Friday on MSNBC, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases director Anthony Fauci said he would like to test all Americans for the “coronavirus antibody.”
Anchor Brian Williams said, “The president seems to think he can give a back to work kind of command as a practical matter, it’s local, state and business by business. This quote emerged from today he said, “you don’t need full testing.” Doctor, by what other metrics can you use to know for anyone when its safe to go back?”
Fauci said, “The president was making when you said full testing I think the discussion said you want to test everybody in the United States for antibody, not whether they’re infected or not. That’s where some confusion. Testing someone that’s infected is a different thing than testing antibody because antibody gives you the idea of the number of people that have been exposed and infected and actually recovered. When you get an idea of you know those people who very likely would be protected put into a situation where they might be exposed. That’s part of a multifaceted way of things you’ll need to come back and make a gradual return to normality. It’s important, but it’s not the only thing.”
He added, “We’re not going to have testing for everybody in the country tomorrow. It’s going to be a gradual process. We are starting when the next week or two, we’ll be able to scale-up the kind of antibody testing to give you a good feel for what the penetrance of the infection is. But you can start to think about some aspect of getting back to normal without having tested everybody in the country.”
Williams said, “In your perfect worked if Dr. Fauci ran the country, would you test 327 million Americans?”
Fauci answered, “You know, I mean obviously, you’d like to know that, that’s not the primary thing right now the primary thing is to essentially turn the corner on those areas that are hardest hit the New York, the New Orleans, the Detroits, right now, we’re seeing the possibility of upticks in other areas right here in the Washington, D.C., area, and Baltimore, that’s a thing you want to do right now. In a perfect world as you said, of course, as we get months from now and we have a literally unlimited amount of test for antibody, of course, it would be very interesting to see and hopeful to us how many people have been exposed and immune.”
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