Testing just got a lot more interesting8 Jul 2020 08:16
https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.businessinsider.com/coronavirus-antibodies-study-herd-immunity-unachievable-spain-2020-7%3famp
Population-wide immunity to the novel coronavirus could be "unachievable" with antibodies to the virus disappearing after just a few weeks in some patients, according to a major new Spanish study.
The Spanish government teamed up with some of the country's leading epidemiologists to discover what percentage of the population had developed antibodies that could provide immunity from the coronavirus.
The study found that just 5% of those tested across the country maintained antibodies to the virus, in findings published by the medical journal The Lancet.
The study also found that 14% of people who had tested positive for coronavirus antibodies in the first round of testing no longer tested positive in subsequent tests carried out weeks later.
"Immunity can be incomplete, it can be transitory, it can last for just a short time and then disappear," Raquel Yotti, the director of Spain's Carlos III Health Institute, which helped conduct the study, said.
Other researchers said the study corroborated findings elsewhere that immunity to the virus might not be long-lasting in people who develop only mild or no symptoms.
"No symptoms suggests a mild infection, which never really gets the immune system going well enough to generate immunological 'memory,'" Ian Jones, a professor of virology at the University of Reading, said.
Jones added: "Anyone who tests positive by antibody test should not assume they are protected. They may be, but it is not clear."
The study's lead author, Marina Pollán, told CNN: "Some experts have computed that around 60% of seroprevalence might mean herd immunity. But we are very far from achieving that number."
The study found that despite Spain being one of the worst affected countries by COVID-19, "prevalence estimates remain low and are clearly insufficient to provide herd immunity." More than 28,000 people in Spain have died after catching the coronavirus.
As CNN noted, The Lancet published commentary by two other scientists, Isabella Eckerle and Benjamin Meyer, who said the Spanish study, along with similar studies in the US and China, showed that herd immunity could not be achieved.
The "key finding" is that "most of the population appears to have remained unexposed" to the coronavirus, "even in areas with widespread virus circulation," Eckerle and Meyer said.
Eckerle heads the Geneva Centre for Emerging Viral Diseases, while Meyer is a virologist at the University of Geneva.
They said: "In light of these findings, any proposed approach to achieve herd immunity through natural infection is not only highly unethical, but also unachievable."
As found in antibody studies elsewhere in the world, Spain's most densely populated areas — the cities of Madrid and Barcelona — had the highest levels of antibody prevalence. It was over 10% in Madrid and 7% in Barcelo
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