Japan to test 10,000 people for coronavirus antibodies

Ok Japan. I'll add this to your to do list eg. AbeNOmasks, 100000 yen assistance for individuals and assistance for small businesses, telehealth consults, drive through covid19 tests. Have I missed anything?

Good, a good number of countries have already done this. 10,000 tests are far from enough, though, specially if they're split between Tokyo, Osaka, and other prefectures. I'd like to see 50,000 for Tokyo and 100,000 for all of Japan.

This needs to be 10,000 tests a day, just in Tokyo alone!

On NHK: Tokyo just announced 'only' 9 new cases today. But of course they did not mention that the number of tests conducted over May 11-13 in Tokyo; 10, 10, 17 for a total of 37!!! So if the results take 2 days from submission, 9 positive cases out of 10 tests!

Oh two weeks from now huh?

Well I just went to the city office and got given a bad link to help me translate the page for applying for money.

I went back, had to tell them how to do their job, and they made a new link

Here it is

https://soeasy.tokyo/movies/21784

I'm afraid that some are still confused between PCR and antibody test (comments above)...

But experts noted some of the test kits could have provided false results.

This (low) reliability issue should be taken in account for analysis.

Tests should also be randomized; The primary purpose is to capture the local history of virus spread, not to give a immunity passport to people testing positive.

I hope these test prove to be more accurate.

10,000 tests! Golly gosh Japan you're really stepping it up!

It's the least they could do.

Literally.

At this rate, Japan's antibodies test rates will surpass their pathogen test rate in only a few weeks.

The UK has had a private postal test for months now that anyone can apply for, both PCR and antibodies!

I don’t really want to comment anymore on how dismal Japan is-aí get too depressed...

Testing only provides a feeling good factor and really has nothing to do with containment of this disease.

10,000 and that's it? Thank you Mr. Katsunobu Kato for providing daily comic relief. This man never fails to deliver.

So China is your gold standard marcelito?

TriringToday 08:34 pm JST

Testing only provides a feeling good factor and really has nothing to do with containment of this disease.

I believe you are wrong.

Testing is important because it allows us to see who has the virus, how widespread the virus is, and who has had the virus. The benefits of this are we can formulate strategies to control and contain the spread, and we can develop a picture of whether exposure produces immunity. The whole world needs to be doing this so we can get a bigger picture and understand this extremely strange virus.

But without proper testing, that's just my opinion. We can all just say whatever we want until testing is widespread and available.

It found 0.6 percent of 500 samples from Tokyo had antibodies for coronavirus and 0.4 percent in the same number of samples from Aomori, Akita, Iwate, Miyagi, Yamagata and Fukushima.

If these preliminary results are representative for the population, Tokyo population of around 13million will translate to around 80,000 who had sars-cov-2

golfer1962:

But of course they did not mention that the number of tests conducted over May 11-13 in Tokyo; 10, 10, 17 for a total of 37!!!

What are talking about?

Here are the numbers shown in Tokyo Metropolitan Government website.

5/14 949 tested = 919 negative + 30 positive

5/13 887 tested = 857 negative + 30 positive

5/12 1,169 tested = 1,133 negative + 36 positive

5/11 1,165 tested = 1,116 negative + 49 positive

https://stopcovid19.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/cards/positive-rate/

@socrateos

And just to be clear, those counts are for the number of people tested right, not the number of tests. Each person could be tested multiple times

Japan will test around 10,000 people for coronavirus antibodies starting from next month, as part of efforts to better understand the deadly infection, health minister Katsunobu Kato said Friday.

10,000 people total, not per day?

That's like sticking your hand into the ocean in an attempt to count how many fish live in it.

If 60% of people have antibody, 40% who don't have it don't get infected easily. Sweden is now trying herd immunity to get antibody for most of people but so many people die of it so far. It seems Japan can do herd immunity because not many people die from it so far. Most people who have antibody will not worry much about next pandemic in the near future. It seems most European countries and the US can't do it because too many people die from it.

NEW YORK tested and found over 20% already had the virus. Healthcare workers expected to have over 30% who were infected with no symptoms

Missing from the article is 0.2% of tests from 2019 were positive.

Either testing is bad or this is a case of what you don't know can't hurt you.

i@n:

@socrateos

And just to be clear, those counts are for the number of people tested right, not the number of tests. Each person could be tested multiple times

Yes, these counts are the number of people tested. They disclose also the number of testings as well.

They have been reporting both numbers since the end of January.

https://stopcovid19.metro.tokyo.lg.jp/

is it possible to volunteer to take the test? I’d like to know if I have antibodies.