Are antibody tests the answer to re-opening the country?

There is a natural desire to know if you’ve had the coronavirus, perhaps with only mild symptoms or none at all. But there aren’t yet many antibody test options to provide those answers.

Antibodies are proteins in the immune system that develop after someone has been infected, and it’s those antibodies that make someone immune.

That's part of the reason why governments around the world want these blood tests: They could help some people get back to their daily lives.

“The peace of mind that would come from knowing you already were infected, you have antibody, you're safe from reinfection 99.9 percent of the time,” White House Coronavirus Response Coordinator Dr. Deborah Birx said.

These tests have another benefit: They can offer a clearer sense of how many people had this virus.

The CDC has used these tests to monitor contacts of infected people and to identify individuals who, due to mild infection, may have not known they were infected.

Still, there are a lot of concerns that the tests on the market could be unreliable or inaccurate, and some are pushing for more regulation before we shift away from social distancing.