Infectious disease society guidelines start clarifying use cases for COVID-19 serology

Guidelines released Thursday by the Infectious Diseases Society of America are beginning to spell out which questions serological tests can answer, and which are still out of reach.

Many hoped serological tests, which indicate past exposure to SARS-CoV-2 by detecting host antibodies against the virus, could identify who is protected from reinfection. IDSA made it clear there is still not enough evidence to infer protection from serology; however, it conditionally recommended three use cases for the tests, and parameters for how best to use them, based on a survey of thousands of papers that focused on 47 high-quality studies...