Having a Covid Antibody Test to determine your level of immunity

[vera99]

Was idly wondering if there is any point in paying what seems like £50 in having a covid antibody test.

Why ? Well my partner and I would have a handle on our 'resistance' and compare that to the average. Secondly it would feed into the relevance of a third booster shot. Currently, in the SE there are a lot of walk in 'no questions asked' Pfizer jabs available (I assume that this is to encourage illegals, undocumented and the young to have it and also to get out stocks into arms before they expire and help build the vaccine wall of immunity ) and we are considering having one to top up our double AZ course finished 2 months ago.

Would welcome any thoughts feedback that anyone may have. Here's a private test I picked at random from Google.

"Crucially it also provides an indication of the level of antibodies detected in a sample at the time of testing.That matters, because a basic positive result could hide anything from a very weak to a strong result, you wouldn’t know. Results from a BioCard are reported in a clear, simple way… so you’ll know what level you are over time, in a way you will understand. Monitoring your level if positive, will provide an indication of how long your immunity may be maintained, and how protected you remain."

covid19biocard.co.uk/?gclid=CjwKCAjwgb6IBhAREiwAgMYKRl07o3YUPJx6HeY0wg6vlKApVAf_Bkt_HZOvi09HEtDWSAXUGvzcwhoCtzIQAvD_BwE

That looks like a test for prior infection not vaccine antibodies?

It really won't give you that much information other than you have antibodies or you don't. Antibodies wane, that's what they do. Other parts of your immune system kick in & respond if you meet the virus so that you can produce antibodies again. You don't need another vaccine yet, AZ is very effective.

The BioCard test, which is what I had, does detect the spike protein antibodies, so that applies to either a natural infection or a vaccination.

I had the test only because my partner had a positive antibody test. I hadn't been ill with Covid and thought I just didn't catch it. I was wrong, and had antibodies 6 months later. A subsequent test recently showed I am still weakly positive for antibodies. If I hadn't done the test I would never have known I had Covid.

In your case, you're vaccinated so it will show your antibody level (which will drop over time as others have said). Antibodies aren't the only thing you want, you also want B and T cell immunity, but getting tested for T cells is far more expensive and harder to get.

This test at a more substantial one at 149 quid says it will give a quantitative readout but at that price, I think I will give it a miss. Apparently the NHS does these tests on immunosuppressed folk to determine their level of risk

"The VirTus test provides a quantitative score for both IgG (long-term) and IgM (short-term) antibody levels, and interpretation as to whether levels are Very high, High, Med or Low. The Roche provides one score for overall antibody level, and no interpretation."

www.mayfieldclinic.co.uk/covid-19/antibody-testing

How do you find out about locations for these no questions asked shots?

No questions asked walk-in jab centres.

www.cityam.com/fancy-a-covid-jab-here-are-all-the-walk-in-vaccine-sites-open-in-london-this-month/

They will still enter your name & address onto the system so they will know you have had 2 jabs already. There is certain information they need to collect to record the jab on the system. You really, really don't need another one yet. What if they then call you for a booster? Will you have 4?

@vera99 I honestly don't think enough is known about how antibody level correlates to immunity to use that to make decisions about immune status.

high antibodies -> no guarantees as to what this means clinically, particularly regarding threshold
no antibodies -> doesn't necessarily mean you don't have a good level of immunity

you're kind of paying to still be insure (IMO)

DP suspects we had Covid in the early days of lockdown.
He's had his vaccine but I haven't. So if I was to do one of these tests it should tell me if I've had Covid before since I've not been vaxxed
Is that right? Because I have been curious to know

Many thanks for the replies we have had enough it would seem and will wait to be called !

The quantitive antibody tests are £50 from Lloyds pharmacy or testing for all. My vaccine antibody level is 500u/mol I have had two az vaccines

@messybun101

DP suspects we had Covid in the early days of lockdown. He's had his vaccine but I haven't. So if I was to do one of these tests it should tell me if I've had Covid before since I've not been vaxxed Is that right? Because I have been curious to know

No, it won't tell you anything, if you had covid in the early days. You are very unlikely to still have any detectable immunity left now

I don't know where to start with that OP.

Illegals?

And as pp said, the antibody test detects antibodies from an infection

Also, it's only a suggestion of whether you have been infected or not in the past 6 months. I did one for Zoe app, a couple of weeks ago.

@Pompoms1

How do you find out about locations for these no questions asked shots?

Our local papers have advertised walk in jab sessions, since we're in a high infection rate area, actually the highest in the country, a few weeks ago (numbers amazingly plummeted when students went home)

They won't be no questions asked, though. They'll need to know some basic history and ask about certain allergies, previous vaccinations, etc.

@messybun101 do you have the Zoe Covid symptom study app? If you do, or if you sign up to it, you can get a free antibody test via the gov website to see if you have antibodies from a prior infection.

It comes in the post and you just post the sample back to them. www.gov.uk/register-coronavirus-antibody-test

I wonder if the walk in centers will do 2nd jabs earlier than the 8 weeks between jabs?

I thought antibodies would pick up the vaccine too? I had covid in Jan, one Pfizer jab and it showed positive 200u/mol. So not as helpful as I would have liked!

@yellowsofa

I wonder if the walk in centers will do 2nd jabs earlier than the 8 weeks between jabs?

Not according to the info I saw today when checking fir DD. It was very clear that you can't have your second jab any sooner than 8 weeks apart

I'm guessing the 'no questions asked' walk ins still want a name, etc? They say no proof of address - which is really good because London has so many homeless people (more than the entire population of many UK towns) as well as many undocumented migrants.

Problem with trying to get a Pfizer booster to top up AZ is, I presume, you'd have to give false details....and therefore risk getting arrested for fraud.

I do understand why you want to, and I think people over 40 and the CV should be given a mRNA booster - but it's probably best waiting for a legal way.

AZ is good and still worth getting, but it isn't quite as effective as Pfizer and Moderna. (In USA almost all hospitalised are the unvaccinated). Obviously in high risk countries like the UK - with unmitigated spread and no attempt at border control to keep out new strains - it's best to have the very strongest possible protection.

I wonder with T cells...

Are they really the key to fighting Covid? It's an inflammatory disease - and the serious illness is often due to overactive immune system. Isn't it better to suppress rather than boost them?

I'm probably getting confused. It's late and I'm tired. But we do know that certain immunosuppressants help treat Covid. Steroids like dexamethasone and budesonide, and tocilizumab.

There's often confusion between increased risk of infection versus increased risk of hospitalisation and death.

There's a moral argument that the going spare London Pfizer doses should be used as a booster for AZ people (particularly over 45 and/or CV) or 12+ in London. The reason these doses are going spare is because London has the lowest take up in the country. That means it's a higher risk environment for the vulnerable (and there are several million vulnerable in London). It's already higher risk due to ideal virus spreading (and mutating) conditions. High levels of urban deprivation - densely populated, overcrowded poor housing, and the international travel hub that (unlike other non pandemic travel hubs, i.e. NYC) still has with wide open borders and new arrivals (mutated strains potentially included) heading straight from airport onto busy public transport.

Obviously it won't happen. But morally it should.

@Tealightsandd

I wonder with T cells...

Are they really the key to fighting Covid? It's an inflammatory disease - and the serious illness is often due to overactive immune system. Isn't it better to suppress rather than boost them?

I'm probably getting confused. It's late and I'm tired. But we do know that certain immunosuppressants help treat Covid. Steroids like dexamethasone and budesonide, and tocilizumab.

There's often confusion between increased risk of infection versus increased risk of hospitalisation and death.

Yes T cells (CD4 and CD8) are the key, and no we shouldn't suppress them. Read Prof Shane Crotty's excellent paper on this. He says T cells do the 'heavy lifting'. SARS-COV-2 is a virus whose 'trick' is that it's good at evading our innate immune system's early response. Therefore it can manage to get a grip in your body early on, and if your T cell response isn't good enough (kicks in at around the one week mark) then you are in danger of severe disease or even death. It really is the key. You really wouldn't want to suppress T cells.

www.cell.com/cell/pdf/S0092-8674(21)00007-6.pdf

The cytokine storm you are probably referring happens with a poor T cell response, it's our body trying a last-ditch effort to defeat the virus, but at great cost.

Prof Crotty's team at La Jolla Institute in CA is cutting edge and has published many papers now on both T and B cell responses and also natural immunity vs vaccine induced immunity. Well worth searching his papers or following him on Twitter (profshanecrotty)

Shane Crotty
@profshanecrotty

Aug 5
As a reminder, your immune system has multiple ways to protect you: antibodies, T cells, and memory B cells. Antibodies are the first line of defense. Then, if you get infected, T cells and B cells are activated to multiply for several days and then kill and block the virus.

Still, there is a lot more time to prevent severe disease. I have said for almost a year, it looks like any decent mix of antibodies, CD4 T cells, and CD8 T cells, is probably enough to prevent hospitalization level COVID-19.

Shortish video by Crotty on the role of T cells in Covid:

@yellowsofa

I wonder if the walk in centers will do 2nd jabs earlier than the 8 weeks between jabs?

Ours was, but not any more.

On a scientific level if the vaccine was going to be thrown away due to expiry or given as an early booster in an already vaccinated person would that lead to somewhat greater immunity and in its very small way increase the size of the "vaccine wall" for want of a better word?

I can fully understand why the authorities don't want to go down that route and muddy the waters or even create a demand that isn't currently there that could compromise an ordered and logical roll out of boosters.

Though one could imagine in countries like the US where most vaccines are available free or privately wealthy folk may titrate their personal vaccination programme around quantitative testing and then choose their vaccines a la carte and at a rate determined by their own immune response.

Like I said we have abandoned this idle thought and patiently wait for when our turn comes!