Prominent local doctor endorses COVID-19 antibody testing for BVI
Medical doctor and former legislator, Dr Kedrick Pickering has said he believes antibody testing for the COVID-19 virus should be conducted in the British Virgin Islands.
Antibodies are blood proteins produced by the immune system in response to, and to counteract a specific antigen/virus — in this case, COVID-19.
The presence of COVID-19 antibodies means a person has/had the virus so Dr Pickering said using the antibody testing measure would give government a more precise understanding of the extent of the virus in the territory.
“The test to see if you are currently infected with the coronavirus is the nasal swab, antibody testing can be done to show if there are persons within the community who had been infected, were not aware of it – were asymptomatic – and probably had recovered,” he explained.
Population would’ve been tested if implemented weeks ago
Had this measure been instituted, the former legislator said the entire population would have been already tested and sufficient data would be available to help the government with their COVID-19 policy-making decisions.
“We could have done all of that by now to the extent that we would have tested everyone in the BVI. Jost Van Dyke is a classic example, we had a scare of a case that may have been related to Jost Van Dyke and they had a team jump into action and immediately after a couple of days we had screened everybody on Jost Van Dyke,” Dr Pickering said.
“If we had started that process several weeks ago, we would have by now basically had screened the entire country. We would then have a sense of what is happening on the ground in the BVI and be in a much better position to make the decision based on information,” he explained.
Resources for antibody testing could have been found
As it pertains to sourcing the necessary resources to facilitate this method of testing, Dr Pickering said he believes it would not be a difficult task.
He said: “We could have found the resources. We could have had access to the resources because the United Kingdom government gave us a number of test kits to do the various testing for our population.”
“It wouldn’t have been that expensive to allocate a small amount of our budget, we could have even used some of the same Social Security money that we took the other day and invest in buying these test kits for the greater purpose of testing the entire community and better be in a position to make the decisions moving forward,” he added.
Data from BVI could be used for build on research
Dr Pickering further said by utilising the antibody testing measure, the BVI would be able to contribute on the global platform to aid with the fight against the COVID-19 virus.
“We would have been able to contribute to the body of scientific literature that exists because if you follow these discussions, especially on the big news networks, they talk about the research and the studies that have been done, etcetera,” the former legislator stated.
After testing more than 1,500 persons for the COVID-19 virus using the popular PCR testing method, the BVI has recorded a total of nine positive cases, with seven recovered, one deceased, and one active case.
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The government does not care about solutions. They only care to get as many monies in their pockets right now…
except we do not have enough test kits for this, missing about 25,000 so no this coud not of happened
I read an article from study done in Europe that the antibidies are only detectable and therefore suspected to be present to up to 3 month after exposure/recovery from Covid 19. So a antibody test will show the present number of immune to Covid population but no guarantee of not getting it again.
I do not want to hear anything from that man kedrick Pickering who sold us out to his rich wh!+@ friends.
All of sudden when he’s out of power he has all the answers.
If anyone is paying attention they will see that this Government is all about milking this crisis and getting money out of it. When the Premier addresses the nation telling us that the economic booster is construction contract splitting you do the math. Add to that the whole quarantine security scam and you will see what’s going on here.
He was and still is a doctor before he got into public office. Besides the ones in power definately don’t have any answers. I couldn’t tell you want experience they have in anything besides talking.
WE WANT BACK THE NDP!!!! AS MUCH AS THEY DID SOME NONSENSE THOSE GUYS WOULD NOT BE SO INCOMPETENT AND ALL OVER THE PLACE LIKE THIS SET. I AM SO ASHAMED OF MY COUNTRY RIGHT NOW!!
I think the jury is out on how long antibodies remain present (I had such a nasty virus in Jan I swear it was Covid!) and whether they protect you from catching it out again.
There are numerous synonyms for the word “local” . Pls try them out.
Sometimes there’s no necessity for it in a headline.
“Prominent British Virgin Islands doctor endorses Covid-19 anti-Body testing for the BVI”
Maybe if we had the money from the missing plane, we could afford all the testing necessary for the territory.
YOUR TONCILS IS WHAT IS RESPONSIBLE FOR CREATING ANTIBODIES NATURALLY IN YOUR BODY. BY PASS THE TONCILS AND INTO YOUR BLOOD STREAM YOU AR DEFINITELY GOING TO HAVE PROBLEMS AND HOPE THAT YOU DO FIGHT OFF THE VIRUS.