Testing for whether an individual has the virus – so-called nucleic acid or RT-PCR testing – is largely pointless.
The virus may have been contracted previously – weeks or potentially months earlier – and simply be present as the individual is ‘asymptomatic’, as are many individuals who test positive.
Dead virus cells as well as humoral viral debris may be present and thereby provide a false positive.
It does however provide a scary headline figure.
Testing for antibodies shows that an individual has contracted the disease and overcome it. Antibodies are produced by the adaptive immune system to deal with invasive infection and they remain in the bloodstream, ready to repel the virus if it returns. This is the concept of immunity: once you have had the disease, the body can recognise the virus if it returns and defeat it.
The presence of the antidodies indicates that an individual has immunity to the disease and therefore can return to work, social interaction etc. as they are no longer infected and cannot infect others. In this respect it is no different to the seasonal or winter flu: you do not self-isolate or practice social distancing once you have had it. It is no different with COVID-19.
A protein-based blood test can also help with the development of an effective vaccine as you can identify the profile of those group(s) who recover more quickly or more effectively.
The government’s strategy is to place everyone under effective house arrest, based upon 14 days’ self-isolation. Except its strategy end there. What about after that? If I have had no symptoms or have had mild symptoms – this accounts for 80% of those who contract the virus – then surely I am fine to return to work and normal life?
The government’s strategy completely ignores it and is likely to be based upon simply imposing a longer period of house arrest. You mean you haven’t died of COVID-19? – well stay indoors under house arrest until you do.
Moving to antibody testing would allow frontline healthcare workers to know that they can work without fear of infection and are genuinely being kept ‘safe’. It would also start an increasing total of ‘recovered’ individuals. This total would be a rising number and with a mortality rate of 0.00002%, the recovered number would quickly exceed the total figure for deaths, with the diferential between the two expanding constantly.
So instead of just being told ‘death toll rises to xxxx’ we would also be told ‘recovered total rises to xxxxxx’.