“Can observational clinical data from commercial laboratories be used to evaluate the comparative risk of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection for individuals who are antibody positive vs those who are antibody negative? [The purpose of a study published in JAMA] was to evaluate evidence of SARS-CoV-2 infection based on diagnostic nucleic acid amplification test (NAAT) among patients with positive vs negative test results for antibodies.
Commercially available antibody assays, with their high sensitivity and low false-positive rates, serve as a useful marker of prior SARS-CoV-2 infection, but to date, their ability to predict the risk of future infection is unknown. The Centers for Disease Control currently recommend that individual serology results not be used for any decision-making regarding personal behavior such as return to work, use of personal protective equipment, and social distancing.
The degree of protection associated with seropositivity appears to be comparable to that observed in the initial reports of the efficacy of mRNA vaccines in large clinical trials… Protection induced by a safe vaccine is clearly preferable, as the population-wide risk of a serious outcome from an authorized or approved vaccine is expected to be… lower than that from natural infection.”
– “Association of SARS-CoV-2 Seropositive Antibody Test With Risk of Future Infection” by Raymond A. Harvey, MPH1; Jeremy A. Rassen, ScD1; Carly A. Kabelac, BS1; et al
Stay well and stay tuned!