‘Serology’ is the new #coronavirus buzzword. Here’s why it matters. - The Washington Post
▻https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/05/04/serology-is-new-coronavirus-buzzword-heres-why-it-matters
Utilité de la #sérologie #sars-cov2, par Marc Lipsitch
To understand the overall pattern in the U.S. population, larger serologic surveys must cover a wide range of areas, not just hot spots, recruiting a truly representative sample.
Testing the same people for antibodies and virus week after week can help answer another question: Do antibodies to the virus signal that a person is protected against further infection, so-called seroprotection? The idea is to follow individuals with and without antibodies, who are otherwise similar (live in the same area, have similar work patterns and otherwise are likely to have similar risks of encountering an infectious person), and find out if those with antibodies have lower rates of contracting the virus than those without.
In the best case, maybe those with antibodies are completely protected; more likely, based on experience with other coronaviruses, they will be at lower but not zero risk.
As in every epidemiologic study, the challenge in these studies is to separate causal from confounding factors, by ensuring that seropositives (those with detectable antibodies) and the seronegatives (those without) have comparable exposures to viral infection.