Taking part in antibody testing

[Jamiescott1]

My workplace (a school) is taking part in a government scheme to track the spread of covid-19 in education establishments.
Every couple of months we have covid-19 swabs, antibody tests and saliva samples taken.

Last week we got out results back and 3 out of 8 people in my department had tested positive for antibodies, none of them having ever showed any symptoms of covid-19.

Obviously these people have been working close together (and close to me. I tested negative for antibodies) but could this be a sign that more people have antibodies than the government think or is it just coincidence

 

[adc82140]

Every study so far has shown that more people than initially thought have antibodies.

 

[PR1Berske]

I work at an NHS hospital so we were offered antibody testing over the last month or so. My results said that antibodies were detected, which came as a slight surprise as I don't remember being ill!

Within our team, most of my colleagues who have positive results use the bus to work. Almost all the negative tests use their own cars.

 

[adc82140]

A hospital I used to work at had a staff minibus from one clinical site to the other a couple of miles away. Even then it was nicknamed the "Lurgybus"

 

[yorkie]

My workplace (a school) is taking part in a government scheme to track the spread of covid-19 in education establishments.
Every couple of months we have covid-19 swabs, antibody tests and saliva samples taken.

From a school perspective you may find this thread of interest:

Revealed: plans for schools in England from September 2020

In follow-up to a post a made the other day about Boris Johnson will announce that social distancing will be scrapped in SCHOOLS when they return in September. I mentioned that this will not be good enough, as social distancing will have to be scrapped everywhere in the UK by then if the UK...

www.railforums.co.uk

Last week we got out results back and 3 out of 8 people in my department had tested positive for antibodies, none of them having ever showed any symptoms of covid-19.

Obviously these people have been working close together (and close to me. I tested negative for antibodies) but could this be a sign that more people have antibodies than the government think or is it just coincidence

This is very interesting; thanks for posting.

Yes I think more people have been exposed to the virus than previously thought; many people experience no symptoms and the true number of people infected will surely be exponentially higher than the official figures right now. This in turn means the death rate is actually much lower than previously thought.

Not only that, but not everyone who has been exposed to the virus will go on to develop antibodies (or they may not develop them in sufficient quantities to test positive); you may find the following thread to be of interest:

We have more immunity to SARS-CoV-2 than thought

Firstly, a lot of people appear to think that anyone who does not have SARS-CoV-2 antibodies has no immunity against the virus; this is false. Anyone who has been exposed to other coronaviruses (some of which are deemed to be "common cold" viruses, though not all "common cold" viruses are...

www.railforums.co.uk

 

[Jamiescott1]

Thanks guys. Just to give a bit more context. It's a private school (so yesterday was last day of term).
We had reception, years 1, 2 and 6 back on site since May half term full time and years 10 and 12 on a rota basis for past 3 weeks so we've had about 800 on site daily including staff.

I do not know what percentage of total pupils and staff took tests, I only know for my department.
My department we split into 2 groups and worked alternate days with no mixing between groups. Someone in each group tested positive.
2 people who tested positive drive, one takes tfl bus.
Not everyone was tested, just name picked out if a hat.

The second round of testing was this past week. It took about a month to receive results

 

[yorksrob]

It's encouraging to know that this testing is going on. The more we do, the more we know !

 

[Domh245]

It's encouraging to know that this testing is going on. The more we do, the more we know !

They've been doing around 30-40,000 antibody tests per day (not clear how this is counted - tests sent out, tests processed, etc), as well as a moderate amount of 'surveillance testing' as well

Official UK Coronavirus Dashboard

GOV.UK Coronavirus dashboard

coronavirus-staging.data.gov.uk

 

[Yew]

Interestingly, this article https://www.nature.com/articles/s41591-020-0965-6 suggests that 40% of those who had it asymptomatically didn't show up on an antibody test. I've included the abstract for the paper below.

The clinical features and immune responses of asymptomatic individuals infected with severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) have not been well described. We studied 37 asymptomatic individuals in the Wanzhou District who were diagnosed with RT–PCR-confirmed SARS-CoV-2 infections but without any relevant clinical symptoms in the preceding 14 d and during hospitalization. Asymptomatic individuals were admitted to the government-designated Wanzhou People’s Hospital for centralized isolation in accordance with policy1. The median duration of viral shedding in the asymptomatic group was 19 d (interquartile range (IQR), 15–26 d). The asymptomatic group had a significantly longer duration of viral shedding than the symptomatic group (log-rank P = 0.028). The virus-specific IgG levels in the asymptomatic group (median S/CO, 3.4; IQR, 1.6–10.7) were significantly lower (P = 0.005) relative to the symptomatic group (median S/CO, 20.5; IQR, 5.8–38.2) in the acute phase. Of asymptomatic individuals, 93.3% (28/30) and 81.1% (30/37) had reduction in IgG and neutralizing antibody levels, respectively, during the early convalescent phase, as compared to 96.8% (30/31) and 62.2% (23/37) of symptomatic patients. Forty percent of asymptomatic individuals became seronegative and 12.9% of the symptomatic group became negative for IgG in the early convalescent phase. In addition, asymptomatic individuals exhibited lower levels of 18 pro- and anti-inflammatory cytokines. These data suggest that asymptomatic individuals had a weaker immune response to SARS-CoV-2 infection. The reduction in IgG and neutralizing antibody levels in the early convalescent phase might have implications for immunity strategy and serological surveys.

[My bold]

 

[philthetube]

Translation

The term seronegative means they don't possess the antibodies that seropositive patients do. In other words, seronegative patients may also simply possess extremely low levels of the antibodies – not enough for the test to detect.

 

[Bantamzen]

None of which should be any surprise. The body doesn't keep levels of antibodies at infection level once it has cleared, frankly I'm not sure it could. So the immune system has memory cells that can help re-start the production of antibodies as required. So antibody tests can only form a small part of the understand of our community response & infection rates, as the immune system has a number of ways to tackle any infection including this one.

 

[yorkie]

None of which should be any surprise...

Quite! Some people are desperately trying to give out incorrect/misleading information regarding antibodies to suit their particular agenda.

The claim is that if people do not have a detectable level of antibodies in their blood currently, they have no immunity.

Here's a post which contains some interesting links (including a video from Professor Karol Sikora):

https://www.railforums.co.uk/thread...o-sars-cov-2-than-thought.205654/post-4661952

 

[Scrotnig]

Prof. Sikora should be nominated for an honour. He has kept many thousands of people going throughout this crisis, and he’s been right about a large number of things. It’s no exaggeration to say he’s prevented many suicides. He won’t be recognised for this though.