Michigan hospital system will test workers’ blood in effort to help reopen country

Beaumont Health will test blood samples from its 38,000 employees, as well as thousands of additional physicians and affiliates, officials said in interviews. Participation is voluntary, but officials said they expect many employees will want the test, particularly those working in emergency rooms and intensive care units who are at high risk of contracting the virus. Many public health officials have advocated such testing on a broad scale to find out how extensively the virus has circulated in the United States and who may have immunity and be able to return to work first. By examining a single health-care system, Beaumont researchers also hope to learn more about how the coronavirus spreads and why some people develop covid-19, the disease it causes, but others don’t. Researchers around the world are racing to develop an antibody test to help guide decisions on when to ease social distancing rules and let some people return to work. The National Institutes of Health is conducting a study to determine how many adults in the United States without a confirmed coronavirus infection carry antibodies to it. At the Mount Sinai Health System in New York City, researchers began working on a serological test before the first coronavirus case was confirmed in the United States. Beaumont has validated the antibody test on a group of 1,000 people, said Hans Keil, senior vice president and chief information officer. Under privacy law, test subjects will learn their antibody status, but Beaumont researchers will use only aggregate data and not see individual results. After Beaumont has finished collecting blood samples from its employees, Sims said, he expects the hospital system may offer the test to others.