Public health experts at DSHS and UTHealth collaborate on nation’s largest COVID-19 serological testing assessment

To help public health professionals and scientists better understand the spread of COVID-19 in Texas and the immune response it causes in individuals, researchers at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHealth) are partnering with the Texas Department of State Health Services (DSHS) to launch the Texas Coronavirus Antibody Response Survey (Texas CARES). Texas CARES will determine the proportion of people throughout Texas who have COVID-19 antibodies, indicating a past infection and presumably some degree of immune protection.

COVID-19 Antibody Testing Needn’t be Perfect to Guide Public Health and Policy Decisions

While it’s too soon to use COVID-19 antibody testing to issue “immunity passports”, antibody tests that are available today are good enough to inform decisions about public health and relaxing social distancing interventions, says an international group of infectious disease and public health experts in Science Immunology today.