Antibodies to SARS/CoV-2 in arbitrarily-selected Atlanta residents

  1. Jun Zou
  2. Alexis Bretin
  3. Andrew T. Gewirtz

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Abstract

We quantitated anti-SARS/CoV-2 IgG and IgM by ELISA in self-collected blood samples (n=142) in arbitrarily-selected metro Atlanta residents, primarily acquaintances of the authors’ lab members from 4/17-4/27, 2020. Archived serum (n=34), serum from nucleic acid test (NAT)-positive subjects (n=4), and samples collected from NAT-positive community members (n=4) served to validate the assay. The range of anti-SARS/CoV-2 antibodies in archived and NAT-positive sera indicated need to compromise sensitivity or specificity. Accordingly, we set a cutoff of 4 SD above the mean for IgG and 3 SD above the mean for IgM to indicate that an individual had been exposed, and developed some degree of immunity, to SARS/CoV-2. The IgG cutoff clearly compromised sensitivity but offered high specificity, both of which were harder to gauge for IgM. Based on these cutoffs, excluding subjects whose participation resulted from self-suspected SARS/CoV-2 infection, we found 7.1% positivity for anti-SARS/CoV-2 IgG (3 of 127 subjects) or IgM (6 of 127). While we do not claim this small immune survey is broadly representative of metro Atlanta, and we have greater confidence in the IgG results, which had only 2.4% positivity, it nonetheless demonstrates that persons with antibodies to SARS/CoV-2, who’ve not suspected they’d been exposed to this virus, can readily be found in various Atlanta area neighborhoods (9 positives were in 8 zip codes). Accordingly, these results support the notion that dissemination of the virus is more widespread than testing would indicate but also suggests that most persons in metro Atlanta remain vulnerable to this virus. More generally, these results support the general utility of sero-surveillance to guide public policy but also highlight the difficulty of discerning if individuals have immunity to SARS/CoV-2.

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  1. ScreenIT

    SciScore for 10.1101/2020.05.01.20087478: (What is this?)

    Please note, not all rigor criteria are appropriate for all manuscripts.

    Table 1: Rigor

    Institutional Review Board StatementIRB: All procedures received required approvals by Georgia State University’s Institutional Review Board and/or Biosafety committee.
    Randomizationnot detected.
    Blindingnot detected.
    Power Analysisnot detected.
    Sex as a biological variablenot detected.

    Table 2: Resources

    Software and Algorithms
    SentencesResources
    Blood collection and serum isolation: Subjects were provided an autoclaved 1.5 ml Eppendorf tube, 2 26-gauge safety lancets, and asked to watch a video demonstrating collection of 1-2 blood droplets https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H9e-9xvhrms.
    https://www.youtube.com/watch
    suggested: (GENEtics Video, RRID:SCR_004770)

    Results from OddPub: Thank you for sharing your data.

    Results from LimitationRecognizer: We detected the following sentences addressing limitations in the study:
    In conclusion, we readily acknowledge our study faced a variety of limitations, as one might expect would be the case when a small team of mouse-based researchers seek to originate a clinical study in the course of a pandemic. Nonetheless, we believe our results can inform approaches to sero-surveil communities to better manage the pandemic.

    Results from TrialIdentifier: No clinical trial numbers were referenced.

    Results from Barzooka: We did not find any issues relating to the usage of bar graphs.

    Results from JetFighter: We did not find any issues relating to colormaps.

    Results from rtransparent:
    • Thank you for including a conflict of interest statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • Thank you for including a funding statement. Authors are encouraged to include this statement when submitting to a journal.
    • No protocol registration statement was detected.

    About SciScore

    SciScore is an automated tool that is designed to assist expert reviewers by finding and presenting formulaic information scattered throughout a paper in a standard, easy to digest format. SciScore checks for the presence and correctness of RRIDs (research resource identifiers), and for rigor criteria such as sex and investigator blinding. For details on the theoretical underpinning of rigor criteria and the tools shown here, including references cited, please follow this link.

  2. Version published to 10.1101/2020.05.01.20087478v1 on medRxiv