COVID-19 antibody testing available in Richmond, but it's not cheap

A health worker extracts blood from a patient to perform an antibody test for COVID-19 in this April 9, 2020, photo taken at a hospital in Krakow, Poland. A health worker extracts blood from a patient to perform an antibody test for COVID-19 in this April 9, 2020, photo taken at a hospital in Krakow, Poland. Photo: Omar Marques Photo: Omar Marques Image 1 of / 1 Caption Close COVID-19 antibody testing available in Richmond, but it's not cheap 1 / 1 Back to Gallery

A Richmond lab is making COVID-19 antibody tests available to anyone willing to pay $125 and travel to the East Bay city to see if they have been infected with the coronavirus.

The test by ARCpoint Labs offers the promise of putting people’s minds at ease, but the lab told NBC Bay Area that it is only 87% accurate. It also is not approved by the Food and Drug Administration.

In the test, a patient’s finger is pricked to provide a blood sample, which is then analyzed for the presence of antibodies. Results are available within 10 minutes.

ARCpoint Labs’ test measures two prominent antibodies, IgG and IgM, and is the same brand that was used in South Korea, according to the company’s Scottsdale, Ariz., location.

“The one we use has a pretty high sensitivity accuracy rate, so the IgM is over 97% and IgG is over 99%,” Tim Terrill, manager at ARCpoint Labs of Scottsdale, told Fox News Phoenix.

Antibodies are proteins that the body produces at various stages of an infection. They can remain for months or even years.

But scientists do not know yet if you gain immunity from COVID-19 after contracting the virus and recovering from it. It’s conceivable that one could gain temporary immunity during one outbreak but still be vulnerable during a re-emergence of the virus.

Another danger is the unlikely but possible chance of a false positive, showing someone had had the virus but recovered, which might induce that person to relax physical distancing.

Charles Veley, who posted on Facebook Wednesday that he took the test after feeling ill following trips to eastern China and Milan, said his results were negative (no antibodies). He had hoped to be found positive, with antibodies post-recovery, but he was “grateful to be healthy and to understand clearly the need for further social distancing.”

There are currently three coronavirus antibody tests that have FDA emergency-use authorizations. The tests by Chembio Diagnostic Systems and Ortho Clinical Diagnost were approved Wednesday, joining another test, authorized earlier this month from the company Cellex, CNN reported.

Companies like ARCpoint Labs can make their tests available as part of an FDA process permitting the production and marketing of tests without emergency-use authorization.

Health insurance typically does not pay for laboratory tests from private companies outside the insuree's medical plan.

SFGATE reached out to ARCpoint Labs in Richmond for comment, but received no immediate reply.

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Mike Moffitt is an SFGATE Digital Reporter. Email: moffitt@sfgate.com. Twitter: @Mike_at_SFGate