DURHAM, N.C. -- Doctors are cautioning people before they get a COVID-19 antibody test.
I took one Tuesday. The test will determine if I ever had the coronavirus and if I have the properties to possibly fight off another infection.
The U.S. reported its first case of the coronavirus back in late January. But some in the medical community wonder if it arrived earlier. In early January, I battled a few of the related symptoms.
"Cough...shortness of breath...fever, feeling poorly," says Dr. James Partridge of Bull City Family Medicine, who also treated me.
I took the antibody test to see if I had coronavirus. Partridge says he understands why many people would do so. But he says current testing will not tell you when you had the virus, especially because symptoms don't always show. He also says it's not clear if any detected antibodies are doing their jobs.
"I don't think it's going to help you because what you might want to know is 'Hey if I have antibodies, am I immune to the disease in the future?'" he says.
Other medical insiders have raised questions after current testing had yielded inaccurate results.
"Even if your test was 90 percent accurate, either way it's going to be positive or it's going to be negative, but it'll be 90 percent right. That's still 1 out of 10 that's going to be missed wrong and if you multiply that by 350 million people, that's a lot of wrongs," he says.
The N.C. Department of Health and Human Services sent Spectrum News this statement:
The FDA has issued Emergency Use Authorizations for several serology tests that look for antibodies in an individual’s blood. Antibodies indicate prior exposure to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. At this time, there remain significant gaps in our understanding of the presence of antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 and immunity. The presence of antibodies is not necessarily equivalent to protection from SARS-CoV-2. An active area of research relates to understanding the presence of antibodies and immunity to COVID-19. While the CDC recommends that antibody test results should not be used as the sole basis to diagnose someone with COVID-19, we are working on strategies for collecting and incorporating antibody testing into our surveillance.
Partridge discourages people from taking the test, unless required to do so. He says eventually scientists would need to monitor those who recovered from COVID-19 and track their antibodies.
I should get my test results later this week.
