How to Find Out if You Have Already Had Coronavirus
The COVID-19 pandemic is a scary time for everyone, especially if you think you’ve been infected before. To see if you’ve had COVID-19 in the past, you can get an antibody test from your local healthcare provider. If you have the COVID-19 antibodies in your blood, there is a strong likelihood that you’ve been infected with COVID-19 before; however, you should always take precautions against catching and spreading COVID-19 in your daily life, since scientists are not sure if antibodies make you immune to catching COVID-19 in the future. If you have any questions, call your healthcare provider right away.
Getting an Antibody Test
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Contact your state or local health provider to see if you should get tested. If you have a healthcare provider already, start there first. If you don’t, contact your state or local health care provider to see what testing they have available. Ask specifically for the antibody test, and explain that you think you may have had COVID-19 in the past but you aren’t presenting symptoms right now. Do not seek an antibody test if you are currently experiencing COVID-19 symptoms.
- Most healthcare providers will only give you an antibodies test if you were sick in the past with COVID-19 symptoms or you are about to get a procedure done or donate blood.
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Get a diagnostic test if you’re showing COVID-19 symptoms. If you think you are currently sick with COVID-19, you should ask for a diagnostic test, not an antibodies one. When you are showing symptoms, your body has not built up enough antibodies yet, meaning you could get a false negative.
- Diagnostic testing is different from antibody testing. Instead of a blood sample, doctors will often take a nasal or oral swab.
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Get an antibody test 1-3 weeks after you were sick. It takes up to 3 weeks after contracting the virus for antibodies to develop. If you were recently sick with COVID-19 symptoms, you might want to wait a few weeks to get the antibody test so you get the most accurate results.
- It's possible that you could have the virus and not develop antibodies.
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Wear a face mask to the testing center. On the day that you go into the testing center, make sure you are wearing a cloth face covering or a medical face mask. You won’t need to take it off to get tested, and it will protect both you and those around you.
- As of July 2020, the World Health Organization recommends wearing a face covering anytime you’re out in public and you can’t stay 6 feet (1.8 m) away from other people.
- If you bring anyone with you to your appointment, make sure they are wearing a face mask as well.
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Allow the doctor to draw blood or take a finger prick. The COVID-19 antibodies test is done through blood sampling. The healthcare professional will either draw blood from the veins in your arm, or they will take a small drop of blood from one of your fingers. The blood will then be sent to the lab for testing.
- The lab will analyze your blood to see if you have the antibodies that fight against COVID-19.
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Wait 1 to 3 days for your test results. Depending on where you get tested, your results may be in the same day or within a few days. Your healthcare provider will either call you on the phone or email you about your results, depending on the contact information they have.
- If your blood is tested on-site, you will usually be able to get your results within 1 day. If your blood is sent off to a lab, you may have to wait 2 to 3 days.
- As you wait for your results to come back in, continue to socially distance yourself, wear a mask when you go out, and wash your hands often with soap and water.
Analyzing Your Results
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Interpret a positive result as a likely chance that you’ve had COVID-19 in the past. If you do have the antibodies that fight against COVID-19 in your blood, there’s a high likelihood that you have been infected with COVID-19 in the past. However, the antibodies test is not perfect, and there is a chance that you’ve been infected with a different type of coronavirus, not COVID-19 specifically.
- Even if you did not feel sick, you could have still been infected with COVID-19 in the past.
- If your test is positive and you have had COVID-19 in the past, it may not make you immune from getting the virus in the future.
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Interpret a negative result as a likely chance that you haven’t had COVID-19. If there aren’t any antibodies in your blood, there is a high likelihood that you have not been infected with COVID-19. However, false negatives do happen, and there is a chance that the test was flawed or the results incorrect.
- There is always a margin of error with any lab testing. Ongoing research and development of antibodies and testing is currently being done to better understand information about how to detect previous or current infections of COVID-19.
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Contact your healthcare provider if you have any questions. If you’re confused about your results or you aren’t sure what they mean, call the center where you got tested directly. They can answer questions about what your results mean, what you should be doing now, and if you’re at risk for the virus.
- As scientists learn more about COVID-19, medical professionals may have different answers and information.
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Continue to take precautions against the spread of COVID-19. Even if your antibody test was positive and you have had COVID-19 in the past, scientific evidence has not proven that antibodies make you immune. You should always continue to stay 6 feet (1.8 m) away from others when possible, wear a face mask out in public, wash your hands often, and avoid touching your face.
- Keep up to date on the latest information about COVID-19 by visiting https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/advice-for-public.
Tips
- Stay up to date on COVID-19 by visiting https://www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019.
Warnings
- Always take precautions against COVID-19, even if your antibody test results show that you’ve been infected before.
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