Well worth reading …

… Discussing the Need for Reliable Antibody Testing for COVID-19 – NIH Director's Blog. (Hat tio, Jeff Mauvais.)

Collins: For somebody who does have the antibodies, who apparently was previously infected, do they need to stop worrying about getting exposed? Can they can do whatever they want and stop worrying about distancing and wearing masks?

Sharpless: No, not yet. To use antibodies to predict who’s likely to be immune, you’ve got to know two things.

First: can the tests actually measure antibodies reliably? I think there are assays available to the public that are sufficiently good for asking this question, with an important caveat. If you’re trying to detect something that’s really rare in a population, then any test is going to have limitations. But if you’re trying to detect something that’s more common, as the virus was during the recent outbreak in Manhattan, I think the tests are up to the task.

Second: does the appearance of an antibody in the peripheral blood mean that you’re actually immune or you’re just less likely to get the virus? We don’t know the answer to that yet.