ABSTRACT
Public health emergency of SARS-CoV-2 has facilitated diagnostic testing as a related medical countermeasure against COVID-19 outbreak. Numerous serologic antibody tests have become available through an expedited federal emergency use only process. This paper highlights the analytical characteristic of an ELISA based assay by AnshLabs and three random access immunoassay (RAIA) by DiaSorin, Roche, and Abbott that have been approved for emergency use authorization (EUA), at a tertiary academic center in a low disease-prevalence area. The AnshLabs gave higher estimates of sero-prevalence, over the three RAIA methods. For positive results, AnshLabs had 93.3% and 100% agreement with DiaSorin or Abbott and Roche respectively. For negative results, AnshLabs had 74.3% and 78.3% agreement with DiaSorin and Roche or Abbott respectively. All discrepant samples that were positive by AnshLabs and negative by RAIA tested positive by all-in-one step SARS-CoV-2 Total (COV2T) assay performed on the automated Siemens Advia Centaur XPT analyzer. None of these methods, however, are useful in early diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2.
Subject(s)
Antibodies, Viral/immunology , Betacoronavirus/immunology , Clinical Laboratory Techniques/methods , Coronavirus Infections/diagnosis , Enzyme-Linked Immunosorbent Assay/methods , Pneumonia, Viral/diagnosis , Serologic Tests/methods , COVID-19 , COVID-19 Testing , Coronavirus Infections/virology , Diagnostic Tests, Routine , Humans , Immunoglobulin G/blood , Immunoglobulin M/blood , Nucleocapsid Proteins/immunology , Pandemics , Pneumonia, Viral/virology , Reverse Transcriptase Polymerase Chain Reaction/methods , SARS-CoV-2 , Sensitivity and Specificity , Spike Glycoprotein, Coronavirus/immunologyABSTRACT
The emergence of the novel coronavirus disease-19 (COVID-19) required a rapid shift from in-person instruction to remote learning in our second-semester general chemistry course at the United States Military Academy (USMA), a predominantly undergraduate institution that takes pride in faculty accessibility to students. The decision to conduct remote instruction took effect when students were on spring break;consequently, most students had limited academic resources in hand. This represented a significant paradigm shift for both USMA faculty and students since the institution places an emphasis on in-person engagements with students, as reflected by our low student-to-faculty ratio. We adapted our usual in-person, student-driven instructional method to the remote environment within a 7 day period, which impacted 174 students and six faculty course-wide who were new to the technology, resources, and methodology associated with remote instruction and learning. This communication discusses lessons learned from the transition to asynchronous remote teaching, with a critical focus on the advantages and disadvantages of the adopted teaching methodologies, and includes a discussion of course design and the corresponding adaptions to this new pedagogical environment. We anticipate that these accounts can be leveraged by the broader chemical sciences community to better inform the planning and execution of instruction in future academic terms under remote, in-person, or hybrid (partially remote and partially in-person) environments.