Assessing immunity to COVID-19 requires a test that looks for protective antibodies in the blood of people who have recovered from the disease. Such a test can provide an indication that you have had the virus and that your body built a response to it, said Dr. Tom Weida, University Medical Center’s chief medical officer and a family medicine physician.
“It’s just like when you have a vaccine – your body will create a protective mechanism that is just specific for that one organism. So, your body is ready to go as soon as you pick up that infection,” he said.
Weida said it’s still too early to be sure that once you’ve had COVID-19, you won’t get it again. “Usually if you’ve built up antibodies to a virus, you will not get that infection a second time, although there are some cases where you may, and we can’t be sure at this point (with COVID-19). But the odds are that if you have the antibodies to the coronavirus, you should not get (the virus) a second time.”
With one caveat: “If the virus mutates, your antibody might not be specific to that mutation and so you have to build a new antibody,” Weida said.
Labs around the world are working on antibody tests, but none are readily accessible yet. Weida expects the coronavirus antibody tests to become more available as the pandemic declines.