A new test is out for you if you to test if you have been exposed to the novel Coronavirus, COVID-19. That's great news even though it costs $119.
Quest Diagnostic Inc announced Tuesday you can buy COVID-19 antibody testing without having to go to the Doctors office online. It is used as a blood test that takes up to two days for results. You just go to a center to have blood drawn.
They are expecting up to 200,000 tests to be done by Mid-May. This will certainly help with reopening the United States.
According to The Daily Mail:
The service could help individuals without any COVID-19 symptoms find out if they have been exposed to the virus and have developed antibodies to fight it.
US officials and doctors are eager to get as many people tested for antibodies as possible because the results have been widely looked to as the key signal that the US can start reopening safely.
When our bodies encounter a new pathogen, our immune systems start learning that bacterium or virus and produce antibodies - special immune cells - to fight it.
Antibodies may protect people who have had the infection from getting infected over again for some amount of time - although it's not yet clear what level of immunity coronavirus antibodies offer, or how long.
Tests like those offered through Quest Diagnostics' services measure levels of these immune cells in patients' blood.
The part of the patients' blood that carries antibodies reacts with a chemical concoction that includes the antibodies themselves, often printed with gold on a piece of paper that changes colors when the blood has the immune cells too.
Food and Drug Administration (FDA) regulators have now given emergency use authorization to seven antibody tests in the US.
The test is 100% for COVID-19 testing so it will not mistake the wrong antibody. So you can rest assured it will be accurate.
