Researchers at UCSF, Stanford and the Chan Zuckerberg Biohub are planning to launch two long-term studies to track the spread of COVID-19 in the Bay Area and better understand if people can become reinfected.
One study plans to test roughly 4,000 Bay Area residents once a month through the end of the year for COVID-19 and the antibodies that fight it off. Another study, which plans to test 3,500 health care workers, participants who test positive for antibodies will be followed to help understand if they develop immunity.
The Chan Zuckerberg Initiative announced Wednesday that it will support the 9-month research collaboration with nearly $14 million dollars in funding.
Dr. Priscilla Chan, co-founder of CZI, says that testing the same population over time can provide a better understanding of how the virus is spreading in the Bay Area and help officials make decisions.
“Everyone in this collaboration came together to help answer the question of how do we get back to some semblance of normal?” Chan said. “It’s not going to be about how are we doing at one moment in time, but … how does the prevalence of COVID-19 change as we make changes in our community and our shelter place orders?”
Enrollment for the studies is slated to begin in early May.
— Peter Arcuni (@peterarcuni)