Antibody tests versus PCR tests: PCR tests are nose or throat swabs that amplify up short fragments of viral RNA. They only detect infection in the day or two before symptoms show, and for a few days to a few weeks later. The PCR tests cannot show past infections. Antibodies take around a week or two to rise so don’t show active infections, but will show up past ones, though — in the case of Coronavirus, may still produce no result after a few months in some people as antibodies decline.
Test results like these must finally have convinced Donald Trump to change course. It’s long past time the US got serious about this disease, but hopefully rapid action now — masks and distancing and more testing can prevent the trainwreck of rapidly rising infections across the US in two months time as winter and the US election approach.
This study shows that most people in the US have not had this virus, and herd immunity is unattainable without hundreds of thousands more deaths. It also shows how inadequate testing is in the US.
Many antibody studies have tried to estimate the true extent of the Coronavirus infection. Some were […]
via JoNova
July 22, 2020 at 11:19PM
Iowa Climate Science Education 