Players and staff across Major League Baseball are joining a massive research study looking for the presence of COVID-19 antibodies. The study will test up to 10,00 people in hopes of determining the true scale of the coronavirus pandemic in the U.S.
According to ESPN, 27 of 30 MLB teams will participate in the study. The research is being conducted by Stanford University, USC and the Sports Medicine Research and Testing Laboratory based in Utah. Detecting antibodies will help identify people who have been infected by the virus but who haven’t presented symptoms. The results, which could be published as early as next week, are expected to impact major public health decisions beyond the sport.
The test kit being supplied for the study involves a lancet to draw blood and offers results within 10 minutes. The test will detect the prevalence of IgM and IgG, two separate forms of antibodies that are produced by humans infected with COVID-19. A positive test would indicate the person contracted coronavirus. According to doctors running the study, MLB was chosen because they responded quickly and because their business offers a variety of test subjects, including players, front-office staff, and concession workers. The study is voluntary and players who opted to participate were assured their names would be removed from their specimen before being sent to the Stanford lab, the MLBPA told The Athletic.
"This is the first study of national scope where we're going to get a read on a large number of communities throughout the United States to understand how extensive the spread of the virus has been," said Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine at Stanford University, according to ESPN.
Participants in the study are also being asked to take a survey to gather information such as their sex, age, ZIP code, ethnicity, recent social activity, known contact with COVID-19-positive patients, recent ailments, COVID-19 testing status, pre-existing conditions and whether they smoke. Tampa Bay Rays minor league coach and former MLB player Morgan Ensberg shared a photo of his test on social media (he did not test positive for COVID-19.)
“This is going to be unbelievable for public health policy, and sport is giving back. Baseball gets nothing out of this other than to test-drive public health policy," said Dr. Daniel Eichner, president of the Sports Medicine Research and Testing Lab, according to ESPN.
