Post-infection PPE and service

[Bill Sloman]

On Wednesday, April 1, 2020 at 4:39:43 AM UTC+11, John Larkin wrote:

On Tue, 31 Mar 2020 09:23:55 -0700 (PDT), dagmargoodboat@yahoo.com
wrote:

On Thursday, March 26, 2020 at 11:32:24 AM UTC-4, jla...@highlandsniptechnology.com wrote:
On Thu, 26 Mar 2020 09:39:02 -0400, legg <legg@nospam.magma.ca> wrote:

On Thu, 26 Mar 2020 09:25:46 -0400, Bob Engelhardt
BobEngelhardt@comcast.net> wrote:

On 3/26/2020 9:06 AM, legg wrote:
If recovered Covid19 persons have antibodies, then their service
in working with the newly-infected-only would not need to involve
the use of PPE.

Facilities with infected/recovered-only person access could be
of considerable use.

Intentional infection/care and recovery of personnel with critical
care expertise should be considered at the earliest date.

RL


Not so fast: it's not yet clear that recovered victims have immunity..
From CDC:

QUOTE:
Q: Can people who recover from COVID-19 be infected again?

A: The immune response to COVID-19 is not yet understood. Patients with
MERS-CoV infection are unlikely to be re-infected shortly after they
recover, but it is not yet known whether similar immune protection will
be observed for patients with COVID-19.
UN-QUOTE

Well, the antibody test is quick and cheap and available.

Apparently not yet. Soon maybe.

Just heard an announcement. In my area there's an antibody test,
reports a) active infection b) recovered from infection, $18,
results in seven minutes.

FDA recommended, FDA-sanctioned (that was nice of them!), but not
FDA approved (that'll take 18 months).

Got any numbers yet? I'm thinking that testing will still be weighted
towards people with symptoms, who will pay for the test.

It will find people with other colds or allergies that are not C19.

I wonder why John Larkin thinks that. Stupidity would be a plausible explanation, but he shouldn't be that stupid.

It sounds like a two-element test, using a Covid-19 specific antibody to detect live Covd-19 viruses, and a Covid-19 mimicking antigen to check for antibodies against Covid-19. Both parts should be entirely specific for Covid-19 and insensitive to anything else.

You won't have antibodies against Covid-19 until you start displaying symptoms of the infection (which may be mild if you are lucky), so that part isn't useful when you first get infected.

--
Bill Sloman, Sydney