| Fewer than 10% of Americans have antibodies against Covid-19, a telltale sign that they were infected with the novel coronavirus and successfully fought it off. Those are the results from a nationwide study involving more than 28,000 people conducted by researchers at Stanford University. The work was ingenious – the investigators examined the excess blood from patients who were undergoing dialysis for end-stage kidney disease to draw their conclusions. The design allowed researchers to circumvent many challenges that exist for so-called surveillance studies, those done to look for something specific across a broad group of people. Often participants in this sort of work come from younger and healthier populations, since they have the time, resources and health to take part in such endeavors. By focusing on dialysis patients, however, the researchers got a group that naturally skews toward an older and ethnically diverse population, those who are more likely to have kidney disease. It also included poor people, since dialysis is automatically covered by Medicare, a U.S. health insurance program. And they plan to follow the volunteers for an extended period, giving them invaluable insights into the antibodies themselves, including how long they last and whether they ward off disease.
The findings confirmed a lot of what is believed about coronavirus, namely that it hits the oldest, the poor and minority populations the hardest. But it also offered novel insights. Until now, researchers didn't know if the higher rates of hospitalization and death in those groups stemmed only from the severity of their disease. In fact, the study found that there is also a greater spread overall of coronavirus in those groups, said lead researcher Shuchi Anand, director of Stanford's Center for Tubulointerstitial Kidney Disease. There were also dramatic differences across the country. In some states, they found very low or even no antibody levels. In hard-hit New York, more than one-third of the population had antibodies. The question now is, how long do they last? Stay tuned.—Michelle Fay Cortez | 
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