[chet2020]

Originally Posted by Tom53

Interesting read..

Why experts are questioning two hyped antibody studies in coronavirus hotspots | World news | The Guardian

Interesting paragraph..

"Both studies used an antibody test made by Premier Biotech company that has not been approved by the FDA and comes with an acknowledgment that it can record false positives."


Just an excerpt, but explains my reasons for being tired of studies.

It is tiresome, but the studies gave us a valuable piece of information - we are not even close to herd immunity. However, the data are indeed problematic to extrapolate hard numbers from (like death rate). We learn and improve the next study.

Roche now has an antibody kit with an Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) from the FDA that claims 100% sensitivity, 99.8% specificity. There are a dozen other antibody kits out there now with EUAs with reasonably good sens/spec. We could now do a much better antibody study.

I'd like to see "someone" do a comprehensive antibody study in a city or county that was a hot spot, but is now under control and the deaths are at the tail end of the curve. Do it in a few different locations. We could then get a firmer idea of what the actual death rate is.