With all of the confusion over testing, here is a quick overview to help you understand the situation.

ANTIBODY TESTING

Think AFTER testing.

After you were sick, after you got well, your body creates antibodies to show that you have some (maybe complete) immunity to the virus.

Unknowns, how complete is the immunity and how long it lasts.

Assumptions based on what we know so far, you have immunity for at least 3 months and after that it’s likely that if you do get sick the symptoms will be much less than the first time because you have gained some natural immunity from the first time.

WHY THIS IS HELPFUL

It allows people to get back to work – especially medical professionals – without fear (or at least with much less fear) of getting sick again.

It helps us get numbers on how many have ACTUALLY been infected so we can better estimate impact (see more below).

PCR/ RT-PCR TESTING

Think WHEN you are sick.

This testing tells us if you have the active virus now.

Unknowns, if you are sick and have underlying conditions, is it the virus that is making you sick or something else that you already were sick with and/or is the viral load of the covid-19 causing your underlying conditions to be impacted and intensify.

Assumptions based on what we know so far, if someone has underlying conditions and is over 65 they are at greater risk of impact from the virus.

BIG challenges: to accurately use this test the results need to be captured in certain ways that are not always easy to do for those not showing enough symptoms (ie. if someone isn’t showing enough symptoms they may not have enough of the virus active in their mucus to detect – this is why many are being sent home falsely negative and a day or two later very ill); there aren’t enough test kits available; there aren’t enough doctors who know how to test accurately; there are different companies coming out with different tests which all have different requirements and too little time for doctors to learn between them…we need more standardization and while the test are similar, they may not be the same.

WHY THIS INFORMATION IS HELPFUL

To keep infected people away from others, especially those at high risk, while we find out more information.

To take care of those infected in the most effective ways.

ADDITIONAL QUESTIONS 

Are people dying of Covid-19 or are they dying of OTHER things and because Covid-19 is in the system, they are being counted when it’s not the cause of death.  We are seeing thousands of cases being miscounted because of this (see the information the Italian doctors are putting out on this fact).

Why are we counting people based on symptoms and not true tests?

When we know the PCR testing is showing a lot of false negatives, what are we doing to gain accuracy in making plans for the global community?

We need clear, concise, scientific studies going forward to gather the information accurately so we can make science-based decisions and plan based on this not based on fear.

Hope this is helpful! In good health!  Satya