Dr. Brett Giroir, the Federal Health and Human Services Department Deputy Director, said at Monday’s White House briefing that he firmly believes there will be a validated antibody test in place by May. So far, the FDA has allowed emergency use authorization for a test developed by Cellex, and Giroir said there may be another in the works.
An antibody test will indicate whether a person has had COVID-19 – not whether they have it at the time of testing. Dr. Giroir said the antibody test will allow people to know if they are likely to have some immunity to COVID-19, whether or not they knew for sure they’d had the disease. He expects millions of tests to be available by May. That would allow people to get back to work and other activities.
Giroir noted that the United Kingdom reportedly purchased more than 17 million antibody tests which turned out not to work, so the Federal team would absolutely confirm the efficacy of any tests to be used in the U.S.
