So you can know if you have passed the coronavirus without having tested positive in an antigen or PCR test

The last month has been a big uptick in coronavirus cases in Spain. Mainly due to the appearance of the variant omicron, many of the people who had not contracted the disease since March 2020 suffered from SARS-CoV-2 throughout the end of 2021 or the beginning of 2022. Therefore, those “immune“They still wonder if at some point they haven’t had a trace of the virus and haven’t realized it.

Have I passed the coronavirus without symptoms? The question that many people ask, only has one answer. And it is that with almost ten million official infections In Spain, to which must be added those not registered for various reasons, knowing the level of antibodies of each one can be vital in order to prevent covid-19 in the future.

An understanding that with the appearance of the BA.2 variant becomes more essential as this new strain is understood as a ‘secret omicron‘. Due to its ability to go unnoticed in antigen tests, again knowing a person’s antibodies can help interpret whether or not the disease has passed.

Vaccines, like passing the disease, generate antibodies that can confuse the result of a test

However, it is in the implementation of vaccines where this does not help since when a dose is inoculated, the body generates these antibodies for a future defense. A protection that, in the case of antibody test, can be confusing when it comes to knowing if these are due to the disease or the vaccine.

On its website, the Spanish Agency for Medicines and Health Products (AEMPS) confirms that this is the only way to know whether or not you have antibodies. Of course, these tests do not detect the presence of the virus, so are not equivalent to a PCR or an antigen, in their result they have two samples that can be positive:

– IgM. They are immunoglobulins or antibodies that appear in the early phase of the infection and disappear after a few weeks.

– IgG. They are immunoglobulins that appear in the late phase of the infection and remain for a long time, sometimes years. These are the ones that are most taken as a reference to know if the disease has passed at some point.

Anyway, giving negative in these tests does not exclude the possibility of being suffering from the disease or having passed it. And it is that the organism of each person acts in a different way, being able to generate or not a quantity of antibodies. It is in negative cases where more caution should be taken, since the body, despite having passed covid-19, does not present defenses and may be at risk of contracting it again.