Most Blood Donations Contain COVID-19 Antibodies

As of August 26, 2021, the UK's Public Health England (PHE) newly reported seroprevalence data indicates approximately 97.7% of blood donors aged 17 and over have antibodies to the SARS-CoV-2 betacoronavirus from either infection or COVID-19 vaccination.

This PHE report is based on data from week #33 (between 16 August and 22 August 2021) and for some daily indicators up to August 24, 2021.

COVID-19 vaccine coverage in England was 63.9% for dose 1 at the end of week #33.

And a total of 5,707,906 first positive cases have been confirmed for COVID-19 in England since the beginning of the pandemic,

According to the Red Cross website, 'antibodies that an individual produces when they’ve been exposed to the SARS-CoV-2 virus are slightly different from the antibodies that an individual produces when they’ve been vaccinated.'

'When an individual has been infected with a virus, they produce antibodies to multiple regions of a virus.'

'At the Red Cross, we use two antibody tests to generate our results on blood, platelet, and plasma donations.'

'One test detects antibodies to the spike protein of the betacoronavirus. The other detects antibodies to a different protein of the virus called the nucleocapsid protein.'

'If a donor has had a COVID-19 vaccine, they will generate an antibody against the spike protein, but not the nucleocapsid protein, which will only occur in the event of a COVID-19 infection.'

Note: The Red Cross stopped testing for COVID-19 antibodies in the USA on June 25, 2021. As of March 2021, about 20% of blood donations from unvaccinated people had Covid-19 antibodies, according to data shared with CNN by the American Red Cross.