The Pitkin County Public Health Department obtained 1,000 COVID-19 antibody tests on Thursday, which are expected to determine whether the infection is in a person’s body or has been.
“This test will allow us to get the epidemiological data that we’ve been looking for,” Gabe Muething, unified commander for the county’s incident management team and the director of the Aspen Ambulance District, said during a virtual community meeting Thursday afternoon.
Once the tests are validated for accuracy and a criteria is established for which residents should be tested by the public health department’s medical team, the tests will be given to community members for free.
That could happen within the next week, Muething said.
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He stressed that these tests are not the same ones that are being used medically by Aspen Valley Hospital, which is done with a swab, and are reserved for the most severe cases and those in the vulnerable population.
The new test looks for antibodies in the blood, rather than the virus in the nose or throat.
“It’ll hopefully allow us to have a glimpse into the levels of possible immunity in our area,” Muething said, adding the goal is to see if those numbers mirror local suppression efforts with public health orders of staying at home and social distancing.
“This is not a silver bullet,” Muething said, recognizing that public health orders will remain for at least the rest of the month.
This is a developing story that will be updated.
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