Read on Twitter
So... here's a fun thing that I actually know from, you know, talking to people and asking questions.
Why aren't we using South Korea's faster antibody test to test for COVID-19?
Well, a couple of reasons (this will take a little while) /1 https://twitter.com/politicalmath/status/1240739184416980993
Why aren't we using South Korea's faster antibody test to test for COVID-19?
Well, a couple of reasons (this will take a little while) /1 https://twitter.com/politicalmath/status/1240739184416980993
Most of the S Korea spread was descended from "Patient 31" who was super-spreader. This is the one that spread it at the church, if you've heard that story. /2 https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/03/coronavirus-cases-have-dropped-sharply-south-korea-whats-secret-its-success
So S Korea has a relatively homogeneous viral population (the viruses were genetically similar to each other). Apparently (I am not deep on the details here) there is an antibody test that is pretty fast and efficient, but requires a homogenous viral pop /3
The US, however, has seen viral introductions from a couple different places, so our viral population is NOT homogeneous and we would need different antibody tests for the different points of introduction. /4 https://twitter.com/politicalmath/status/1239679597353906176
So we have to end up using the a RT-PCR test, which was the CDC test. The Seattle lab that we've head so much about modified their own MERS (which is a coronaviral respiratory disease, but not COVID-19) to test for COVID-19. /5
I've been told the Roche tests are... not better, but apparently there are a lot of testing facilities that can run them, but I'm not sure what the difference is between the Roche test and the RT-PCR test /6
That's it. That's all the stuff I know.
