We need antibody testing that can tell us who has been infected with COVID-19.

Due to America’s COVID-19 testing failure, no one knows how many of us have been infected with coronavirus. In my post on herd immunity, I described one reason why this is important. In that post, I wrote that the devastation that COVID-19 has wrecked upon NYC. At that time, only 1.4% of the population of NYC was confirmed infected.

Antibody tests now reveal that about 20% of NYC residents may have been infected with COVID-19*. That’s pretty astounding and shows just how inadequate our testing has been.

There are caveats to the sampling methods used in these studies that may have led to an overestimation of infection, which Governor Cuomo, to his credit, spoke about. There are also questions about the accuracy of the tests (this article has some great graphics and info). Cities around the world are rolling out antibody tests, though not quickly enough to meet demand.

Let’s say you manage to get one of these antibody tests, and it turns out you have antibodies against COVID-19. Does this mean that you’re immune to future infections? Unfortunately, we don’t know yet, and this is why the WHO recommends against using immunity passports.

Why, then, do I think antibody testing** is so important, even though I agree that issuing immunity passports is a premature idea?

Because we need to know our enemy. 

We don’t know the fatality rate of COVID-19, we don’t know how many asymptomatic cases there are, and, most importantly, we don’t understand whether we can become immune to it after infection, or how long that immunity lasts. Antibody tests can give us the answers to these questions, which are critical to regaining a functional society.

*This is still nowhere near enough to confer herd immunity to COVID-19. NYC would have to go through the hell of the last two months 3 to 4 fold over again, at least, before the city’s population would reach that point.