KANSAS CITY, Mo. — Glenn Crocker of Overland Park was looking for answers.
Is it possible that he already had COVID-19 and just didn’t know it? Maybe he is the one, in some infectious but asymptomatic way, who had passed the coronavirus on to his 16-year-old daughter, Elizabeth, and forced her into quarantine in her room.
It was April, about a week after Elizabeth’s 16th birthday. Then a sophomore at Blue Valley North High School, she had developed the hallmark dry cough, a slight fever. The Crocker family, Glenn and his wife, Tepring, their eldest child, Ben, and Elizabeth, had all been vigilant, wearing masks and social distancing.
But on occasions, Glenn and Tepring would go to a local coffee shop. Crocker wondered if he caught it and unwittingly passed it on.
“It’s my fault,” Crocker said he thought. “I infected her.”
To confirm or ease his worst fears, Crocker took a COVID-19 antibody test, now being offered — typically for $130 to $200 before possible insurance coverage — in the Kansas City area at private laboratories such as NextCare Urgent Care or Quest Diagnostic.
They’re blood tests. Individuals can make appointments online or through a physician.
Unlike the nasal swab tests, they do not determine if an individual has an active coronavirus infection. They determine if one has already been exposed to the virus and thus built up antibodies. Antibodies take one to three weeks to develop after infection.
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention estimates that as many as 35% of individuals with COVID-19 may not show symptoms. Or the symptoms are milder, like a cold or flu. As such, it’s unknown how many people already, without their knowledge, had the illness, got over it, and have some level of immunity.
Health experts have begun using antibody tests to determine the prevalence, or rate, of COVID-19 in certain places.
The Kansas City Fire Department, working with researchers at the University of Miami and the University of Missouri-Kansas City, hoped this week to begin offering antibody testing to its 1,300 firefighters and paramedics. Subsequent tests would be taken at 30, 90 and 180 days afterward to monitor any growth in the illness.
“We’ve had a lot of people who have thought they had COVID already,” said Chief Donna Maize. “We can gauge how it is hitting our department.”
The department already offers COVID-19 testing for personnel who think they might have active infections. She said about 190 employees have been quarantined because they had the disease or suspected they did.
Antibody testing adds data about how much the illness may have spread.
In Florida, for example, the state Department of Health released data showing that about 4.4% of some 123,500 people tested were found to have antibodies to the illness. In Miami-Dade County, 6% of 1,400 people tested were positive. Half showed no symptoms.
The Kansas Department of Health and Environment also plans to do broad antibody testing, although a timeline hasn’t been announced.
