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ProMedica employees, patients getting tested for coronavirus antibodies

As testing opportunities ramp up across Ohio, ProMedica employees and patients are getting the opportunity to be tested for coronavirus antibodies.

TOLEDO, Ohio — Neil Sabo works at ProMedica Bay Park Hospital and is one of many employees who decided to get tested for coronavirus antibodies. 

"I received them last week, I had my testing on Tuesday and my results were posted on Thursday," Sabo said.

Sabo said near the end of February he had a slight fever and assumes that's why he tested positive. ProMedica officials say that during the first round of testing at Bay Park, 3.5% of their employees tested positive for antibodies.

Since the beginning of this pandemic, we've been hearing people can be asymptomatic carriers of coronavirus, And now, antibody tests are able to tell someone if they fall in that category.

"But if you test positive and you never did get sick, you're probably one of those asymptomatic carriers and so I'm one of those people actually posing a risk to people if I get this. And I might be transmitting or I might have transmitted and not even known it," ProMedica ER Physician Dr. Brian Kaminski said.

If someone tests negative for coronavirus antibodies, that just means you have not come in enough contact with the virus to generate an immune response, but you are susceptible. 

Kaminski stressed that whatever your results are, wearing a mask does not lose importance. 

"So even if you do test positive, you continue to practice every single step you've heard along the way, like wearing a mask," Kaminski said.

Patients who want to receive an antibody test can order one through their physician. 

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