Chicago City Wire

Roseland Community Hospital on the South Side is one of the few bright spots in Illinois when it comes to testing for COVID-19. 

Roseland offers tests for both the presence of the coronavirus, and for antibodies, produced by the body’s natural defense system, indicating some level of immunity to the disease.

Most tests in Illinois look only for the presence of the virus, and the number of tests available are well short of goals set in late March by Gov. J.B. Pritzker.

Public health experts say that both tests – especially the antibody tests  –are vital to getting America back to work and normal routines. At the same time, they acknowledge many unanswered questions remain regarding immunity.

Because of that, it’s difficult to place a return-to-work timeline, AnneMarie Schieber, a fellow at The Heartland Institute, told Chicago City Wire.

“There is some hope that the antibody tests will be a game changer because it will give us an indication how much immunity there is in the public square,” she wrote in an email. “It will be interesting to see how this information will be used: will those who are immune be able to circulate freely, will it tell epidemiologists how the virus is spreading in some communities? We don’t know.”

She added that it’s still unclear what the tests for immunity – a drop of blood is all that’s needed – will indicate about the level and duration of protection.

“I think the public would feel much more confident in measures taken with some hard-core data than the modeling we are now using,” she said.

Increasing the number of tests may give people the hard-core data they need by presenting a more accurate picture of how many can be expected to survive the disease. That will in turn give elected officials more confidence in determining when to restart the economy, and the public more comfort in going back to work. The models seem to be changing almost daily – changing for the better. Yesterday, President Trump said that the death toll from the pandemic will be substantially less than the 100,000 projected just the week before. 

One study showing lower death rates looked at the results of testing in a German town hit hard by COVID-19, stemming from a February carnival celebration.

“From the result of their blood survey," MIT Technology Review reported, "the German team estimated the death rate in the municipality at 0.37% overall, a figure significantly lower than what’s shown on a dashboard maintained by Johns Hopkins, where the death rate in Germany among reported cases is 2%."

The difference in the numbers comes down to how many people are actually infected but haven’t been counted because they have no or mild symptoms. 

Dr. Anthony Fauci, the nation's leading infectious disease expert, said this week that the U.S. is days away from having a large number of antibody tests available.

But he also said that the tests need to be validated.

"You need to make sure they're consistent and that they're accurate,” he told CNN.

In late March, Gov. Pritzker set a goal of 10,000 tests a day – that’s the number health care experts need to get an idea of where the virus is spreading. On Wednesday, the governor said the goal won’t be reached until next week. 

According to Crain's Chicago Business, Pritzker cited slow and inaccurate testing equipment from ThermoFisher and blamed federal officials for redirecting equipment to private labs and hospitals.