Coronavirus Update: New York Starts 'Aggressive' Antibody Testing, A Step Towards Reopening Economy

New York Governor Andrew Cuomo stated Sunday (April 19) that New York will launch “aggressive” testing for coronavirus antibodies this coming week. The timing of the announcement coincided with the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approving a test for the COVID-19 antibody that the body produces as a defense against the SARS-CoV-2 virus commonly referred to as the coronavirus.

For the relatives of the 18,298 people who have perished in New York from COVID-19, this news comes a little late as aggressive early testing was effective in countries like South Korea and Germany. New York, according to the governor is “on the other side of the plateau” and that “numbers are coming down,” in a press briefing, but he reminded people the state should not ease off on measures just yet.

Cuomo, speaking from the Feinstein Institute for Medical Research in Manhasset, said, “Now that we have the approved test, we’re going to be rolling it out to do the largest survey of any state populated. That has been done. We’ll take thousands of tests, antibody tests over this next week all across the state to give us a real snapshot or a real baseline of exactly how many people were infected by coronavirus and have the antibodies.”

The Long Island institute worked on developing an antibody test, but it was not clear if Cuomo was referring to it or the test that was developed by Chembio Diagnostics, headquartered in Medford, New York. The FDA approved the Chembio antibody test last week.

Americans across the entire country are becoming anxious about when lockdown measures will be eased as some protests over the weekend were a blatant refusal to comply with social distancing guidelines and quarantines. That anxiety was heightened by the fear of a second wave of COVID-19 if the measures were relaxed too soon.

Cuomo added to that conversation saying, “Any plan that is going to start to reopen the economy has to be based on data and that means it has to be based on testing. We’re going to start and we’re going to start here in the state of New York with antibody testing.”

Continuing in the same vein, Cuomo said, “Antibody testing means you test the person to find out if they have the antibodies, which they would have if they were infected with the coronavirus, and we’re going to do that in the most aggressive way in the nation where we’re going to sample people in this state. Think about what we’ve gone through. Think about how many New Yorkers we've lost and are still losing. We must tread very carefully now. The worst thing that can happen is for us to go through this hell all over again. Whether or not the descent continues depends on what we do.”

The entire country was still in the peak and it remained to be seen if the decline from the plateau will occur soon as most experts predict. Any economic recovery will depend on how soon Americans can get back to work without the risk of a second wave of infections.