Dan posted these pages demonstrating that mayo clinic is only 88 percent accurate. Anyone can help interpret these pages?@biobook?
I really don't know anything about this yet, but I'm willing to try to figure it out. I'm not sure what you're asking, so I'll answer one question that I see above, and if you have others, let me know and I'll try to look into that tomorrow. But if someone really understands it, please chime in.
What does the number on the positive antibody test mean? From what I can understand, it should be considered meaningless.
The EDI IgG says "This kit is intended for the
qualitative detection of human anti-COVID-19 antibody..." and the Mayo test says "This test provides
qualitative detection of serum IgG-class antibodies against severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)"
https://www.mayocliniclabs.com/test-catalog/Overview/609035Qualitative, not quantitative. Although the test spits out a number, it should only be understood as a yes/no answer. Like a pregnancy test, where the line turns blue if you're pregnant. The intensity of the blue color may differ in different cases, but darker blue doesn't mean that you're further along in pregnancy, or that you have twins instead of a singleton. It just means Yes! Mazel tov!
So you're wondering (as am I) why there's a number in the first place? I think that the test really is meant to measure the quantitative amount of antibody present, but for whatever reason, they don't think it's giving a reliable result. It may have to do with the test procedure (maybe the number changes if it sits around a few minutes longer before it's read) or it might have to do with the antibodies in the blood (perhaps the amount naturally varies over the course of the day). (I'm making these up.) I'm sure that they're working on developing a reliable quantitative test, but for now, they seem to be saying to just consider the result positive, and ignore the number. Or some tests may not even give you a number, and just say Positive.
Here's a worthwhile discussion of the value of the antibody tests at this time.
https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/05/21/857961304/getting-an-antibody-test-for-the-coronavirus-heres-what-it-wont-tell-you