I’d heard rumblings that you could give blood through the American Red Cross, and they’d test your blood for antibodies. Worth mentioning: The Red Cross says it’s a perfectly safe time to donate, despite COVID-19. How to interpret your resultsMine said: “COVID-19 Test Result: NEGATIVE.” And I blanked for a second, as in, “Negative? Learn more about COVID-19 antibody testing.” (It’s like the Red Cross knows that we’re not all health experts). The Red Cross could use your donation one way or the other.

At the Gulf Coast Regional Blood Center, medical director Dr. Marsha Bertholf explained, “(blood from COVID-19 survivors) contains antibodies that then can go into the patients and help fight off the virus.”Using convalescent plasma is a very old treatment. Gulf Coast Regional Blood Center said all donations stay in our community first. If you are positive for antibodies, the blood center will call you and request a plasma donation. Plasma donationPlasma is the clear, straw-colored liquid portion of blood that remains after red blood cells, white blood cells, platelets and other cellular components are removed. The Gulf Coast Regional Blood Center tests blood donations for antibodies.

HOUSTON – The first day we knew about the “community spread” of coronavirus was the day the rodeo was canceled on March 11, 2020. Now, many of you are getting antibody tests and finding out you’ve had coronavirus but claim symptoms happened early in March, or before then. Some doctors now think back to early in the year, after people returned from holiday travel, and think what appeared to be a respiratory virus going around, might have been coronavirus the whole time. Professor of Infectious Diseases at UT Health Luis Ostrosky, MD, said results like these help doctors with a very important mystery. We won’t really know if they had corona or not unless we have samples from that time," Ostrosky said.

KATY – A new rapid COVID-19 antibody test has arrived in the Houston area. Dr. Odili and his team at APEX Urgent Care in Katy are among the first to offer the new test. Similar to the rapid flu test, Dr. Odili said his office received hundreds of testing kits Tuesday. With this test, Dr. Odili said patients could get peace of mind in minutes, something traditional COVID-19 tests are unable to do. KPRC 2 paid $85 for the rapid COVID-19 antibody blood test at APEX Urgent Care.