New testing is starting to become available for those who may have been an asymptomatic COVID-19 positive carrier and now have recovered and likely have immunity. State immunization director Dr. Frank Welch says the testing is not yet widely available in Louisiana but could be more available in the coming months.
“They measure your immune response to coronavirus. There are two things they look for. If you’ve had it recently or if you’ve been exposed in the past. It’s all run in the same test, but it is kind of like our test for Hepatitis B,” said Welch.
Welch says this could bring peace of mind to those that haven’t shown serious symptoms.
“But it’ll tell those people who had something and think, ‘Oh, maybe I had it, maybe I didn’t,’ it’s also going to tell those people that they did not have it and that they are still susceptible,” said Welch.
Welch says this testing could be most useful in strategic hospital staffing.
“You would want to know that a certain number of your hospital workers were in fact immune, and if another wave of this pandemic came, you would certainly want to put those workers on the front line, because they can’t get it, or we don’t think that they can get it again,” said Welch.
Comments