COVID-19 Antibody Testing – An Update And Pitfalls Covid19 Antibody Testing has been a much talked about topic recently. Broadly speaking there are instant-result home testing and laboratory tests – both use different methods.Regarding point of care / home testing most manufacturers report >95% accuracy, however there was hesitation to them being widely rolled out. This comes down to 2 main reasons.
False Negatives – most tests have been validated on known COVID-19 patients that have been admitted into hospital. By default these patients will be quite unwell and have likely mounted a strong immune response so antibodies will be more easily detected. In the community however some patients have mild symptoms or are even asymptomatic.These patients may produce lower antibody levels which may not be detectable by current point pf care tests.We are unsure whether these home testing kits are specific enough.