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Yppej
4-22-20, 5:37am
Has anyone been able to get an antibody test? And if so, if you had the antibodies have you donated plasma?

This is something I am interested in, but the test has not been rolled out to doctors' offices yet in my area.

I have O negative blood so I think I would be a good donor.
happystuff
4-22-20, 10:26am
I don't know about being an antibody donor, but I know they have been looking for blood donors in our area.
Yppej
4-22-20, 5:31pm
I called my doctor's office but didn't get a call back. Hospitals in my state have access to antibody tests now and doctor's offices are supposed to be able to order them starting this Friday.
Gardnr
4-22-20, 9:11pm
Here are 2 I heard about this morning:

Utah: https://www.aruplab.com/news/4-16-2020/antibody-testing-rollout

Idaho: https://idahonews.com/news/coronavirus/crush-the-curve-idaho-offering-coronavirus-antibody-tests

As for plasma, I believe it's a controlled research protocol at this time.
Yppej
4-23-20, 5:34am
Thank you Gardnr. I contacted the University of Massachusetts Medical School but they are not doing the antibody tests. You need a confirmed covid test to donate plasma which I do not have although I suspect I had it in January. There is a shortage of tens of thousands of donors now compared to people requesting plasma so they should fix this gap. Instead you get an autoreply with a form that has certain fields you can't get past without the disease test results. To donate you are supposed to be healthy, but with the disease testing mainly in older people with underlying health conditions I don't see them getting where they need to be without changing their protocols.
Yppej
4-28-20, 7:02pm
Quest Diagnostics is offering the antibody test for $119.00. I am debating whether I want to pay that. If I could only get it from my doctor's office at least it would apply towards my deductible.
SteveinMN
4-28-20, 9:21pm
Quest Diagnostics is offering the antibody test for $119.00. I am debating whether I want to pay that.
Which test are they offering? Apparently some are better than others (https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01163-5), both in identifying the antibodies and in not giving false positives (I would not want to be told in error that I had the antibodies so I could go off into the world and ... contract SARS-CoV-2).

ETA Quest apparently bills their test as an IgG test, not PCR.