The state Department of Health will start antibody testing today in hope that it will lead to developing a vaccine quicker, which will allow more people to get back to work.

Antibody tests can be crucial to reopening the economy and can also show who has been infected and recovered.

Gov. Andrew Cuomo announced the Department of Health will be conducting these exams. The testing survey will begin sampling 3,000 tests from people who already tested positive.

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The type of testing can help officials understand who is short-term immune to the virus, which could also confirm whether a person has had the virus, but was asymptomatic.

In the long run, the governor says this would allow essential workers, health care workers and first responders to get back to work sooner.

 

“We are going to sample people in this state, thousands of people in this state, across the state to find out if they have the antibodies. That will tell us, for the first time, what percent of the population actually has had the coronavirus and is now at least short-term immune to the virus. This will be the first, true snapshot of what we are really dealing with,” says Gov. Cuomo.