Data from more than 1,000 LA residents will help health officials determine when coronavirus will end and possibly provide a solution to the pandemic before a vaccine is made. The county believes there is a good chance that society can recover before a vaccine is available.
Dr. Neeraj Sood, a professor and vice dean for research at the USC Price School of Public Policy, and officials at the LA County Department of Public Health completed initial data collection of antibodies from a representative sample of local residents. LA County is waiting to completely analyze results from the test.
The test, which started on April 10, includes a finger prick. The blood will then be tested to determine how many people in LA County have ever had the virus, regardless of if they were included in the official counts beforehand. Blood testing will also reveal who can donate plasma.
Dr. Paul Simon, the chief science officer at the LA Department of Public Health, said the antibody testing will help the county understand the full impact of the virus, since current counts only include reported cases.
“The most basic objective is to get the understanding of the full scope of the local epidemic here in Los Angeles County,” Simon told Annenberg Media in a phone interview. “This study will help us identify the full magnitude of the local epidemic.”
Dr. Sood helped set up six drive-thru blood testing locations in LA County to advance the new pilot study in partnership with the LA County Department of Public Health.
USC students from the Keck School of Medicine are also volunteering with their professors who are leading related research.
Mayor Eric Garcetti suggests that the more we do now the sooner we can reopen.
“One of the biggest tragedies of this crisis is that we simply don’t know when we’ll be able to come back together again," Garcetti said in a press conference. “See each other. Hold each other. Smile in three dimensions at each other.”
USC President Carol Folt said that with the university’s help, she hopes the antibody testing will soon be available all around Los Angeles.
“It would help ease anxiety for people who are worried about contracting the virus and it will also be an important fundamental step towards re-starting our economy,” Folt said in the press conference with Garcetti on April 15.
Antibodies are proteins used by the immune system to help identify viruses and bacteria to fight them off. Testing can determine whether these antibodies will provide people protection from a second outbreak.
The results from the antibody test can give researchers and health officials a guide as to when to loosen social distancing restrictions.
“We don’t know for sure that we would need a vaccine to get back to normal. That’s why we need science to track the epidemic,” Dr. Sood said in a press conference with Garcetti. “As we start seeing the number of infections go down, we know that’s a safe time to try to re-enter or restart the economy.”
Dr. Simon is hoping that repeating the test in intervals will help them see what the trend looks like. Periodically testing people will also give health officials some insights into whether there is continuous spread of the virus in the population or if it is going down.
However, Dr. Simon doesn’t feel that the antibody test is ready to be used by the general public.
“We don’t want these tests to distract the importance of regular diagnostic tests being used [to diagnose the coronavirus]," Dr. Simon said in an interview. "That’s the highest priority in terms of testing right now.”
Dr. Simon also said there are still a lot of questions about the accuracy of the test. It’s not a problem in the LA Department of Public Health’s normal research since they can easily adjust the results to address the inaccuracy.
However, when taking care of individual patients during a pandemic, he said they can’t afford to have an inaccurate test.
“We have to be very careful about how to use the blood test. We don’t feel like it’s ready to be rolled out widely," said Dr. Simon to Annenberg Media. "We need more evaluation to identify the test kits that are most accurate to use.”
Dr. Simon and Dr. Sood plan to run testing every two to three weeks. They hope the results will help answer health officials’ questions on how to fight the spread of the virus.