#Covid I am learning quite a lot about pandemic testing from my well educated wife. Tracey explained there are basically three types of testing to determine if a person is actively infected.
The most accurate is a long thin swab that is inserted through the nose all the way to the back of the nasal cavity to insure the most effective sample. Less accurate is a swab of the back of the throat or the back of the nose without getting to the nasal cavity. And even less effective is to collect a spit sample.
Another test is the blood test for antibodies, but Tracey says there is some confusion —— especially on network television —— about these results. They do NOT mean you aren’t actively shedding virus or that you are okay to go out in the public —— UNLESS you have already exhibited as having been through the other symptoms.
This is because you could test positive for antibodies during the very first phase of the disease before you exhibit the more damaging symptoms. You wouldn’t be over the disease but actively infected.
Another fallacy is to believe you are now forever immune if you have antibodies because, like any seasonal flu, those antibodies don’t last forever. So you could be immune for anywhere from a few weeks to a few months.
Most importantly, regardless of testing, there are a significant number of people who simply exhibit no symptoms at all but have the active virus and are shedding the virus and thus are highly contagious.
MjL 17 Apr 2020, 5:29 a.m.
THIS is what we have to look forward to for months. Just imagine what he is really like when this is how he acts when he is prepared?
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