Thermogenesis, a cell processing company in Rancho Cordova, says that with just a prick of a finger an antibody test can discover whether someone has had COVID19, recovered, and is now immune.
“It’s an indirect test that is testing people’s response towards the virus. Not the virus per say but the advantage of this is it's so rapid it can happen with in two minutes up to 10 minutes,” said Chris Xu, CEO of Thermogensis.
Xu said the company has been working on developing the test kits since November and hope to get them to local hospitals and northern California house holds after FDA approval.
Thermogenesis is not the only one with testing abilities. In Los Angeles, researchers from USC and LA County have been approved to begin research testing on 1,000 people in hopes of discovering when Californians might see the stay-at-home order lifted.
“That might indicate that we might be able to open up our economy sooner than we thought. But if we find out this is much more deadly than the flu, then that might have indications that we might want to open up our economy very slowly,” said Neeraj Sood, professor and vice dean for research at USC.
Sood said scientists believe that when 60% of the population gets infected then herd immunity will happen, meaning the number of infections will die down.
“That estimate is really important for understanding how deadly this disease is,” Sood said.
Sood said that the 1,000 individuals tested were picked randomly from race and economic standing in hopes to better understand the virus and how it affects different communities.
When it comes to companies like Thermogenesis being able to get their antibody test kits on the market for the general public, Sood said it will happen sooner than later.
“There are several companies now that are selling these antibody tests. I imagine in the next few weeks these test will be really popular, both in the context of research as well as outside research,” Sood said.
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