Category Archives: Genetic Medicine

In Iran, scientists must use precious time and efforts to compete with herbalists and charlatans in the struggle against the coronavirus. For the time being, the scientists appear to have the upper hand and reputable herbalists help the cause of science, but their combined effort is systematically undermined by charlatans and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameneis obscurantist propaganda.

Few believe the accuracy of the Islamic Republics official coronavirus statistics but, even if we take the numbers at face value, with 4,000 fatalities and 67,000 confirmed infections, Iran remains one of the countries hardest hit by the virus.

Turning the pandemic to profit, some herbalists were quick to offercupping therapy, or drinking amixtureof thyme essential oil, lime juice and honey, among many other remedies, to cure the coronavirus patients. Clerical claimants of medical knowledge prescribe the elixir of Imam Kazem, which is a mixture of black myrobalan, Arabic gum and brown sugar. A certain Ayatollah Abbas Tabrizian, the self-proclaimed father of traditional medicine, who earned notoriety in January 2020 by publiclyburningthe standard medical textbook Harrisons Principles of Internal Medicine, offered aremedyof his own: Application of violet essential oil to the rectum to prevent infection.

Terrified and desperate for a cure, some Iranians are now following these strange recommendations, but serious practitioners of traditional medicine are understandably disgusted by the shameless profiteering of the charlatans. Dr. Hossein Rezaei, dean of the Faculty of Iranian Medicine at Tehran University of Medical Sciences, openlyadmitsthere is no traditional cure for the coronavirus. The Chinese are the most experienced in this regard, and there is no herbal or traditional medicine available to counter it, he said at a recent press conference. Ali-Reza Qahroudi, head of the herbalists guild, went as far aswarningthe public against the promise of miracle cures for the coronavirus: Dont be deceived by online advertisement for herbal medicine for COVID-19. No reputable offers such cures.

SaeedEskandari, head of The Herbalists Association in Khorasan province, also condemns the use of the elixir of Imam Kazim and the like and begs the public to listen to the Health Ministry rather than to the profiteers of traditional medicine.

In the hour of need, moral support from the herbalists is important in the struggle against ignorance and profiteering and boosts the prestige of the Health Ministry and Irans extremely competent medical professionals. However, those same professionals face opposition from Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.

For the past ten years or so, Khamenei has been one of the strongest proponents of what he calls Islamic or Iranian science, oblivious to the fact that the achievements of Iranian scholars and scientists such as Abu Ali Sina and Muhammad ibn Zakariya al-Razi lay the foundations of modern medicine. Science has no nationality or religion, yet Khamenei has tried to put herbalists and practitioners of modern medicine at odds with each other.

More recently, delving into conspiracy theories, Khameneiclaimedthe coronavirus is specifically built for Iran using the genetic data of Iranians. He also initially resisted President Hassan Rohanis pleas to provide funding for the fight against the virus, but on April 6 reluctantly authorised the government to withdraw 1 billion ($1.08 billion) from Irans National Development Fund. Iran has alsoaskedthe International Monetary Fund for $5 billion to fight the coronavirus but the United States is expected toblockthe request.

Had Khamenei the same sense of responsibility of traditional and serious practitioners of medicine, he would extend support to Iranian doctors and health providers who need facts and funding instead of conspiracy theories.

The rest is here:
Charlatans and conspiracy theorists undermine Iranian scientists' fight against pandemic - The Arab Weekly

Editors note: As biologist Jonathan Wells observes, [T]he measures being taken against the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic owe nothing to evolutionary theory. Yet a persistent claim from evolutionists is that medical research would be crippled without a Darwinian framework. Evolution News presents a series of our previously published work addressing the myth of Darwinian medicine.

Darwinist P.Z. Myers is shocked that medical researchers arent invoking evolution regularly in their research papers:

Its not just creationists!

Its also MDs who avoid the E word. A survey of the literature found an interesting shift in usage:

The results of our survey showed a huge disparity in word use between the evolutionary biology and biomedical research literature. In research reports in journals with primarily evolutionary or genetic content, the word evolution was used 65.8% of the time to describe evolutionary processes (range 10%-94%, mode 50%-60%, from a total of 632 phrases referring to evolution). However, in research reports in the biomedical literature, the word evolution was used only 2.7% of the time (range 0%-75%, mode 0%-10%, from a total of 292 phrases referring to evolution), a highly significant difference (chi-square, p < 0.001). Indeed, whereas all the articles in the evolutionary genetics journals used the word evolution, ten out of 15 of the articles in the biomedical literature failed to do so completely. Instead, 60.0% of the time antimicrobial resistance was described as emerging, spreading, or increasing (range 0%-86%, mode 30%-40%); in contrast, these words were used only 7.5% of the time in the evolutionary literature (range 0%-25%, mode 0%-10%). Other nontechnical words describing the evolutionary process included develop, acquire, appear, trend, become common, improve, and arise. Inclusion of technical words relating to evolution (e.g., selection, differential fitness, genetic change, or adaptation) did not substantially alter the picture: in evolutionary journals, evolution-related words were used 79.1% of the time that there was an opportunity to use them (range 26%-98%, mode 50%-60%), whereas in biomedical journals they were used only 17.8% of the time (range 0%-92%, mode 0%-10%).

So we have evolutionary biologists who are unafraid to use the word evolution properly; medical biologists who know what it is but avoid using the word; creationists who see it happening but dont understand it and despise the word

Darwinists use evolution because its their creation myth and because its regular invocation is required by their thought police. Doctors and medical researchers dont use evolution because its irrelevant to medical research. Fairy tales about survival of survivors contribute nothing to medical research, or to any other research.

The extraordinary success of medical research is glaring confirmation of antibiotic pioneer Philip Skells observation that reference to evolution in biology is just a narrative gloss on the real science. Just-so stories contribute nothing to biology. Medical research is wildly successful, without any significant reference to evolution.

My first post at Evolution Newswas about the irrelevance of evolution to medical research and practice. Its nice to see that P.Z. Myers finally agrees.

This article was originally published on February 21, 2015.

Image: Vasiliy Koval / Dollar Photo Club.

Follow this link:
Darwinian Biologist Notices that Evolution Is Irrelevant to Medical Research - Discovery Institute

There was a time when waking up with a scratchy throat or a dry cough didnt elicit such a sense of dread, but Covid-19 has made us all hyper-aware of its symptoms. Many people have been left wondering if they are asymptomatic carriers of the disease, or if a slight cold they may have recently experienced was actually something more menacing.

These fears are not unfounded: More than a million patients around the world have confirmed cases of coronavirus, but the real number of infections is far higherthough nobody yet knows by how much.

Thats why medical professionals are rushing to develop tests for antibodies that might reveal if a patient ever contracted Covid-19, regardless of whether they experienced symptoms. These tests may even be able to determine individual immunities to the virus, which has led to speculation that some people could reenter the workforce or resume normal activities if they have the right antibodies.

While this proposed solution may provide a sense of hope, it is far from a certain outcome at this point in time. Theres no clear consensus about the immunological response to Covid-19, and murky ethical problems undergird the idea of lifting restrictions on some populations, while isolating others, especially based on unsettled science.

Heres what you need to know about these tests, their development, and their potential to influence the global Covid-19 response.

Antibody tests, also known as serological tests, differ from the diagnostic swab tests that have been in high demand since the pandemic gained momentum.

Swab tests, or PCR tests, are designed to directly detect the virus by searching for its RNA, which is a genetic signature of its presence. These tests require collection of mucus samples from patients, typically sourced from deep within the nasal cavity, which are then sent to a laboratory to be examined. If the results come back positive, the patient is considered an active carrier of Covid-19 who could potentially infect other people.

Antibody tests, in contrast, dont look for the virus itself, but rather our immunological response to it. When our bodies are invaded by antigens such as the coronavirus, our immune systems react by creating a type of blood protein called an antibody. Antibodies flow through the blood, attacking the alien antigens by binding to them, which can neutralize the spread of infection. Many known antibodies can be detected with a quick blood test.

The idea is that you have volunteers who have recovered from infection, and you look to see what antibodies theyre expressing and test that against samples of the virus, basically, to see what are the circulating antibodies that recognize your virus, said Ruth Collins, professor of molecular medicine at Cornell University College of Veterinary Medicine, in a call.

It can take several weeks for the immune system to develop antibodies to fight a virus, which means positive serological tests may not indicate an active infection. Instead, the presence of coronavirus antibodies demonstrates if a patient ever had Covid-19, whether or not they experienced symptoms.

While it is common for an exposed person to develop immunity to other known viruses, it is important to emphasize that nobody knows yet whether the presence of Covid-19 antibodies indicates that a patient has either temporary or permanent immunity to the infection.

We dont know yet exactly how peoples immune systems respond to the infection, so wed have to find something that would mark everybodys response to the virusthe universal human response to the virusand to make sure that it was specific to this virus, Collins said.

These things are doable, she added, they just take a long time to work out.

Short answer: We have no idea.

Countless teams of scientists around the world are developing serological tests to detect antibodies related to Covid-19, including researchers at the Centers for Disease Control (CDC). Last Thursday, the US Food and Drug Administration approved the first test for antibodies test for Covid-19, though it is intended as a diagnostic test for active infections.

Last week, a team of scientists at Stanford University conducted finger-prick blood tests on 3,200 volunteers to help refine their antibody test. Likewise, in Italy, an entire town of 3,000 people that already received swab tests is now in the process of providing blood samples to follow-up on the diagnostic data with antibody studies.

Regardless, there have also been setbacks with the roughly 100 test kits for these antibodies that are already in development. None of these tests are close to reaching the high bar required for public distribution.

"Theres so much we really dont know"

Youd have to have a very high specificity and sensitivity, so you would be able to pick up even small amounts of those antibodies or the evidence of infection in people's blood, Collins said. Without that, you could well have people that have been infected without knowing about it, she continued, or people who might think they were still naive, immunologically, when in fact they werent.

In other words, antibody tests not only need to be good enough to yield reliable positive results, they also need to clearly show who does not have Covid-19 antibodies. Finding the right balance requires making sure that antibodies linked to viruses that arent Covid-19 do not produce false positives, and ensuring that the antibodies that are specifically linked to this particular coronavirus cannot evade detection.

Its hard to predict how long this process will take, given that so many teams are actively working on it, but its probably optimistic to expect they will take weeks or even months to be widely available to the public.

This timeline might be further delayed by new revelations about Covid-19. For instance, its possible that some carriers may never develop symptoms, but could still remain infectious to others for months.

Theres not even a consensus that everybody will completely clear the virus from their system, Collins noted. Some people may be asymptomatic shedders for a while. Theres so much we really dont know.

The phrase immunity passport has been floated by the government of the United Kingdom, and others, as a potential way to allow people with immunity to Covid-19 to return to regular work and travel routines.

Assuming that widespread serological testing is achievable, the idea is that people with antibodies linked to Covid-19 would be cleared of social distancing measures because they are theoretically immune to the virus and cannot actively spread it. This would bring back some normalcy for some of the population, and it would also enable scientists to better estimate the total number of Covid-19 cases, as opposed to confirmed cases involving patients who were sick enough to receive a swab test.

On the flip side, antibody tests for this purpose raise concerns about privacy rights and employment inequities, given that authorities would be using medical information to judge whether patients can return to work and normal life.

In the United States, the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) and the Genetic Information Act (GINA) prevent employers from discriminating on the basis of disability or genetic information. But discrimination for health reasons remains legal in many contexts in the United States, according to Jessica Roberts, director of the Health Law and Policy Institute at the University of Houston Law Center.

"We can go some way towards knowing who has been infected, but the idea of it being used as employment criteria is somewhat dystopian

Both laws would likely permit employers to screen employees for antibodies, Roberts said in an email. She noted that GINA only applies to genetic test results and family medical history, which are not likely to apply to antibody tests, which do not look for individual genetic information.

Moreover, the ADA actually allows employers to discriminate if employing a person with a disability could threaten the safety of the workplace, Roberts added. Assuming that ADA protection applies to people with Covid-19 (which a court would have to ask whether having Covid-19 constitutes a legally recognized disability), the employer could still prohibit an employee from coming to work if the employer could show that the employee would pose a significant risk.

The notion of planning a staggered reopening of society, in which restrictions are lifted on people judged immune to Covid-19, is inherently risky on both an epidemiological and ethical level.

While it may be soothing to daydream about receiving an immunity passport that allows you to return to your "normal" life, it is probably better to invest your energy in adapting to the restrictions, following health guidelines until more information is available, and working towards a better "normal" in whatever way you can.

It sounds good because it gives us what we want, which is definitive answers, Collins said.

But we dont know enough to be able to provide those definitive answers. We can go some way towards knowing who has been infected, but the idea of it being used as employment criteria is somewhat dystopian.

Read more:
What Are Antibody Tests, and Can They Prove Coronavirus Immunity? - VICE

Since early March, when coronavirus began to appear in Texas, weve been checking in with Peter Hotez, a vaccine researcher who lately has become a familiar bow-tied presence on national cable news channels.

Hes a professor and dean of the National School of Tropical Medicine at Baylor College of Medicine, and co-director of the Texas Childrens Hospital Center for Vaccine Development.

His lab developed a vaccine to protect against SARS, a deadly strain of coronavirus, but in 2016 wasnt able to get money to test it in humans. Now theyre racing to create a vaccine to protect against the new coronavirus thats wreaking global havoc.

Earlier this week, on Twitter, he wrote:

There's a misunderstanding out there that America just hunkers down for a year, then a #vaccine magically appears, and everyone goes out to have a nice picnic on the National Mall. It would be nice, it's not impossible, our lab working 24/7, but I think a low probability scenario.

This interview has been edited for length and clarity.

Could you talk about those tweets and the expectation that we'll have a coronavirus vaccine within the next year to 18 months?

That's certainly the aspirational goal. That was the charge from Dr. Anthony Fauci, whos advising the president. And that's what we're all working toward. Our scientists are in the lab day and night trying to make this happen and trying to accelerate it, but it's a tough goal.

Sometimes people forget how long it really does take to make a vaccine. Dr. Fauci knows this as well as anybody: He's devoted his life to the HIV AIDS vaccine the development of which has taken 30 years and counting.

Most vaccines take 10 to 25 years. That's the timeframe. My colleague Paul Offi points out that the record is probably four years from start to finish in terms of developmental licensure. That was for the mumps vaccine.

The time horizons are huge for vaccines. So then you say, Okay, well, how do you stack that up against a year to 18 months?

It's going to be very tough. We're clearly putting a lot of resources into it. A lot of smart people are thinking in innovative ways about how we could do more things in parallel. But we have to also set some realistic expectations that we might not have that vaccine in a year or 18 months and maybe not for two or three or four years.

So how do we manage? How do we manage expectations and what our country looks like during that time?

Do you have any idea where that goal of a year to 18 months comes from?

I don't know. There's a new international organization called CEPI, the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovation, that's been charged to fix the long timelines of vaccines and to come up with new ways to accelerate. And there are some theoretical reasons to say we can do more things in parallel. The regulatory agencies are all looking at this.

So we're all going to try, but the the history says that's not a high probability. I'm listening to some of the cable news networks saying, Well, we just got to hunker down for a year and then we'll have the vaccine.

That's not a wise strategy. Or maybe we can have that as one strategy, but don't put all of our eggs in that basket. Let's have another strategy with a more realistic timeframe for vaccines.

This disease may come in waves, like the flu pandemic of 1918. That came in several waves between the beginning of 1918 and the end of 1920. That was a three-year pandemic, and that's a possibility for us as well.

Figuring out a plan for the country in the event that we don't have a vaccine is going to be very important for us. Some people are not happy that I said that because it sounds so pessimistic. It isn't.

I do think we will have other technologies coming out. We've already got the convalescing the antibody therapy. We've got some new drugs that will come online.

But let's consider a realistic timeframe too, in case the vaccines are not out, and figuring out if this virus comes in waves.

MORE Q&AS: Disaster expert Angela Blanchard on COVID-19 and the Houston economy

What would that look like in terms of getting people to back to work? How would we manage that? That includes mental health aspects. Will people have PTSD in terms of going back to work?

Well also have governors from some states unwilling to go back to social distancing once we're off that first hook. Even in this month, when things are so dire in the country, you've got about a third of the governors who are pushing back against aggressive social distancing.

What's it going to be a year from now if we're off social distancing, then we have to go back on?

And who organizes it? Who organizes the response? Who charts the plan for us?

How do we figure this out as a nation? How do we look at all the models and say, what's a realistic model? And and if this virus does show a waxing and waning course, how do we deal with that, working with governments, working with businesses, and working with health systems? This is going to be a very complicated situation.

Right now we're going mainly state by state, and looking at things like closing state borders or at least requiring self-quarantine for people traveling to Texas from Louisiana. How do you think that works?

It doesn't reflect the reality of the situation. COVID-19 is in every state in the country right now.

Travel restrictions sound appealing because they make it seem like, Well, it's over. We just shut that travel down, and that will prevent the virus from coming in. The president has said that he slowed things down by closing down travel with China. But we have reports now, based on the genetic sequence of the virus, that the virus in New York came in from Europe.

At this point, we have to recognize that the virus is probably everywhere. There's a diminishing return at this point of cutting down traffic between states.

I've seen estimates that we are maybe two weeks away from the peak here in Houston or maybe I should say, our first peak.

Thats according to the IHME model from the University of Washington.

So what should Houstonians be doing right now?

Now it's crunch time. Now's the time when you're at greatest risk of contracting the virus by being in crowds or being with people outside your home. We're trying to do everything we can to minimize the number of people that have to be brought into the hospital, who need ICUS.

Its really important now that we aggressively pursue social distancing, especially to prevent a surge on Texas Medical Center. Even though the leaders of the TMC been meeting daily, we need to do our part as citizens of Houston to minimize the number of people that go into the hospital.

It's easier for some than others. Weve talked before about the poor neighborhoods in Houston, and how social distancing is more complicated in areas of poverty and crowding, or for families where lots of people live in one house or one apartment.

Its one thing to say, Okay, everybody now has to social distance. I don't know how we do that easily in Fifth Ward or in Acres Home or in northeast Houston.

I know the mayor's worried about it, and so is the county judge and our congressional delegation from Texas. Everyone's trying to think hard how to deal with this problem.

Right now, without a vaccine, we unfortunately have to use a 14th-century approach. Thats quarantine.

Assuming that its a long time until we get a vaccine, what sorts of things do you see happening? Between waves of the virus, could we begin loosening restrictions and starting the economy up again?

The models say, as we move through the month of May, the number of transmissions will go way down. Maybe at that point we could begin opening things up.

I don't know, though. At what point do we risk the disease immediately coming back if we do that? We're starting to hear that from Singapore and elsewhere.

MORE Q&AS: Texas A&M pandemic expert: Coronavirus will have 5 stages. Were in stage 2.

We're going to need outside help here in Houston, getting advice about that. Hopefully the federal government will provide some support.

Then let's say the levels of transmission continue to stay down for the next few months. When are the predictions this virus might return? Is in the fall of this year? Is it January of next year? April next year? Getting guidance about that will be really helpful.

Other questions are, who goes back into the workforce? Is that only people that have been infected and have antibodies that make them resistant to infection? Or is it or is it everyone?

I certainly don't have the answers to that. We're going to have to have some meaningful dialogue and convene some of the best minds in the country. I suggested on CNN that bringing in the National Academy of Sciences, or a similar organization, would be very helpful. We need some of the best scientists in the country around the table, looking at the models and charting a path.

Adding to the problem is the fact that we're in an election year. Things will be so heated politically that decisions made both on the Republican side and the Democratic side may put political expediency over public health. How do you deal with that?

It's really hard. Im hearing from people who look at the relatively low number of people hospitalized in Houston, or the small number of deaths here. Theyre asking whether the cost of social distancing has been worth it, and whether we should continue staying at home. What would you say to them?

First of all, I don't know that we really know the number of people in ICUS or of deaths. And remember, we still have another two weeks before we reach our peak. So we're certainly not out of the woods by any means.

If it turns out that the data are not as high as we thought then the question always comes: Did that happen because of what we did? Or in spite of what we did?

We had this discussion before about Zika. I met with Houstons mayor and strongly recommended cleaning up the tires that breed Aedes Aegypti mosquitoes in places like the Fifth Ward. He did it.

Then we didn't have Zika. Was that because of my recommendation? We have no idea. You cant prove a negative.

But based on the experience we're seeing elsewhere, we know social distancing is really important for the next few weeks.

What else is on your mind these days? What are you watching?

Im really scratching my head figuring out what the next two and three years look like. That's a big one.

We've also now heard a lot about health, about COVID-19 as a health disparity among the African American and Hispanic communities in the southern parts of the U.S. I put that out there about almost three weeks ago: This is going to be a concern. And thats turning out to be the case, unfortunately. Fighting that in Houston is going to be really important .

How are you doing personally?

Oh, we're hanging in there. I'm spending a lot of time writing papers, and documents related to getting our vaccine off the ground, and writing some thought papers also about what the ideal characteristics are for the vaccine and how we advance the Global Health vaccine.

Im also trying to raise the funding to make it happen. Vaccine developments are expensive.

And Im also talking to people like you, to get the word out, so we get good accurate science messaging. I'm going on CNN or MSNBC and Fox News, and sometimes I'm not telling people good news.

I've been getting a bit of pushback from people I've known for years, people who are not happy that I'm not painting a very rosy picture of things.

Its taken me time to figure out how to tell real information without alarming people. I veer a little too much on the rosy. Sometimes I veer a little too much on the dark side. The best critic of all is my wife, who lets me know about it.

How is she doing?

I think good. She sees how stressed I am.

It's not just me it's our whole group, and Dr. Maria Elena Bottazzi, my science partner for 20 years. I'll text her at 4 a.m. when I wake up, and find out that she's already texted me at 3:30 a.m. when she's woken up. It's crazy. I'll wake up in the middle of the night and send a text, not expecting an answer to the next morning, and she's responding right away.

We're all kind of sleepless.

lisa.gray@chron.com, @LisaGray_HouTX

Original post:
Coronavirus expert Peter Hotez: Now's the time when you're at greatest risk of contracting the virus by being in crowds. - Houston Chronicle

Government and health officials are talking a lot about coronavirus testing. So what does it feel like to undergo one of the not-yet-widely-available nasal swab tests for COVID-19?

With testing still limited, we cant offer a firsthand report. But Dr. Jayant Pinto can.

Its not comfortable, Ill just be honest, says Pinto, a University of Chicago Medicine otolaryngologist whos had similar tests done on himself. Theres a little discomfort. Its not long-lasting. Itll sting for a minute.

It isnt pain like you feel from a shot. Instead, think about how it felt if youve gotten chlorinated water up your nose in a swimming pool.

The complex nerve endings in your nose told your brain: Thats not right, theres something bad in there. And that burning sensation makes you want to blow the water right back out.

Well, the swab test for COVID-19 is more intense than that.

Its a deep burning, and it often elicits tears and sometimes coughing, says Molly K. Erickson, a nurse practitioner at Rush University Medical Center who helped set up the Chicago hospitals testing sites. That discomfort really comes with getting an adequate sample.

So, if you didnt feel anything, it means the test probably wasnt done right.

There are several types of coronavirus tests. All involve collecting a sample using a swab.

Thats followed by molecular analysis to look for the presence of the virus genetic material.

Blood tests, in contrast, look for a persons antibodies to a virus, which show past exposure and possibly future immunity. So far, one blood test for coronavirus has been approved by the U.S. government. Others are under development.

Most swab tests aim for the virus preferred hiding spots in the nasopharynx, located about seven centimeters straight back into the nose, or in the turbinate area, about 2.5 centimeters inside the nose.

The person administering the test will wear PPE personal protective equipment including a mask, face shield and gown, to protect against possible exposure from your breath or a sudden sneeze or any airborne particles that get stirred up.

Once the swab is inserted, it needs to be swirled around for about 15 seconds. Depending on the test, the same thing might also be done through your other nostril.

The discomfort you feel typically goes away quickly, and theres usually no bleeding.

President Donald Trump, whos been tested at least twice, described it as not something I want to do every day, I can tell you that.

U.S. testing got a boost late last month when Abbott Laboratories, based in Lake County, was given expedited approval by the federal Food and Drug Administration to roll out its new rapid COVID-19 test. It uses a portable machine about the size of a toaster to provide results quickly as quickly as five minutes for a positive result and 13 minutes for a negative result.

The White House was one of the first locations to get the Abbott tests. Since the beginning of April, guests visiting Trump and Vice President Mike Pence have been required to get a test even if they feel healthy, the Washington Post reported.

Most other people will have to wait a bit longer. Chicago-area facilities using the new Abbott test or other types of COVID-19 tests are offering them only to patients who go through a screening process and are found to have symptoms or to medical personnel and first-responders.

Erickson says Rush is using a combination of the Abbott kits, its own in-house tests and tests sent to private labs. The testing process is very orchestrated and not set up for walk-in visits by the public. Everyone must first be screened via a video visit or by a clinic, emergency room or hospital personnel and deemed a good candidate for testing.

Dr. Warren Wollin, senior director of Physicians Immediate Care, which has five drive-up centers in Chicago and elsewhere in northern Illinois, says the tests are limited to screened, symptomatic patients and first-responders.

We try to keep it as low-risk as possible by keeping it outside the clinic, Wollin says of the drive-up sites.

With the rapid test, patients get results while they wait in their cars, and medical professionals can act immediately if someone needs urgent care, Wollin says. Those who test positive but arent feeling ill might be directed to have a telehealth visit online.

What isnt known yet: exactly how accurate the various COVID-19 tests are. Normally, reems of data have to be submitted to the FDA before a test is approved. But the usually stringent requirements were waived to more quickly bring testing to the public.

Visit link:
COVID-19 nasal swab test: What it feels like to have one - Chicago Sun-Times

A new, different type of coronavirus test is coming that will help significantly in the fight to quell the COVID-19 pandemic, doctors and scientists say.

The first so-called serology test, which detects antibodies to the virus rather than the virus itself, was given emergency approval Thursday by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration. And several more are nearly ready, said Dr. Elizabeth McNally, director of the Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine Center for Genetic Medicine.

Youll see many of these roll out in the next couple of weeks, and its great, and it will really help a lot, said McNally, noting doctors and scientists will be able to use it to determine just how widespread the disease is, who can safely return to work and possibly how to develop new treatments for those who are ill.

The serology test involves taking a blood sample and determining if it contains the antibodies that fight the virus. A positive result indicates the person had the virus in the past and is currently immune.

That kind of test will be far easier to roll out and use than the complex nasal swab tests now being used to detect the active virus that causes COVID-19, she added, saying its possible that the antibody tests could be conducted in the confines of ones own home, much like a pregnancy test.

They will come in a variety of shapes and sizes, McNally said. "The simplest would be one that you do at home, that you would poke your finger and squeeze out a little blood and put it on a little strip, and itll be the plus-minus whether youve developed antibodies or not.

There are several benefits to having the test, including:

Determining how much of the population is infected.

One of the questions we are going to be asking is, How widespread was this virus? McNally said. "I think we have a lot of indication that its much more widespread than we know, because most of the younger people who get this get it relatively mildly, recover and do OK. And were not tracking any of those people right now.

Interestingly, the more people who have had it, the safer everyone is, under the concept of herd immunity.

The people who are already covered can actually provide protection to the people around them, just because its hard for the virus to spread, McNally said. The virus cant spread anymore, so people are less likely to get it.

Figuring out who can go back to work, particularly sidelined doctors and nurses, police officers and firefighters.

If a person is positive for antibodies, which likely show up two to six weeks after infection, theyre not going to get sick or spread the virus, because their bodies are killing it off. Once the antibodies come up in your system, that means your body fought it off, and you dont have active virus, McNally said.

It may also be important to test grocery store workers, McNally added, noting that buying food is one of the things thats still forcing people out of their homes. Thats one of the major points of contact, so where we can reduce that, especially in the next few weeks, I think thats going to be really critical, she said.

Getting a sense of how long immunity lasts.

Other coronaviruses that have been studied trigger antibodies that typically last one to three years. So the immunity likely isnt forever.

Are we seeing a sustained response thats going to help us prepare better for when this happens again, and it will happen again, McNally said. Thats what happens with viruses.

Possibly learning more about how to fight the disease, using antibody treatment.

Maybe these people that really did poorly (when they had COVID-19), maybe they were slow to develop antibodies, in which case this concept of giving them antibodies is actually a good concept to help treat people, McNally said. "So, theres so many things we will learn from the immune response to this virus.

Approval of the antibody test is something that public health officials have been talking about for weeks, saying it couldnt come fast enough.

When we have antibody testing, trust me, well be using that a lot, because well be looking to see if people have been exposed to coronavirus, Dr. Allison Arwady, Chicagos public health commissioner, said in a recent interview before the test was approved. Are they recovered? Will they be safe for working and caring for people?

Likewise, Dr. Robert Gallo, co-founder and director of the Institute of Human Virology at the University of Maryland School of Medicine, described development of the test as imperative.

It allows the public health officials to better follow the epidemic," Gallo said. "Without the antibody test, its very hard to follow the epidemic with convenience of any kind.

Research wise, wouldnt it be really important to know if theres some aspect of the immune system that makes it worse, or if there are people correlating with some type of immune response that was really correlated with the symptoms being virtually nothing," he added. You would just be able to make really important conclusions, so we need the antibody test rather desperately.

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Next coronavirus test can tell if you are now immune and its fast - Monmouth Daily Review Atlas