Wendy Zuckerman

Antibody test.

Antibody testing.

Antibody testing.

These tests are looking for, you guessed it, antibodies.

We've talked about them on the show before.

These are proteins from our immune system.

And having antibodies are a sign that your body has at one point been exposed to the virus.

So can these antibody tests help us nail down how many people got this virus without getting sick?

To find out, we called up Vivek Nooranbai, a doctor at Mass General Hospital in Boston, who specialises in how viruses affect our immune system.

Hi.

You're a much-wanted expert in this current climate.

Vivek told us that these antibody tests, they're not perfect.

But a bigger issue when it comes to using them to know how many people are asymptomatic is that these tests, they can't tell you that on their own.

You need to actually ask the people you're testing, have you been feeling sick?

And in some studies, like the big one we're hearing about from the New York State government, they're not actually asking people that question.

One of the few studies we have on this comes from Vivek's team.

Vivek's team just finished this study, and it's still going through peer review.

And here's what his team did.

They went to a small city just outside of Boston called Chelsea, which had been hit really hard by this disease.

To measure antibodies, Vivek's team uses a little finger prick blood test, kind of how you measure for blood sugar levels.