The disappointing truth about Coronavirus antibody

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Did you get seriously sick this year? Have you, like many others, been wondering if it was COVID-19? “I get emails every day,” says George Rutherford, a University of California San Francisco epidemiologist. They say things like, “I think I might have had it. I really want to know,” he says.

Maybe you’ve been tempted by the wave of antibody tests that recently hit the market — but don’t think that just because you can buy a test, it will be accurate.

There are lots of tests available, but it’s not entirely clear which ones are best. Tests can go wrong in several places: by choosing the wrong proteins to look for, by using the wrong chemicals in the test itself, or by making the test badly. For instance, the UK paid $20 million for antibody tests that didn’t work.
"“It’s kind of like the wild West.”"

The US Food and Drug Administration allowed test makers to market their antibody tests, even if they hadn’t undergone review by the agency. The Association of Public Health Laboratories (APHL) has raised concerns about this: “We now have at least 90 tests on the market, and we don’t know about the accuracy of the results,” Kelly Wroblewski, APHL’s director of infectious disease programs, told USA Today.

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