{"id":2457853,"date":"2020-04-29T22:48:00","date_gmt":"2020-04-30T04:48:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/local-physician-shares-antibody-testing-results\/"},"modified":"2020-04-30T08:24:15","modified_gmt":"2020-04-30T14:24:15","slug":"local-physician-shares-antibody-testing-results","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/local-news\/local-physician-shares-antibody-testing-results\/","title":{"rendered":"Local physician shares antibody testing results"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"wp-block-image p402_hide\">\n<div class=\"caption-container\"> <img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1024\" height=\"741\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/04\/testingresults-atd-043020-1-1024x741.jpg\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-post-image\" alt srcset=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/04\/testingresults-atd-043020-1-1024x741.jpg 1024w, https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/04\/testingresults-atd-043020-1-300x217.jpg 300w, https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/04\/testingresults-atd-043020-1-768x556.jpg 768w, https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/04\/testingresults-atd-043020-1-1536x1112.jpg 1536w, https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/04\/testingresults-atd-043020-1-2048x1482.jpg 2048w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 1024px) 100vw, 1024px\"><figcaption><strong>Dr. Gail King takes blood from Marshall Crouch in Aspen on Friday, April 10, 2020. (Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times)<\/strong><br \/><em>Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times<\/em><\/figcaption><\/div>\n<\/figure>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText DropCap\">In January, February and early March, Dr. Gail King and her medical staff saw a lot of people who said they were very sick.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">An Aspen-based gynecologist, anti-aging and regenerative medicine physician who owns the Aspen Center for Women\u2019s Health and REGEN Aspen, King said many of the people coming in for check ups, treatments or other medical reasons also described having upper respiratory symptoms that seemed to last longer than usual. It was before King or her colleagues had really even considered the novel coronavirus as a potential cause, she said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">But when the first COVID-19 case was linked to Aspen on March 8 after an Australian visitor tested positive for the disease upon returning home, King began to wonder if the sickness described to her over the previous two months had really been COVID-19 \u2014 and if she and her staff had been exposed to it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cWe needed to know if any of us had been infected and there was no other testing being done,\u201d King said earlier this week. \u201cOnce I found (an accurate antibody) test and we ordered it for my office and we tested all of us, I said to myself, \u2018Well gosh, if I want to know I wonder if other people want to know, too.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n<div class=\"row\">\n<div class=\"col\" readability=\"6\">\n<div class=\"row at-donation at-donation-mobile p-0\" readability=\"7\">\n<div class=\"col-xl-4 p-2\">\n<div data-bg=\"url(https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/03\/AT-logo-white.png)\" class=\"p-0 mt-2 mb-2 h-75 text-center rocket-lazyload\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.aspentimes.com\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/5\/2020\/03\/AT-logo-white.png\" class=\"logo m-0 p-0 invisible\"><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p><h3 class=\"d-inline mr-3\">Support Local Journalism<\/h3>\n<p><button class=\"btn d-inline\" type=\"button\" onclick=\"handleDonationButtonClickMidArticle()\">Donate<\/button><\/p>\n<\/div>\n<p><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Over the past four weeks, King has opened up testing to Aspen-area residents interested in knowing if they have COVID-19 antibodies, which the human body produces to fight pathogens like the novel coronavirus. Antibodies continue to be produced after a person has recovered from an illness and can create a certain level of immunity to future infections from the same virus.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Residents interested in being tested for COVID-19 antibodies and able to pay $350 for the blood-draw test have ordered kits through King from a Massachusetts-based diagnostics company. King asked people getting tested to fill out a questionnaire focused on when they were sick and what symptoms they experienced.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">In the first two weeks of testing, starting April 6, King said she and her staff tested 198 people with 7.6% of the tests coming back positive for COVID-19 antibodies. This includes her staff\u2019s test results.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Over the third week of testing, King said 54 people were tested with 18.5% of the tests coming back positive for antibodies, averaging out to a 9.9% positivity rate over the three-week time period and more than 80% of the 25 people who tested positive saying they were sick in March.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cMy speculation is the vast majority of people who have tested positive were sick in March, not January and February like I first speculated based on hearing so many people say they were sick then,\u201d King said, noting that she was surprised by the results and thinks some other sickness spread through Aspen in early 2020.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cSo what we\u2019re seeing is that with the people who were sick in March, which was almost everybody who tested positive, it\u2019s just been long enough now for most of them to develop their antibodies.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText Subhead\">ANTIBODY TESTING DEBATE<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Although King feels the information she\u2019s collected is valuable in understanding how the novel coronavirus has spread through the Aspen area and if people are potentially developing some immunity, she said she knows it is only one piece of the data needed to truly see the community impact of COVID-19 and that it hasn\u2019t affected how she\u2019s advising people to behave during the pandemic.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">King said all she can confidentially tell people based on their test results is that they had COVID-19, did not have COVID-19 or haven\u2019t developed longterm, rapid-response protection antibodies yet, and that they should still practice good hygiene, social distancing and wear a mask in public no matter what their results were.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cRegardless of whether your antibody test was negative or positive, it doesn\u2019t change behavior right now,\u201d King said. \u201cWhat my data shows is: yes, (COVID-19) was here; yes, people were infected; and yes, people are developing antibodies.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">In the past few weeks, antibody testing, its effectiveness and the role it should play in both understanding and responding to the COVID-19 pandemic has become a hot topic of conversation.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Some international governments and U.S. officials have looked at widespread antibody testing as a way to determine immunity to COVID-19 and reopen communities quicker, some even suggesting \u201cimmunity passports\u201d or \u201crisk-free certificates\u201d be given to people who test positive for antibodies so they can travel or return to work.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Leading virologists, epidemiologists and trusted public health entities including the World Health Organization support antibody testing as a way to better understand how the novel coronavirus spreads, along with the extent of and risk factors associated with infection. However, as of April 24, no study has evaluated whether the presence of COVID-19 antibodies confers immunity to future infection by the novel coronavirus, according to the WHO, and current COVID-19 antibody tests need further validation to determine their accuracy and reliability.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">In the United States specifically, recent research reported in news publications like The New York Times suggest that many COVID-19 antibody tests being utilized across the country are often inconsistent or inaccurate with a high rate of false positives, do not signify immunity to virus infection and should not be relied upon for policy decision making.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">But for medical experts like <a id=\"N0x15b2300N0x15c42e0:N0x15b2300N0x16531f0\" href=\"https:\/\/kbmodiagnostics.com\/dr-brent-dorval-phd-on-covid-19-and-kbmo-covid-19-antibody-test\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Brent Dorval<\/a><i class=\"fas fa-external-link-alt\"><\/i> \u2014 founder and chief scientific officer for KBMO Diagnostics, the company King ordered her COVID-19 antibody tests from \u2014 this doesn\u2019t mean all antibody tests are bad and that the country should stop utilizing them altogether.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Dorval holds a Ph.D. in microbiology and immunology and has spent the majority of his career researching viruses. He helped develop the first HIV\/AIDS diagnostic assay about 25 years ago and was a former adviser to the WHO\u2019s committee on vaccines and diagnostics.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">In early April, Dorval said KBMO Diagnostics started working with a Chinese company that had developed a sensitive, specific COVID-19 antibody test.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">After carefully vetting the test, Dorval said the KBMO team determined it was \u201cdarn good\u201d with an overall sensitivity of 87.5%, referring to the test\u2019s ability to correctly identify people with COVID-19 antibodies; and 100% specificity, referring to the ability of the test to correctly identify people without the antibodies.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">KBMO partnered with the Chinese company and started the process of distributing tests, taking them back for analysis and then reporting the results.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cAntibody testing is pretty much getting a bad rap these days \u2026 but this is quite a good test in that we found it is sensitive and specific, the reads are clean and the results overall are very, very good,\u201d Dorval told The Aspen Times on Monday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Over the month of April, Dorval said the KBMO Diagnostics lab has processed results for 4,000 to 5,000 antibody tests. In Colorado specifically, Dorval said KBMO has evaluated 426 tests with 7.5% testing positive for COVID-19.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">For Dorval, he sees the opportunity to distribute and process good, high-quality COVID-19 antibody testing as a public service and important piece to understanding the novel coronavirus, which is why he said he came out of retirement to do it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cI\u2019m almost 67 years old and I retired two years ago but I came back to work with this company because I think this is a good product,\u201d he said. \u201cI think there\u2019s a need and I hope I can help provide some good public service.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText Subhead\">TESTING\u2019S ROLE IN COUNTY REOPENING<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">When asked what role he sees COVID-19 testing playing in how public health officials respond to and mitigate the spread of coronavirus, Dorval said he feels it would be most useful to combine PCR testing \u2014 which determines if a person is actively sick with COVID-19 \u2014 with antibody testing to better detect who has or has had the novel coronavirus disease and how it is spreading.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">While some places in the U.S. are able to do both, many like Pitkin County have recently chosen to focus on community-wide PCR testing only, as some U.S. health experts say this diagnostic testing offers a \u201cbetter snapshot of the current picture\u201d with timely data on the rise or fall in infection numbers when accurate, as reported by The New York Times.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cWe\u2019re really excited about the expanded ability of the PCR testing, the nasal swab tests which really detect an active infection and is really what\u2019s key for us being able to move forward with rigorous contact tracing,\u201d Pitkin County Manager Jon Peacock said Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cThat\u2019s how you get a strategy where you\u2019re really dealing with individuals where they are with a potential infection versus these broad, public health orders which really require everyone to have limited social and economic interactions.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">On Monday, Aspen Valley Hospital <a id=\"N0x15b2300N0x15c4520:N0x15b2300N0x1653aa8\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/pitkin-county-to-start-testing-people-experiencing-mild-coronavirus-symptom\/\">began offering PCR nasal swab testing<\/a> to Pitkin County residents with mild COVID-19 symptoms, <a id=\"N0x15b2300N0x15c4580:N0x15b2300N0x1653b38\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/local\/covid-19-tests-coveted-for-most-severe-cases-in-aspen\/\">versus just to those with the most severe cases<\/a>, and the county has a trained team of people in place to conduct contact tracing on locals who test positive.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">The tests are being processed at a handful of different labs based on favorable turnaround times, including the Colorado State Laboratory, and have a 25% to 30% potential for false negative results, according to Jennifer Slaughter, chief marketing officer for AVH. As of end of day Tuesday, 25 people had been tested.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Pitkin County also has 1,000 antibody tests acquired from Aytu Bioscience of Englewood, <a id=\"N0x15b2300N0x15c45e0:N0x15b2300N0x1653ce8\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/antibody-test-use-not-fda-approved\/\">but has moved to shelve them for now<\/a>, as public health officials are concerned with the accuracy of the tests and the fact that they are not FDA approved.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Based on the data the county has through Aspen Valley Hospital admissions and other local statistics, <a id=\"N0x15b2300N0x1619740:N0x15b2300N0x1631b58\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/official-based-on-stats-and-math-pitkin-county-has-low-rate-of-infection\/\">health officials believe a large number of residents have yet to get the coronavirus disease<\/a>, which is why county public health orders are set to unwind in a conservative, measured fashion driven by this new testing and contact tracing data.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cYou don\u2019t take the next steps without having some data to understand what\u2019s happening with infection rates,\u201d Peacock said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cThat\u2019s one of the reasons why it was important to be able to provide testing for all symptomatic people as well as have this enhanced contact tracing capability. \u2026 We will continue to look at these metrics and this will not be a reopening all at once.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">Despite the lack of community-wide testing capacity in Pitkin County up until this week, <a id=\"N0x15b2300N0x16197a0:N0x15b2300N0x1631d98\" href=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/the-first-front-line-aspen-area-physicians-support-patients-navigate-covid-19-crisis\/\">some local physicians like King have taken it upon themselves to offer PCR testing, COVID-19 antibody testing, or both.<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">However, King said while Pitkin County knows about the antibody testing she\u2019s conducted, she has no formal way of reporting the results locally. King does plan to submit her results to the state and is still doing some on-demand antibody testing this week, as she believes there is still a need for it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">But while King said it\u2019s good there is community-wide PCR testing in Pitkin County, she feels that a lot of critical data on the novel coronavirus and its local spread in March is lost for good, noting that efforts now may be \u201ctoo little, too late.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cI think we should have been testing more people earlier, even if it was rationed,\u201d King said, referring to the nationwide testing shortage that drove states like Colorado and counties like Pitkin with limited capacity to restrict which symptomatic people were tested in March and much of April.<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">\u201cWould it have changed anything? I don\u2019t know. But I can tell you my data would make more sense if everyone who took my antibody test had a nasal swab and we knew who was truly positive and truly negative (for COVID-19).\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText\">She continued, \u201cI welcome anyone from the county health department or academia or an epidemiologist to sit down with me. I\u2019m not hiding this information,\u201d King said. \u201cI do think there\u2019s value in it for this community.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"STND-STND BodyText Tagline\"><a href=\"mailto:mvincent@aspentimes.com\">mvincent@aspentimes.com<\/a><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"https:\/\/www.aspentimes.com\/news\/local-physician-shares-antibody-testing-results\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">via:: The Aspen Times<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Dr. Gail King takes blood from Marshall Crouch in Aspen on Friday, April 10, 2020. (Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times)Kelsey Brunner\/The Aspen Times In January, February and early March, Dr. Gail King and her medical staff saw a lot of people who said they were very sick. An Aspen-based gynecologist, anti-aging and regenerative medicine physician who [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[49],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2457853","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","category-local-news"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_action":{"enabled":false,"date":"2026-08-17 21:24:45","action":"change-status","newStatus":"draft","terms":[],"taxonomy":"category","extraData":[]},"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"distributor_meta":false,"distributor_terms":false,"distributor_media":false,"distributor_original_site_name":"KSPN The Valley&#039;s Quality Rock","distributor_original_site_url":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn","push-errors":false,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2457853","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2457853"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2457853\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2457868,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2457853\/revisions\/2457868"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2457853"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2457853"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/alwaysmountaintime.com\/kspn\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2457853"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}