Howard County To Participate In Serology Testing

Ellicott City MD

03 December, 2020

6:21 PM

Description

HOWARD COUNTY, MD — On Thursday, Howard County Executive Calvin Ball announced a comprehensive strategy to better understand the scope of the coronavirus spread among the population through serology testing. Participating in the Maryland Department of Health serology study for first responders, including police, fire and rescue services, corrections and sheriff personnelSerology testing for all county employees Partnership with Johns Hopkins Applied Physics Lab to develop and implement a serology testing plan for Howard County residents "Serology or antibody testing can provide a glimpse into the extent of COVID-19 infections in the recent-past and are critical to understanding the true prevalence of the virus in communities like ours," Ball said. "Our bold serology strategy is three-pronged, first by testing our first responders, then extending that opportunity to all county employees, and ultimately developing a plan to offer serology tests for all our residents. We are one of few jurisdictions in the nation working towards a wide-spread population study, which will be especially useful to compare antibodies at the population level once vaccines are widely available. Our approach has always been data-driven and people-informed, and we will continue to search for innovative and efficient ways to mitigate the spread of this virus and ensure our community is safe and healthy." While diagnostic tests measure presence of COVID-19 typically in individuals who may be currently symptomatic, serology or antibody tests measure immune factors present after infection. Serology testing can be especially useful given evidence that many individuals who acquire the virus have mild or no symptoms, and so may not seek a COVID-19 diagnostic test or be accounted for through a healthcare encounter. To date, more than 500 Howard County first responders were tested as part of the MDH serology study. This specific group was selected based on the high risk for exposure to the coronavirus due to their work environment and job duties. All Howard County employees will also now have the opportunity to get a serology test through any Quest Lab in Maryland. "The safety and health of our frontline responders is paramount to maintaining continuity of operations and ensuring our ability to provide lifesaving emergency medical care to the people of Howard County," Howard County Fire and Rescue Medical Director Dr. Matthew Levy said. "The opportunity to participate in this serology testing program has improved our understanding of the prevalence of COVID-19 antibodies amongst our emergency responders at this point in the pandemic." The objective of the APL partnership is to develop a preliminary test plan to conduct a study to determine anti-body prevalence in the Howard County population. This study will allow the County to better assess how the virus has spread through Howard County. The seroprevalence study will be used to inform current policy and as a baseline to compare seroprevalence at the population level once vaccines are widely available.