RxSAPhE (Repeated Seroprevalence of COVID-19 Antibodies in Pharmacy & Policy Employees and Students)

Background COVID-19 was first discovered in Wuhan, China and the World Health Organization warned of a novel coronavirus related pneumonia on January 9, 20201 . The first confirmed case of COVID19 in the United States occurred on January 21, 20201 and since then, there have been almost 33 million cases of COVID-19 in the United States and over 168 million cases worldwide2 . COVID-19 is responsible for more than 580 thousand deaths in the United States and over 3.49 million deaths around the world2 . With the onset of a pandemic caused by a novel virus, assessing immunity in patients that have either had a natural infection has not been identified. Initial guidance suggested that there was a 3 month period of immunity after a natural infection to protect patients from re-infection. CDC recently released that the antibody response after a natural COVID-19 infection can be durable for 6 months or more3 . It is unclear however, if an antibody response to COVID-19 is correlated to protection from an infection from SARS-CoV-2 virus. Antibodies only make up one part of the immune response, with virus specific memory T and B cells possibly playing a role in the immunity against SARS-CoV-2.