Name: Less than 2% of Wisconsinites have coronavirus antibodies, preliminary results from study show
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Less than 2% of Wisconsinites have coronavirus antibodies, preliminary results from study show

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USA TODAY NETWORK-WisconsinView CommentsEarly results from an ongoing statewide study of COVID-19 antibodies suggest that not many more people in Wisconsin have been infected with the coronavirus than what has shown up in lab-confirmed cases.&nbsp;Only 1.6% of Wisconsin residents have antibodies that show evidence of a previous fight against the coronavirus, according to tests from a sample of 1,056 people from July to mid-August.&nbsp;The sample was chosen from&nbsp;people who had&nbsp;previously been recruited for the Survey of the Health of Wisconsin, a statewide research survey out of UW-Madison&nbsp;that collects data on health and health determinants.The roughly $1.5 million study, funded by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is collecting blood samples to determine how many residents had cases of COVID-19 that haven't been captured by tests designed to detect the active virus.Many have wondered whether those tests&nbsp;were only capturing the sickest people, and whether a substantial portion of the population might have already survived a milder version of the disease.Knowing whether you have antibodies, remnants of a body's fight against a virus,&nbsp;may&nbsp;not provide much beyond peace of mind for an individual person. At the population level, however, it can help answer questions about how and where the disease has traveled and how close we are to herd immunity — the point at which the virus no longer spreads easily because so many people have antibodies. Estimates for herd immunity have ranged widely, but it may be as high as 80%.A &nbsp;appeared to guess that significantly more people had been exposed to the virus than had tested positive for it.&nbsp;In July, CDC director Robert Redfield said there were likely 10 times as many cases that existed than were reported in March through May.&nbsp;&nbsp;But the state's early antibody results throw cold water on that theory. The study found the percentage of people with antibodies differed by region: In the southeast portion of the state, for example, about 2.6% were found to have antibodies, and in the west, as few as 0.3% did.&nbsp;An antibody test, which looks for the presence of specific blood proteins that helped the body fight off the virus, does not determine whether a person is currently infected&nbsp;—&nbsp;only that they have been exposed in the past. Residents in the study who had antibodies were exposed sometime before June and July, Dr. Ryan Westergaard, chief medical officer at the state health department, said in an email.&nbsp;RELATED:&nbsp;RELATED:&nbsp;Other antibody studies across the U.S., such as those in&nbsp;&nbsp;and&nbsp;, have also returned&nbsp;low percentages of virus prevalence in their area.&nbsp;"I certainly hoped it would be higher, but I'm not too surprised," Al Bateman, assistant director of the communicable disease division at the state hygiene lab, said in an email.&nbsp;He pointed to similar results nationally and internationally, noting that the areas that are reporting a higher percentage of people with antibodies already had known higher transmission of the virus, like New York, where it's estimated that had been infected by the end of March.&nbsp;The news isn't all bad, however. Kristen Malecki,&nbsp;an associate professor of population health at UW-Madison who directs the Survey of the Health of Wisconsin program, said earlier that a low prevalence of antibodies would be a positive sign in one respect&nbsp;— it means that masking, social distancing and stay-at-home orders&nbsp;did&nbsp;prevent rapid spread of the virus.&nbsp;The second round of sample collection for the study will kick off in October.&nbsp;Contact Madeline Heim at 920-996-7266 or mheim@gannett.com. Follow her on Twitter at @madeline_heim.&nbsp;View Comments

USA TODAY NETWORK-WisconsinView CommentsEarly results from an ongoing statewide study of COVID-19 antibodies suggest that not many more people in Wisconsin have been infected with the coronavirus than what has shown up in lab-confirmed cases.&nbsp;Only 1.6% of Wisconsin residents have antibodies that show evidence of a previous fight against the coronavirus, according to tests from a sample of 1,056 people from July to mid-August.&nbsp;The sample was chosen from&nbsp;people who had&nbsp;previously been recruited for the Survey of the Health of Wisconsin, a statewide research survey out of...

Less than 2% of Wisconsinites have coronavirus antibodies, preliminary results from study show

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