I received the results of my coronavirus antibody test on Saturday. I posted some background last week on why I chose to get the test (italics)-
Just signed up for a coronavirus antibody test. Tomorrow at 11:45AM. $130. Couple of days turnaround, I think.
Why? I think I had coronavirus, and would put the odds at 75%. This would likely mean my wife and daughters had it as well since we have been together for 2 months.
My symptoms-
Late February, early March: I felt off for about two and half weeks, experiencing unusual fatigue. I got winded and a little weak going up two sets of stairs where I never did before. I felt like I was running at 50-75% energy. The first week I was at my desk and felt a very strong fatigue come on and also felt slightly feverish. I took my temperature the next day but it was normal. From then, I just had the fatigue and my light cough persisted, tapering back to normal in a couple of weeks. Now none of this is particularly pointing to CV, but I suspect the virus since these were symptoms I never had before- I recall thinking that at the time. It wasn't until a month ago that I tied this episode to possibly being coronavirus.
My boss/colleague at work also had a month long cough, weakness etc before my episode. He joked about probably infecting everyone (10) at work with a cold, but this was before coronavirus was thought to be a possibility in Massachusetts.
So hoping for a great outcome- a positive reading. I repost with my results when I receive them.
The antibody test I am getting is by Quest Diagnostics.
Massachusetts has been hit pretty hard so maybe here in eastern MA there are 10% people that are AB positive. So my test has a false positive rate of ~ 1.25%. So out of 100 tests, there would be 10 accurate positive and 1.25 false positives (for my example), an 11% error rate. For a positive result, I would also then have my wife take it because if she tested positive as well, the false positive total error would be ~1%.
The Definitive Guide to Antibody Tests: What They Do, Where to Get Them, and How Much They Cost
So I have the results, but a little more detail. In the last week, I talked to a colleague at our small company of 10 people. He reminded me that at the beginning of February, five of the employees attended Photonics West in San Francisco, the biggest optics trade show in the U.S., and maybe the world. Upon returning, the attendees (age) had these outcomes-
EC (24)- very sick for a month
JN (57)- very sick for two weeks
SC (25)- not sick, but his girlfriend was diagnosed with COVID-19
AM (25)- not sick
AZ (25)- not sick
Not attending, but sick in this time period as well, was myself and the president, both 57. After revisiting this info, I bumped up my odds of having had CV to 90%.
So the test results came back with the following diagnosis: Negative for coronavirus antibodies.