Testing for 2019 Novel Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) COVID-19

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention recently broadened the guidelines for coronavirus testing. Anyone who has symptoms like a fever, cough, or difficulty breathing can receive a test if a doctor agrees. Doctors are encouraged first to rule out other causes of respiratory illness, like influenza, and to take into consideration whether there are other local coronavirus cases.

Coronavirus testing looks for signs of infection in nasal secretions, or other body fluids using real-time RT-PCR. The test is directed to detect and identify the 2019 Novel Coronavirus.

Severity

The complete clinical picture with regard to COVID-19 is not fully known. Reported illnesses have ranged from very mild (including some with no reported symptoms) to severe, including illness resulting in death. While information so far suggests that most COVID-19 illness is mild, a report out of China suggests serious illness occurs in 16% of cases. Older people and people of all ages with severe chronic medical conditions — like heart disease, lung disease and diabetes, for example — seem to be at higher risk of developing serious COVID-19 illness. A CDC Morbidity & Mortality Weekly Report that looked at severity of disease among COVID-19 cases in the United States by age group found that 80% of deaths were among adults 65 years and older with the highest percentage of severe outcomes occurring in people 85 years and older.

Neutralizing antibodies (nAbs) produced by a SARS-CoV-2 infection or vaccination are not only responsible for blocking the entry of COVID-19 into a cell so that it is unable to infect healthy cells, but they also prevent the virus from replicating and causing further severe infection. Binding or IgG antibodies only tell us if we have had a response to a COVID-19 infection but they do not indicate how effective our immune response may be. Because our bodies develop nAbs that are specific to a particular pathogen, MedArbor’s nAb Test detects the amount of COVID-19 specific nAbs in your system. These nAbs bind directly to the spike protein which can potentially help reduce COVID-19 from infecting new cells. That is how and why nAbs provide a better measure of COVID-19 resistance than a general binding antibody test.