Weird Covid 19 antibody test results

[Londonmummy00]

Hello everyone, I was wondering if any other family have had antibody tests that really don’t make sense.
We are a family in London, close to central London. Me, 34, 2 kids aged 4 and 6, DH, and our part time nanny. Early March my youngest child developed a fever that wasn’t responding to nurofen and Calpol. I called 111 who almost laughed when I suggested a covid test for her (the main operator not the doctor who called us back) By the next morning my child had become slightly breathless especially after walking up a few stairs, and I took her to our usual doctor who after checking her over said it was ‘likely’ strep throat and gave her antibiotics and that she was safe to go back up nursery on day 5 of her antibiotics (5 day course) A few days later she developed a horrible cough, but after about 8 days was fine.
Just as she got better my 6 year old son got the same sky high fever that did not respond to calpol at all (maximum dose and I omitted the nurofen as that’s when the news was coming out it wasnt safe for suspected covid) My son spent 2 weeks in bed with this fever, and the awful cough.GP (over the phone) was sympathetic but told us to continue the calpol and not much else we could do.
At the time private testing was not common and there was only one test advertising at a well known questionable clinic in Harley street so we didn’t do it (and nhs said no too)

A week into me looking after him our nanny and I got sick. For us it lasted between 4-6 weeks of various nasty symptoms. At this point I got a private throat/ nose swab test and so did our nanny- both tested positive. DH no symptoms at all despite us sharing a bed, me coughing over him all night, a bit of romance thrown in there in the early days as he thought I simply had a bad cold! This was all in March.
A week ago we bought the Abbott antibody tests through citydoc for myself, my DH, nanny and my 6 year old son. Results are:
Me- positive to antibodies
Nanny- positive
DH - negative
Son- negative

I called the lab where tests where done. Spoke to a doctor there how it was possible my husband was negative. I was sick for 6 weeks and we were closely together throughout. They said it’s possible he has ‘natural immunity’ I am the health freak who eats healthy ish, goes to gym, takes vitamins and supplements, douses myself and the house in Dettol at every opportunity. My DH is the opposite in all those things with a very relaxed Attitude, has asthma, drinks too much etc!

I could have sworn blind I got covid from my son. I was feeling good and normal until day 7 of looking after him. He had all the standard signs. Then I got it and tested positive.

So how does he have no antibodies? He may have not had it. It may have been a bad ‘flu’. So then why didn’t he catch this of me and our nanny in the time period we were sick ? (Nanny was self isolating with us at the time)
Why didn’t my daughter if she genuinely did have strep throat? I was bathing the kids every night, maybe I had a few nights I didn’t when feeling at my worst otherwise I was with them. They were in my bed, on me, cuddling me. I tried to stop at kisses and cuddles but this only worked for a certain small time period. We watch movies snuggled on the sofa, I made them food etc.
The doctor didn’t give me any answers to this that made sense. I don’t think they know.

Has anyone been in a similar situation within their household?

It seems to be really common. There have been several studies which show that the chance of a spouse getting infected is only 50%. That is really weird if the virus is so contagious that we all need to keep 2m away when we walk past people.

There are a few theories why - someone the wrong type of contact, or people killing the virus with T cells without producing antibodies or that there is some immunity from having had the common cold. No one knows yet, but if it is any of the latter two, it means that the virus is overall a bit less dangerous as not everyone is susceptible.

Eg. this study found that less than half of household members of a covid patient were infected.

www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3099(20)30314-5/fulltext

Thank you eyewhisker... I will read the study now

Another theory, that would come out later on as time goes by is that children who do have it simply don’t produce antibodies... I hope that is not the case as then us parents would really be pushed into having some sort of vaccine even if our children already had the virus...

I’m not sure why this is surprising. There are very few viruses that infect literally everybody who comes into contact with them, and Covid-19 certainly isn’t one. None of the lifestyle choices you’ve described are likely to affect whether you or your husband is more likely to become infected after exposure. It’s just bad luck.

There are lots of examples of this emerging. The reason that they can't explain it is because there is no explanation. It's all too early to tell. I was just reading one study that is suggesting that some people who have contracted the "cold" version of coronaviruses may have more immunity to it that people who haven't. Truth to tell, I doubt there will ever be a single explanation, no more than why you get a cold and everyone else doesn't.

Interesting maybe for you is that a study last week said that there is now some evidence that some asthmatics are actually less at risk than the general population! Apparently in some people their asthma acts as a preventative barrier to infection.

Bear in mind that we are still researching Spanish Flu and don't have all the answers. So the only thing that is certain is that there will be a lot of people making a lifetime out of the study of this.

There are other reports of families who all developed the same symptoms but only some of whom tested positive for IgG antibodies on the Abbott test. I suspect not everyone (especially younger people/children) produces long-lasting antibodies.

Moon dust- interesting you say that, the doctor I spoke to from the lab said they are working with another lab in New York and have found asthmatic people are absolutely not at more risk, but actually less so.

The reason I find these results weird and surprising is we are made to feel, or certainly have in the past few months, like this is the plague. 2 meters apart. Masks on gloves on. Sunglasses on too as it can enter the eyes too. 50,000 estimated deaths, or more. My mum who is 60 and no known health conditions has not been outside her house since the beginning of March due to the fear the media has put out. She is terrified and has only in this last week popped out to get fresh milk and already snapped at a poor lady she deemed too close to her, which she now feels awful about and on reflection the lady was 2 meters from her. But my mum panicked after being cooped up in her house since early March. There are awful scare stories on YouTube that some people immerse themselves in.

I know this is an awful virus and incredibly dangerous to older people with other health conditions but it is also not the plague that some deem it to be (in our case) that infects everyone around you within seconds.

There could be a lot of reasons for your results. Part of the issue is we just don't know enough about this virus to be able to say anything concrete. We may find that some members of the population have an inbuilt natural resistance to it, either due to genetic or environmental factors. We may find that some people don't develop enough antibodies to show up in the test. We still don't know if having antibodies equals immunity to repeat infection and we might not know that for years.

If you want to learn more about this kind of stuff, there is an excellent book, The Coming Plague, by Laurie Garrett, which talks a lot about the challenges of dealing with pandemics/epidemics of new and unknown diseases. Beware though, I'm about a 3rd of the way through and already despairing for the future of humanity.

Throwing in there that we have had similar.
All 4 children mildly unwell roughly same time - around a week after hubby and I started with symptoms. (We were sick over 4 weeks although I had it the worst, basically in bed for 3 of those weeks)
We also have 2 other adults who live with us in our house who didn’t get any symptoms.
Testing - hubby, myself and youngest all positive. Everyone else negative. Did a proper venous blood draw for the Abbott test for my eldest last week and that came back negative even though he also had mild symptoms like his siblings.
He has asthma too.
Find it very fascinating.

This Abbott antibody rests are for use in the lab, not as a home test. Abbott have warned they shouldn’t be used at home as they’ve only validated the results for a lab test
www.pharmaceutical-journal.com/news-and-analysis/news/approved-covid-19-antibody-test-not-intended-for-home-use-manufacturer-warns/20207990.article?firstPass=false

The illness started in our house in 17th March with my husband being the last to become unwell. From the 6th April he was unwell. A fever of 40.6, bedbound for weeks, horrendous cough, crackly chest resulting in two courses of antibiotics for secondary bacterial infections. He was assessed at a Covid assessment centre on Easter Monday. I have never seen him so unwell. I would say he didnt really start to get better until mid May.

We paid for an Abbott test for him, proper blood test sent off to a lab. The result was negative. We were utterly dumfounded.

There was a study in Spain that found something like 20% of their sample did not produce antibodies, with those that didn’t tending to be younger and having had milder cases.

Also as per pp the Abbott test was validated with fresh venous blood samples and is deemed less accurate with capillary samples that may have been exposed to air or had time to deteriorate.

I had a negative from an Abbott test around day 60 of an illness that from the symptoms, timecourse and incubation period can only be covid. It has also been diagnosed clinically as covid and I work in a covid-heavy central London hospital where many of my colleagues developed the same symptoms around the same time, also diagnosed as covid.

A couple were in the newspaper yesterday where both tested positive for covid-19 every five days, for 2 months... she was asymptomatic and he was hospitalised with it, and when they both subsequently had the antibody test he had high numbers and she had no antibody response at all, despite being infected for two months.
So much we don’t understand, and doesn’t make sense, about transmission, level of infection, immunity.

Wow so many unexplainable situations in many households...thank you for the book recommendation Kat Marie I will get this off amazon today. I do find this whole thing fascinating.

My 6 year old starts school today, he’s in year 1. It would have given me a lot more Confidence to know he had antibodies right now today. But alas not.

This thread has some possible theories and information:

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/coronavirus/3918865-Antibody-testing-thread-2?pg=8

See in particular this posted by NaturalBlondeYeahRight in another thread:

twitter.com/profkarolsikora/status/1263810622430511106?s=21

It's possible that the op kids were infected with something else so covid couldnt take hold.

Also it looks like some people shed and others dont. Could you and nanny have caught it from the same other person? And then neither of you twon been shedders yourselves.?

's possible that the op kids were infected with something else so covid couldnt take hold

Really?? Is there any evidence for this? Great if so. We could make sure everyone vulnerable to covid keeps catching colds then so coronavirus can’t take a hold!