At this time, the test is not approved by the FDA for home use by consumers and hence cannot be purchased on our website or at a pharmacy. You can get this test done at a hospital, physicians office, urgent care center or at a walk in clinic.
Medicare and most insurance companies will reimburse this test.
Please check with your insurance company.
Our current FDA approval is limited to the use of this test in high complexity laboratories, and thus cannot currently be used at home.
CovAbScreen™ is an antibody test for COVID-19, which is different from a diagnostic test. CovAbScreen™ tests for COVID-19 antibodies, rather than a current infection. Antibodies are created by your body in response to an infection, and can last for at least 3-4 months. While this test won’t tell you whether you have a current COVID-19 infection, it will tell you if you have COVID-19 antibodies, which indicates that you were either exposed to the virus in the past, or received a COVID-19 vaccine and your immune system responded. For more information about the difference between antibody and diagnostic tests, please look at the FDA’s “Introduction to COVID-19 Tests” video.
Antibodies are proteins that your body creates in response to infections that help it fight reinfection. With COVID-19, your body typically creates antibodies 1-3 weeks after being infected, and they typically last at least 3-4 months after infection. If you have a positive test result, that means you either were previously infected with COVID-19 or received a COVID-19 vaccine. Having antibodies does not necessarily mean that you are immune to reinfection.
It is not currently known how long the antibodies formed from a COVID-19 response will last in the body. From what we know right now, they last at least 3-4 months after infection, and then they slowly disappear. How long it takes for them to fall under detectable levels depends on the individual; some lose their antibodies in as little as 3 months, while others still have them 8 months after infection. While the antibodies might disappear over time, your body also creates memory cells (which are long-lasting) in response to an infection, which would allow it to quickly produce new antibodies in the event that you are reinfected by COVID-19.
The only way to know if you currently have COVID-19 for sure is to take a diagnostic test. However, the current information available associated with COVID-19 suggests that symptoms include cough, shortness of breath or difficulty breathing, fever, chills, muscle pain, headache, sore throat or new loss of taste or smell. If you currently have these symptoms and suspect the cause is COVID-19, please seek out a diagnostic test for COVID-19.
It’s currently estimated that about 40% of COVID-19 infections are asymptomatic (meaning you didn’t have any symptoms), and about 80% of COVID-19 cases produced either no symptoms or mild symptoms. If you never had a positive COVID-19 diagnostic test result, the only way to know whether you had COVID-19 in the past is to take an antibody test, like CovAbScreen™.
CovAbScreen™ is not a foolproof test. First, if you were infected with COVID-19, it can take up to 14 days after experiencing symptoms to develop antibodies. If you test too soon, CovAbScreen™ would almost always give you a negative test result, regardless of whether you’ve had COVID-19 or not.
Once at least 14 days have passed, the chances of getting an accurate negative result (the “specificity”, which means you don’t have COVID-19 antibodies) is 99.7%. The rate of getting an accurate positive result (the “sensitivity”, which means you do have COVID-19 antibodies) is 97.1%.
Yes. Your antibodies don’t last forever. From what’s currently known, the antibodies your body creates last at least 3-4 months after infection. The antibodies eventually disappear, but the rate in which they disappear is different for each person. The only way to see if you still have COVID-19 antibodies is to take an antibody test, like CovAbScreen™.
Reinfection with COVID-19 is currently rare, but possible. When responding to infections, in addition to antibodies, your immune system also creates memory cells, which are long-lasting. When these memory cells identify COVID-19 antigens, they create antibodies very quickly to help fight infection; if you had COVID-19 previously, your body will likely be able to fight future COVID-19 infections much more quickly.
No, this will not diagnose a current COVID-19 infection. This test is designed to be used at least 14 days after experiencing COVID-19 symptoms, and you can get a positive antibody result long after you’re no longer infected with COVID-19. While it’s possible to develop antibodies while being infected with COVID-19, this test does not look for a current COVID-19 infection.
If you have a positive test result, it is possible that you have or previously had COVID-19 and that you have developed an antibody response to the virus. Your healthcare provider will work with you to determine how best to care for you based on the test results along with other factors of your medical history, your symptoms, possible exposures, and geographic location of places you have recently traveled. There is also a very small chance (about 0.3%, or 3 in 1000) that this test can give a false positive (an incorrect positive result).
If you have tested positive for antibodies and you currently have symptoms, you should get a diagnostic test for COVID-19; it’s possible that you have both a COVID-19 infection and COVID-19 antibodies concurrently. However, the antibodies can also last for months after an infection, even after getting a negative COVID-19 infection test result.
If you were infected with COVID-19, then your body produced antibodies in response to the infection, even if you were asymptomatic (meaning you didn’t have symptoms). If that’s the case, then CovAbScreen™ would still detect the antibodies and show you a positive result. It’s also possible that you received a false positive result (you don’t actually have antibodies, but the test results say you do). The rate of false positives for CovAbScreen™ is 0.3%, or 3 in 1000.
After taking the test, the “T” line will often show up after the fluid dries; the results are only relevant between 15-20 minutes. The test results are no longer valid after 20 minutes. If you want to look at the test results again later, we recommend taking a picture of the test results between 15-20 minutes.
If there is a red or pink “T” line (no matter how faint) between 15-20 minutes after starting the test, then you have a positive test result. A grey or white line does not mean the result is positive. If you see a line show up 20 minutes or later after starting the test, that does not mean the result is positive. It’s normal for a line to show up after the fluid goes through the test and dries, regardless of whether you had a positive or negative result.
The intensity of a red or pink line between 15-20 minutes after starting the test correlates with how many antibodies you have; the more you have, the more intense the line. If the line is very faint, then you don’t have as many. Since your antibodies dissipate over time, it’s normal to have a faint line if you were infected with COVID-19 a few weeks or months earlier.
Invalid results can occur if you don’t finish all the steps or incorrectly perform a step on the Quick Reference Guide. To make sure you’re administering the test correctly, please be sure to watch our Instructional Video. The test results are also invalid 20 minutes after running the test, which is why we recommend taking a picture of your test results between the 15-20-minute mark. You also might get an invalid result if you leave the contents out of the packet for over 8 hours prior to testing, or if you administer the test in high humidity and high heat conditions (90% humidity and 45°C/113°F or higher). The test kits are also one-time use; reusing the test kit would also give an invalid result. Lastly, if you did everything correctly, it’s possible that you might just have a defective unit.
A control line might not show up if you’re taking biotin or hair growth supplements. If you are taking those, we recommend pausing intake for 3-5 days before administering the test. For other reasons, please see the question, “What might give me an invalid result?”
Please take a look at the following document: Who and When to Test.