This is behind the paywall (I think) for The Athletic so I'll summarize below.
https://theathletic.com/1746724/2020/04/14/mlb-team-employees-will-be-the-subjects-of-the-u-s-s-largest-covid-19-antibody-study/
I'll keep an eye out for results but could be very interesting. Here's a quote from the article:
"This will be the first time we will be able to see how truly prevalent COVID-19 has spread throughout the United States," said Bhattacharya. "And instead of it taking years to pull together a study of this scope, especially with stay-at-home orders, MLB has helped us turn it around in a matter of weeks."
https://theathletic.com/1746724/2020/04/14/mlb-team-employees-will-be-the-subjects-of-the-u-s-s-largest-covid-19-antibody-study/
- MLB is help researchers from Stanford, USC and a private lab conduct antibody testing on 10,000 employees.
- Those tested include players, front office, part time employees (ushers, etc), and their families.
- Testing is voluntary and self administered at home.
- Purpose is to get a sense of antibody spread across wide range of population and geography.
- Will not be used to determine when to restart the season (I'm skeptical of this. If it's positive, why not?)
- Peer reviewed paper coming in 2-3 weeks.
I'll keep an eye out for results but could be very interesting. Here's a quote from the article:
"This will be the first time we will be able to see how truly prevalent COVID-19 has spread throughout the United States," said Bhattacharya. "And instead of it taking years to pull together a study of this scope, especially with stay-at-home orders, MLB has helped us turn it around in a matter of weeks."
