means that there is a 30% chance that you actually had COVID-19?

[inkku]

as finlandgirl writes, having antibodies does not guarantee you will not get the COVID19.

there are no antibody tests on the market in Finland at the moment because they are not yet accurate enough. Many scientists say no test is better than a test which is inaccurate. THLin their survey used two different types of tests.

another point that the antibody tests will give fake positive for a long time when there are not yet many positive cases, so you need to wait for sometime. this is an interesting article on it.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-sho ... 7926446303

[animist]

I earlier read news in yle regarding Coronavirus antibody tests and in the Helsinki area, 750 tests were supposed to be performed per week. Later, I came to know that it will be done by Finland’s Institute for Health and Welfare (THL) on people chosen randomly by lottery.

THL shows quite a good job of studying distribution of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in population.

To my knowledge THL runs two tests to detect antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 in blood samples, one test is a commercial rapid test, presumably one of Chinese originated tests, the test is used for screening purposes only, the second and very reliable test measures the ability of antibodies to neutralize the SARS-CoV-2 virus, and the latter test was developed by THL itself.

Due to the report from THL published on April 29, 2020, at the moment 516 antibody tests were performed among randomly selected HUS employees, and only 1 of the tests shows the presence of antibodies specific to SARS-CoV-2, so it looks like a long path lays ahead before the herd immunity is developed.

Let's monitor the situation though, it is expected that every day more and more people gain the immunity to the new virus, and it should be perceptible by the announced randomized sampling by THL.

Can anybody tell me the name of research institutes or health centres other than THL, where one can do this type of test?

Can anybody ask for such a test in public health centres or in any private clinic at one's own costs?

There are not so many private health care companies on the market, you could check their laboratory test services online, at least Mehiläinen provides testing for SARS-CoV-2 specific antibodies, but the last time I checked it the test can not be voluntarily taken and you should get an appointment, next, most probably it's one of the same low quality Chinese tests, both negative or positive results could be considered as dubious.

[animist]

Whether people have immunity after a COVID-19 infection, and if yes for how long, is not yet known.

Generally speaking people do have the adaptive immunity to SARS-CoV-2 after recovery, otherwise a number of recovered cases would remain 0, and obviously it's not the case.

SARS-CoV virus is the closest known virus species to SARS-CoV-2, statistically the immunity response to SARS-CoV lasts for about 3 years, a similar duration of the adaptive response for SARS-CoV-2 could be expected.

Also it's worth to mention that most likely future mutations of SARS-CoV-2 would diminish its mortality, at least there is such an observation over influenza and some coronavirus evolution paths.

[FinlandGirl]

Whether people have immunity after a COVID-19 infection, and if yes for how long, is not yet known.

Generally speaking people do have the adaptive immunity to SARS-CoV-2 after recovery, otherwise a number of recovered cases would remain 0, and obviously it's not the case.

Generally speaking this conclusion is obviously wrong since there are plenty of recovered cases of PCR confirmed infections and typical symptoms but no antibodies at all.
A good innate response without activation of the adaptive immune system would be a plausible explanation, and would imply no immunity for these people.

SARS-CoV virus is the closest known virus species to SARS-CoV-2, statistically the immunity response to SARS-CoV lasts for about 3 years,

Antibodies were maintained for an average of 2 years (not 3 years).
Whether immunity lasted that long is not known.

a similar duration of the adaptive response for SARS-CoV-2 could be expected.

SARS had a mortality of 10%, and long-term health issues for a large part of the survivors.
SARS did not have asymptomatic infections that do not even include fever, for mild COVID-19 cases I would expect a much shorter duration.

MERS antibodies disappear after a year.
For the coronaviruses that are part of the viruses that cause the common cold immunity is less than a year.

When Anthony Fauci lists durations between 1 and 12 months when talking about expected immunity duration for COVID-19 this is what an expert expects.

Also it's worth to mention that most likely future mutations of SARS-CoV-2 would diminish its mortality, at least there is such an observation over influenza

For the Spanish Flu the first wave was mild, the virus mutated to a real killer in the second wave.
Noone knows COVID-19 might mutate.

[animist]

Whether people have immunity after a COVID-19 infection, and if yes for how long, is not yet known.

Generally speaking people do have the adaptive immunity to SARS-CoV-2 after recovery, otherwise a number of recovered cases would remain 0, and obviously it's not the case.

Generally speaking this conclusion is obviously wrong since there are plenty of recovered cases of PCR confirmed infections and typical symptoms but no antibodies at all.

I believe it could be an easy task for you to give a reliable proof to your statement above, I'd like to check if here you are talking about the rule or an exception from the rule.

A good innate response without activation of the adaptive immune system would be a plausible explanation, and would imply no immunity for these people.

A good innate response such as inflammation and cytokine storm kills people infected by SARS-CoV-2 with higher than the virus itself.

However the activation of innate immune mechanism is crucial for developing adaptive immune responses.

SARS-CoV virus is the closest known virus species to SARS-CoV-2, statistically the immunity response to SARS-CoV lasts for about 3 years,

Antibodies were maintained for an average of 2 years (not 3 years).
Whether immunity lasted that long is not known.

Up to 83.9% of patients recovered from SARS-CoV expresses the specific IgG Abs/NAbs against SARS-CoV even at month 36 after recovery.

When Anthony Fauci lists durations between 1 and 12 months when talking about expected immunity duration for COVID-19 this is what an expert expects.

For the last decades Anthony Fauci holds a bureaucratic position, today his statements are truly political, while modest and diligent Chinese researches of SARS-CoV expect the immune response to SARS-CoV-2 to last about the same 3 years.

Also it's worth to mention that most likely future mutations of SARS-CoV-2 would diminish its mortality, at least there is such an observation over influenza

For the Spanish Flu the first wave was mild, the virus mutated to a real killer in the second wave.

What can you say about the follow-up mutations of H1N1 during the next 100 years?

Noone knows COVID-19 might mutate.

Sure it will mutate unless you deny the laws of evolution and rational sense persistently.

[FinlandGirl]

When Anthony Fauci lists durations between 1 and 12 months when talking about expected immunity duration for COVID-19 this is what an expert expects.

For the last decades Anthony Fauci holds a bureaucratic position, today his statements are truly political,

When you have nothing but personal attacks against a person that is a sign this person might be right.
He knows what he is talking about, and he might still be among the 100 most cited scientists in the world.

while modest and diligent Chinese researches of SARS-CoV expect the immune response to SARS-CoV-2 to last about the same 3 years.

Modest and diligent researchers would not make such claims at this point.
A "researcher" is a random person with a PhD, and there are plenty of these with plenty of research and opinions on various things.
For any personal opinion you will find a "researcher" claiming the same.

3 years of immunity is the upper end of estimates for COVID-19 immunity.
You will equally find "researchers" estimating only a few months of immunity, most people give a very broad range of possible immunity duration since the truth is that noone knows.

Generally speaking people do have the adaptive immunity to SARS-CoV-2 after recovery, otherwise a number of recovered cases would remain 0, and obviously it's not the case.

Generally speaking this conclusion is obviously wrong since there are plenty of recovered cases of PCR confirmed infections and typical symptoms but no antibodies at all.

I believe it could be an easy task for you to give a reliable proof to your statement above, I'd like to check if here you are talking about the rule or an exception from the rule.

Your claim was that there would be no exceptions at all.
Therefore 1 exception is sufficient to prove that you were wrong.

The problem with everything you write is not that it is completely wrong, the problem is that you are presenting expectations and extreme positions of expectations as absolute truths.

In 1984 the US Secretary of Health expected a HIV vaccine to be available within 2 years.
36 years later there is none, and there was no lack of researchers trying to find one (and get a Nobel price).

The most fascinating aspects of COVID-19 are actually the many areas where unexpected things happen that leave everyone baffled.
Like people walking to the hospital feeling only slightly unwell. Oxygen saturation in the blood is 30%. Every doctor would expect loss of consciousness below 75%, being able to walk at 30% was not expected to be possible.

[animist]

… there are plenty of recovered cases of PCR confirmed infections and typical symptoms but no antibodies at all.

I believe it could be an easy task for you to give a reliable proof to your statement above …

Your claim was that there would be no exceptions at all.
Therefore 1 exception is sufficient to prove that you were wrong.

Exactly, could you be so kind at the second time of asking to share a valid and trustworthy proof that such an exception exists? Could you imagine any explanations of these still presumptive exceptions?

Occam's razor suggests that a simpler theory with fewer assertions is more preferable as the starting point, and when I say "0 cases" I'm not going to give a proof of Russell's teapot existence.

the problem is that you are presenting expectations and extreme positions of expectations as absolute truths.

There is no such problem at all since you've described your personal perception.

I know what a theory is, its empirical falsification and further theory development are more than welcome.

When you have nothing but personal attacks against a person that is a sign this person might be right.

Nothing else left but to take your words as an embarrassed acceptance of my expressed position, thank you.

[Anthony Fauci] knows what he is talking about, and he might still be among the 100 most cited scientists in the world.

there are plenty of recovered cases of PCR confirmed infections and typical symptoms but no antibodies at all.

Nevertheless above you've called his opinion and expertise into question, while on my side I simply refuse to equate a rhetorical enumeration of durations in a row of questions given into the public and actual silent and deliberate expectations.

Fauci, director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, said it would be “extremely unusual” if patients did not develop antibodies, which often bestow immunity on people who’ve been infected with a virus. Other experts have cast doubt on whether this happens in everyone with the new coronavirus, fueling concerns about the insidious nature of the illness.

“I’d be careful about saying people who get infected don’t have any antibodies,” Fauci said in an interview. “It would be almost unprecedented.”

The most fascinating aspects of COVID-19 are actually the many areas where unexpected things happen that leave everyone baffled.
Like people walking to the hospital feeling only slightly unwell. Oxygen saturation in the blood is 30%. Every doctor would expect loss of consciousness below 75%, being able to walk at 30% was not expected to be possible.

Indeed this is an absolutely astonishing fact in a series of new discoveries!