DAYTON, Ohio — A long line of cars were at a standstill outside the University of Dayton Arena Monday morning, as many people waited to get their antibody testing done. 

  • People can pay $65 to take the antibody test
  • You don't need a doctor's order to get a test
  • The tests are 95 to 98 percent accurate

Through a partnership between Premier Health, Fidelity Health Care, CompuNet, and the university, people can pay $65 to get their blood drawn to see if they’ve ever contracted the virus, cleared the disease, and had an appropriate immune response to it. 

“It can give people the idea of that cough and congestion they had a couple of weeks ago or a month or two ago was actually this COVID or coranvirus,” said Dr. Joseph Allen, Premier Health regional medical director.

Allen also says getting this test could help people determine if they’re able to help others in need.

“If you have these antibodies, it may be helpful for the ability for you to donate plasma and help save potentially three or four other lives,” he said.

Unlike the active COVID-19 testing, you do not need a physician's order to get a test. You can get test results within 2 business days. The tests are 95 to 98 percent accurate, but the length of time it can go back to detect the virus in not certain. 

“We know that we do have some folks that reportedly had some symptoms 6, 8, or 12 weeks ago even that are still showing positive on this IGG test,” said Allen. “So we know that it goes back that far, but it could go back much further than that.”

You can get testing done Monday through Friday from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. More than 100 tests were administered on the first day and they expect steady numbers throughout the week. 

So in order to keep the line flowing and make things more efficient, Premier is asking that you schedule an appointment online.

“Because this is a blood draw, we have to control the amount of people that come through. We have to kind of schedule that and make sure that they’re scheduled appropriately, they got the amount of time that they need for this test and move on from there,” Allen said.

The antibody testing that was done on Monday is in addition to the active COVID-19 swab testing the partnership has been doing for over a month now at UD.

Allen believes this is the future for COVID-19 testing. 

“If we can keep anybody with potentially active coronavirus out of our offices, out of our hospitals, out of our emergency departments, it’s going to benefit all of us," he said. “We don’t want those folks around our sickest patients as they are.”

He also believes it can be helpful in determining the future of Ohio. 

“As we test more folks and we get a better idea of how many people actually have these antibodies, it gives us a better insight into the herd immunity, which is so important on what we talk about as far as opening up the state or opening up the country.”