Covid-Rapid by Abacus Pharma International has two important uses in the fight against COVID-19. First, in the early stages of the epidemic of a city or region, organizations such as factories, businesses, schools, hospitals, nursing homes, prisons, and shelters can screen all of their associates or clients–not just those with symptoms–in order to catch the 50% of infected people who are asymptomatic. Untested and undocumented infectious people were the source of contagion for 79% of documented cases. Second, it can be used as a test for an entire population later in the epidemic of a city or region, to determine who has acquired probable immunity and can thus go back to work. Healthcare workers who are already immune can preferentially be assigned to care for COVID-19 patients, protecting those who have not yet developed immunity. Using this information, policy makers can offer tailored solutions on when to shut down industries or geographic areas, and also target re-openings based on immunity data.
As Proof of Immunity
According to four independent lab trials, the Covid-Rapid antibody test confirms 97-100% of old infections! Of 14 antibody tests evaluated by a recent UCSF/Harvard study, Covid-Rapid was the only one that showed zero false positives. With virtually no false positives, testing with Covid-Rapid allows us to know with extremely high confidence who has likely developed immunity and can return to work right away, and who is still vulnerable and should take greater precautions. It can also tell the difference between those who had an infection and those who are still currently infected and thus contagious.
By specifically targeting our responses as the tide of the epidemic ebbs and flows, we can get more of America back to work safer and sooner. COVID-19 will be a part of our life for the next 12-18 months or longer. In order for those in the hospitality, tourism, airline, and other industries to be confident that their employees are safe to return to work, or for children to go back to school, we can require immunity testing, which is low cost, simple, quick, and highly reliable. For healthcare workers to have peace of mind that they likely can’t get infected again, antibody tests should be required. More importantly, the swab test can be negative as little as two weeks after active infection, meaning we won’t know who has already had the infection and is no longer sick. Proof of immunity means that some significant proportion of the population can go back to work immediately without endangering others. Some studies suggest up to 81% of cases are asymptomatic or mild, meaning a great many people are likely already immune and unaware. We won’t know who those asymptomatic people are until we start rolling out antibody tests like Covid-Rapid in populations. So let’s get to work!
As a Screening Test
Studies have shown that one–third to one-half of those infected with COVID-19 remain asymptomatic. By relying only on inefficient PCR swab tests, we are missing as many as 86% of cases, driving the spread of the epidemic. While swab tests are still the best way to diagnose individuals who are symptomatic, antibody tests are important for understanding epidemics in the broader population in order to make decisions for cities, schools, businesses, nursing homes, prisons, churches, and other locations where groups of people work and congregate. Covid-Rapid will catch approximately 60% of all those infected when used in a population containing people in the full range of active disease stages. Rapid flu tests have similar effectiveness, and they are in widespread use. While less than perfect, catching six out of every ten asymptomatic cases would be a vast improvement over screening methods in use currently, which, due to difficulty of testing and lack of availability, catch few if any asymptomatic cases at all. For a screening population of 100,000 people, that means that 3,000 cases would be diagnosed, including 1,500 that were asymptomatic. Furthermore, by screening a population, we can calculate the prevalence rate of those infected and those with previous infections, which is critical information for any organization or city when planning.
While correctly performed PCR swab tests provide greater theoretical accuracy, their current lack of availability makes them less effective as a screening test at a population level. By only testing those who show symptoms, we miss a large portion of the people who have COVID-19 and are spreading it without being aware. Swab tests are expensive, labor intensive, prone to collection error, and must be done in labs as opposed to in the community. We also know that PCR tests can be unreliable in populations because of faulty collections that only get mucous or debris with no virus cells, leading to as high as 50% false negative rates. Since antibody tests can be done in 15 minutes in the community with no lab and no trained personnel, the Covid-Rapid test is a much more ideal screening test at the population level.
If the US had had antibody tests in Seattle in early February, they may have shut down the city much, much sooner. Antibody tests are very useful for cities like Miami or Dallas, that have younger epidemics with many asymptomatic people walking around. By testing everyone in one part of town, one company, or one building, we can have two impacts:
First, it will allow us to quarantine up to 60% of those with asymptomatic infections. This will have tremendous downstream effects as those with COVID-19 spread it to 2-2.5 people on average. For every asymptomatic person we remove from the circulating population, we may stop two new infections and the two new infections that those people might have caused, and so on. The same phenomenon that causes the virus to propagate quickly means that every case we prevent has a huge impact on limiting the spread.
Second, by utilizing population-wide data on positive Covid-Rapid tests, we can estimate how many people are infected. This will allow governments, organizations, schools, and businesses to plan how and when to lift and/or restart targeted lockdowns. Instead of a blanket lockdown across an entire country of 330 million people, we can shut down smaller areas and populations using targeted information, and re-open using targeted information as well.
