$1000.00 special i'm. it is good to have you with us several nations have started vaccinating their citizens but the corona virus is far from beaten which means detecting it is still in prime objective a german entrepreneur and scientists has been developing ways to not only test many people quickly cheaply and to stop chains of infection but also enable folks to go on with their lives. flight l h 2 o. 5 is supposed to take off from munich to hamburg in about an hour travelers don't just have to show their boarding passes they also have to show a negative test for the coronavirus germany's biggest airline hopes the covert 19 tested flights program will make passengers feel comfortable flying again during the pandemic. we do believe that. is a possible. terrorist and therefore. flight

. testing to be very. open up markets again. the test center is just a few steps away here medical personnel take a throat swab and analyze it using an to gen rapid tests these work by detecting proteins on the virus surface the result is available after around 15 minutes without the need for a laboratory. the tests are produced by companies like farm act they started developing rapid tests for covert $1000.00 shortly after the start of the pandemic the 1st step is an antibody test that uses a drop of blood to determine whether a person has had previous contact with the virus or is currently infected. next comes the antigen test like the one used. it detects the virus direct. i can

determine whether someone could infect other people. and somebody to come and we talk about how can we make tests that will function everywhere without the need for a large infrastructure behind let's say in the jungle or in southeast asia on a small island. is. the goal is to be able to test many people quickly and cheaply to stop chains of infection and to do this worldwide even in regions that do not have a well developed infrastructure. started producing large numbers of tests within a few weeks working together with a family business that usually supplies the automotive an electrical industries. this causes this theme of discipline you know the whole system can now be scaled up so we're able to produce $300000.00 units per week for farm act. so that is the moral summation put into it the more economical the whole thing also becomes in

terms of production. the tests only cost a few euros a fraction of the more common p.c.r. test that can only be evaluated not a tree. at munich airport all the passengers have now completed their coronavirus rapid tests and after a few minutes they get the results back. reliability is between 95 and 98 percent and we're currently verifying dashed by retesting each sample with a p.c.r. test not. the tested flights concept seems well received by passengers if it's going to. i think it's ok certainly as an alternative to not traveling the whole process is quick you have your results in 10 minutes and if you can use it to you hope i don't have anything negative at this. test in all i think it's better for the people it's better for the community we're flying here. what works for

getting on a plane could also make major events such as concerts football games or just going to the cinema possible again because the coronavirus pandemic is likely to be with us for some time to spike the availability of vaccines. so knowing whether you have caught the virus or not will remain important information of course for more on this let's bring in marcus hippy he's a biologist at the german research center for environmental health he joins me via skype from munich welcome to w. marcus when it comes to the antibody test many people of the most the most of them the most important question is there's a positive test result mean i'm immune. so if you're immune to the virus that's used on the carrier and can not tell you because. if you were to say if you're immune you have to do under 3 things you know i say you can prove your antibody prevents the virus from entering your saddles.

until now antibody tests have not been considered particularly reliable that's why you used a new method on a large scale study what did that look like. so there are there are also some. point of care casts that are reliable want to redo. we did look for our own antibodies then a year later in the d.c.'s. especially what we what our method looked like was that we don't test so we give the screening test and then a confirmation test again for antibodies against 2 different proteins to. the special this is not really just specificity or 100 percent meaning that we will not be take any holes positives so we're really part of true prevalence and tell us

more on the result of your study the real scrupulous screened children in bavaria germany aged one to 18 years and what we follow on from january 2020 through july was a 6 fold higher prevalence of antibodies that's going on throughout. the reported cases and also have the children that have antibodies that were essence and that they. now does a higher incidence of antibodies in the population mean that more people are already immune to the virus like in the 1st question and. you have not always this is the short answer but if you test there if you do these new trees ation at sears and you can prove but specially these antibodies you're testing. that they also confer immunity then in principle this is right the more people if these immunizing antibodies then of course the more people are in. but

from a single antibody test without these new pretties i mean so you kind of come to. in recent recent faction numbers have been rising to very high levels here in germany what do you think is the reason for that. so if a 3rd the reason is that there are really are more infractions and more or less the terms mission of contraction got out of control not like it was during the summer with lower numbers for back tracing was also possible this is not possible anymore and of course there's also more testing but also the positive rate goes up so it's not just the number of tests that goes up there really are more inspections my guess is they have the german research center for an environmental health thank you for talking to us thank you. so we know some more about the different methods of covert testing than we did at the start of the show but there are questions

remaining and that's when our science correspondent derrick williams is happy to jump in. is it possible to test positive for cave 19 and its antibodies at the same time. tricky question to answer it we need a quick refresher on the terminology antibodies our immune system proteins that can be detected by what are called serial logical tests generally from blood samples if you have antibodies that are specific to covert 19 that indicates that you were exposed to the corona virus at some point in the past whether you develop symptoms or not diagnostics like antigen and p.c.r. tests on the other hand are for detecting the virus or its genetic material so they're supposed to tell you whether you have an active infection this question

therefore basically boils down to cannot have an active infection yet at the same time be producing detectable amounts of antibodies against it yes you can but but finding both involves getting the timing right and that's because there's some overlap between when an infection is in full swing and the ramp up of the body's immune response and in general experts say it takes a patient's body between one and 3 weeks to produce detectable amounts of the different antibodies that play a key role in fighting off covert 19 researchers in new york found that even patients producing antibodies in those measurable amounts however could continue to test positive for the virus for up to 4 weeks after their symptoms resolved what the team couldn't determine though was whether the. viral genetic material was actually coming from an active viable virus p.c.r.

testing doesn't tell you that although that's really what you want to know it just tells you whether there are intact pieces of my role in a sample. do you have a question for derek well just send an e-mail to feedback english dot com and type experts in the subject line or leave a comment on our you chief chance. now before we let you go here's a story about adapting traditions to today's reality germany's seasonal christmas markets called off due to coronavirus restrictions drive through options have been popping up across the country and car need the near the docks for a family theme park has been transformed into a winter wonderland complete with artificial snow mulled wine and music cars following a 2 and a half kilometer route past stands sausages crafts and roasted.

rules in germany the 1st orchid will be allowed to remain open as long as the stalls only food for consumption in vehicles. just how to make sure you don't spill any of that sticky mulled wine. thanks for watching.

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this is a dozen years lie from the european bed since agency brings forward its covert vaccine approval beating to the 21st of december germany's health minister hot cold on the agency to move fast with the hope of starting immunizations before the new year also on the program it's the best medicine spoke of herat claimed responsibility for the kidnapping of more than 300 school.