Did you have coronavirus without knowing? Scientists are developing tests to find out
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As much as
25 percent of people infected with the coronavirus may never show any symptoms, CDC director Robert Redfield told NPR.
But symptomatic or not, viruses leave a mark. When they enter the body the immune system goes to war against it, developing antibodies specially designed to kill it. These antibodies hang around in the bloodstream even after the war is won, granting immunity to that illness if it’s encountered again.
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Creating a widely available ‘serological’ test — a test determining if specific antibodies are present in the blood — is one way to find out if someone had previously contracted COVID-19.
The CDC is ramping up efforts
to conduct this testing, according to Vox.
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For the coronavirus to be spreading the way it is, Dr. Cameron R. Wolfe, an
associate professor of medicine at Duke University, told McClatchy News there must be a larger group of people with little to no symptoms who are capable of transmitting it.
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In a random sample of 1,000 people, Wolfe said blood tests will show how many have the “antibody memory of having seen the coronavirus before.” Then scientists can look at how many of those knew they had the coronavirus, a similar illness or showed no symptoms at all.
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Scientists and public health experts need to know who was infected so they have a better understanding of what proportion of the population still needs to be vaccinated, Wolfe told McClatchy.
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