≡ Menu

Covid-19 Antibody Test Results

Was I infected?

Support VBJ’s writing on this blog:

ASTORIA, NYC- I got the test results back from the Covid-19 antibody test that I took a few days ago:

Covid-19 antibody testLooks negative; unfortunately.

I was counting on that piece of paper coming back positive. It was to be my “health passport.” Recent research on Covid-19 — and conventional medical knowledge — say that recovering from viral infections leads to a certain degree of protection against getting it again. Herd immunity is essential for getting back to normal, and those who can demonstrate such immunity should be the first ones out of the gate … if such distinctions actually become relevant.

NYC is currently doing the most exhaustive antibody test yet, including 140,000 people across the city to get a clearer picture of how many people have already been infected and how deadly the virus actually is. A preliminary survey in NYC showed that nearly 25% of the city were already infected, hinting at an infection fatality rate (IFR) of roughly 0.5%. Stanford University and the University of Southern California have done similar surveys, albeit with smaller sample sizes, and came up with an IFR of 0.1-0.2%, which is in the ballpark of “flu-like” infections.

At any rate, Covid-19 is way, WAY less lethal than was previously touted. Under no circumstance is it looking as if we are going to have mass deaths, overloaded hospitals, or run out of room to bury the bodies. The burden on the medical system will probably come more from the fact that hospitals are severely backlogged with procedures that were postponed because of Covid-19 measures than from Covid-19 itself.

And that Imperial University study that predicted 2.2 million deaths in the USA from Covid-19 that reportedly changed the Trump administration’s mind on the issue … well, they ended up being monumentally wrong … about as monumentally wrong as the models that predicted mass deaths from mad cow disease or the ones that said that 200 million people would die from bird flu.

All three of these grossly erroneous predictions, it turns out, came from the same guy.

Neil Ferguson is perhaps the most wrong man on planet earth. Each time there’s a new health crisis he jumps into the limelight with doomsday scenarios that governments gobble up, following his recommendations to the detriment to their respective economies and populations — like the time he got the UK to needlessly cull six million heads of cattle because of mad cow. He has been wrong time and time again, but that didn’t stop him from being able to influence the UK and US governments to lockdown their countries, put millions out of work, and destroy their economies.

Ferguson’s Covid-19 models didn’t pass the eye test of even lay individuals — they were the reason why I wrote this post — and, no matter how hard they tried, other researchers couldn’t replicate his findings. Under mounting pressure in the UK Ferguson eventually revealed the code his models were based off of … and the world rollicked in a colossal belly laugh: we had been duped, the well-respected professor’s cutting edge mathematical systems turned out to be outdated, nonsensical garbage. The professor was a fraud:

Furthermore, when analysing the validity of the staggering death estimates, scientists have claimed that it is almost impossible to reproduce the same results from the same data, using the same code as Imperial, The Telegraph reported.

University of Edinburgh researchers reportedly found bugs when running the model, getting different results when they used different machines, or even the same machines in some cases.

“Professor Lockdown” is what Ferguson has now comically been dubbed in the UK media, and he recently stepped down from his post on Johnson’s coronavirus response team after being caught violating the lockdown that he played a fundamental role in creating.

As a side note, that erroneous Ferguson coronavirus report, entitled “Impact of non-pharmaceutical interventions (NPIs) to reduce COVID19 mortality” was funded by, you guessed it, Bill Gates.

This take me to the main reason that I was hoping for a positive antibody result: it would be documented evidence that I could potentially have used to stave off the coming C19 va.c-c*ine should it become mandatory.

I’m reminded of the classic Chinese story Outlaws of the Marsh where the rebels had faith that the emperor was good while his advisers were the ones who were evil. Our elected government officials are generally not experts in epidemiology, so they rely on others with titles and distinction for direction. Unfortunately, those who are being relied on during the Covid-19 pandemic happen to be wicked little jerks with skin in the game. Where’s Wu Song when you need him?

SUPPORT

The only way I can continue my travels and publishing this blog is by generous contributions from readers. If you can, please subscribe for just $5 per month:

NEWSLETTER

If you like what you just read, please sign up for our newsletter!
* indicates required
Filed under: Epidemics, New York City

About the Author:

I am the founder and editor of Vagabond Journey. I’ve been traveling the world since 1999, through 91 countries. I am the author of the book, Ghost Cities of China and have written for The Guardian, Forbes, Bloomberg, The Diplomat, the South China Morning Post, and other publications. has written 3723 posts on Vagabond Journey. Contact the author.

Support VBJ’s writing on this blog:

VBJ is currently in: New York City

7 comments… add one

Leave a Comment

  • Jack May 22, 2020, 4:04 pm

    It’s quite early in the game to say that we won’t get two million deaths in the US. I’ve been following this closely since January and I’ve been modeling the data as well…though I stopped about a month ago. I really don’t interact online about the data (except on your page) because I find it rather pointless.

    We have been lied to and gaslighted from both sides of the political spectrum and there continues to be way too much misinformation from both sides. I expected this thing to blow up but not really into the Fall/Winter of 2020/2021. I expected there to be multiple waves of this thing. It’s a political game all the way around.

    Anyways, I’ve been figuring 30 to 40% asymptomatic rate since early February. I’ve pegged the death rate at about 0.75%(between 0.5% and 1.0%) with good access to hospitals. It will go lower where there isn’t clustering and higher where there is clustering. The early serological studies out of New York push the CFR closer to 0.7% so close to my prediction just from a simple excel sheet in February.

    But if you take the 330 million people in the US and give them a CFR of 0.75%, you get 2.5 million people dead. That’s the simple math of it. If the hospitals are overwhelmed, the CFR can double and then you look at 5 million or more dead. That’s assuming everyone gets infected. Not really going to happen. Even with 50% infection rate in an overwhelmed hospital system, you get your 2.5 million dead.

    I think a lot of people expect this to be a one wave and done kind of thing. I hope it is, but I’m not banking on it. I’m hoping that we get our window of travel in the late summer/early fall. Right now everything is up in the air. It’s frustrating.

    Can I vent? I’ve been level headed, but I want to vent right now. The mfers running things blew their load. This thing is dangerous and can kill, but it should have been allowed to run its course in the spring. Based on historical data, we would have had clusters and deaths, but it wouldn’t be much different than it was anyways. We would get the gap in waves in the summer and then if another wave appeared in the fall, we could be prepared for it and people who saw the dangerousness in the Spring would take it seriously. If we have a second and multiple waves in the fall/winter (and more deadly than the Spring one), no one is going to take them seriously. The mfers running things used their bazooka in the Spring and now they ain’t got anything left to use. They blew their load and ain’t got anything left.

    The conspiracy theorist in me says that they have done this on purpose. I have seen them (both sides) make horrendous mistakes at each turn that could only be done on purpose.

    TLDR; Politicians and scientists are playing games and blew their load. This thing is either ending or just getting started. I lean towards it just getting started and the US will get its 2 million deaths before it all ends.

    Link Reply
    • Wade Shepard May 27, 2020, 10:37 am

      Hmm … I agree with your rage here — this was totally mismanaged. I agree that this should have been allowed to run its course while protecting at risk individuals with gov support / money. It would have cost way less and probably saved way more people. Forcing people to stay in their homes with a virus that had already been proven to be mostly spread in the home was idiotic on an unprecedented level and parted with everything we know about epidemics and viral transmission. It has become a political and cultural war, with one side trying to imprison everyone in their homes as they put on their capes and fight for the vulnerable and the other side is saying leave me the fuck alone, I’ll do what I want and make choices for myself. These competition between these contending perspectives continuously prop each other up, pushing everyone to the next level, and little things like science doesn’t really matter anymore.

      What I don’t agree with is your numbers. Only 350,000 have died so far on a planet of nearly 8 billion. In many places the virus has spread unchecked — including some parts of the USA — and we’re not even getting close to anything that would even indicate 2.5 million deaths worldwide. Fortunately, the virus has spread way faster that we initially believed and a huge portion of the planet has already been infected. By autumn I imagine that we’ll naturally be at herd immunity levels in most parts of the world. Or at least I hope so.

      But there is something else that you said that rings true: the absolute stupidity of both the Democrats and Republicans makes it seem as if there are other forces at play. How can the Democrats just ignore social / biological science to such an egregious extent? How could the “experts” in the federal government be so wishy washy? Wasn’t that jerk Fauci telling everyone not to wear masks a couple of months ago? Wasn’t he saying that it was okay to take a cruise in March? Didn’t he suddenly jump to the other extreme and try to lock everyone down just to say that he totally supports re-opening immediately? It seemed as if he’s making determinations based on whatever news story he reads in the morning. This bodes well for conspiracy theories as they can’t possibly be so dumb.

      They destroyed millions of lives … for what’s looking like nothing.

      I also agree that there’s no way that they are going to be able to lock us down again — no matter what.

      Link Reply
      • Trevor Warman May 27, 2020, 2:00 pm

        Hi here the president is considering re opening.

        So the lock down here then has been for nothing, as there are many more daily cases and deaths now than when lock down was implemented. Ive lost count of how many days ive been here..

        what has it achieved? Many businesses lost. A few met their maker earlier than they were gonna do anyway.

        10 more days till the up date

        Link
      • Wade Shepard May 30, 2020, 11:15 am

        This is probably going to prove to be the most unsuccessful human experiment ever attempted. Governments made decisions based on pseudoscience, destroyed people’s lives, AND made them more susceptible to getting the virus. Complete fail.

        Link
  • Lawrence May 22, 2020, 4:43 pm

    What are your thoughts on a potential vaccine? I am not a an anti-vaxxer per se (I have all my vaccines), but I don’t trust a COVID 19 vax produced by Bill Gates. Something seems way off to me. I also think it will be mandatory to travel again…or maybe I am paranoid.

    Link Reply
    • Wade Shepard May 26, 2020, 12:13 pm

      I don’t believe anyone should trust any corporation producing something for which they have no legal liability. A va cc #ine could kill a million people and just so it says “may cause death” in the insert you can’t sue them. Basically, that industry is rigged from top to bottom — the same companies that produce the product are funding some of the regulatory bodies, the media that reports about it, the universities that study it, and government officials whose job it is to legislate it. They also have considerable amounts of power to shut down research that doesn’t go their way. Also, to top it all off, they make billions treating the chronic illnesses that their product have been shown to potentially cause.

      I’m not anti-v*a#x as a rule, I just don’t trust the mechanisms that allow these corporations to essentially do what they want with impunity. Anyone who trusts a corporation when they say their products are safe is an idiot…

      That said, I stopped taking va*c#cine!s many years ago.

      I have to write that word like this because the Big G heavily censors content about this topic. Just do a search for anti-v#a%x website (but write the real term) in Google and then in Duck Duck Go. The difference in the results are startling.

      Link Reply
  • Dominique Gaarsland January 5, 2021, 7:29 pm

    A: No. An antibody test does not detect the presence of the SARS-CoV-2 virus to diagnose COVID-19. These tests can return a negative test result even in infected patients (for example, if antibodies have not yet developed in response to the virus) or may generate false positive results (for example, if antibodies to another coronavirus type are detected), so they should not be used to evaluate if you are currently infected or contagious (ability to infect other people).

    Link Reply