Exclusive: First coronavirus antibody test given approval by Public Health England

[The_Reader_David]

Exclusive [to The Telegraph (London)]: First coronavirus antibody test given approval by Public Health England

One hundred per cent accuracy of test developed by Swiss firm Roche confirmed by experts at PHE's Porton Down facility last week

A coronavirus antibody test kit has been approved by Public Health England (PHE), The Telegraph has learned, in a breakthrough that could be key to easing the UK's lockdown restrictions.

The Telegraph understands that the Department of Health is in negotiations with the Swiss healthcare company Roche to buy millions of the kits.

The accuracy of the test was given approval by experts at PHE’s Porton Down facility last week.

More at https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2020/05/13/exclusive-first-coronavirus-antibody-test-given-approval-public/

[The_Reader_David]

It looks like the FDA has given "emergency approval" for this test, too.  What's new is that the UK's government lab that deals with both infectious diseases (analogous to our CDC) and CBW (analogous to whatever part of DoD is tasked with that) judges it to be effectively flawless.  (I'm not sure I believe there's a test for anything biological with both type I and type II error rates actually equal to zero -- "one hundred percent accuracy" -- but it must be very good if Porton Down isn't howling about the inaccuracy of this report.)

[jmyrlefuller]

Antibody testing has been available here for weeks.