Even in an ideal recovery scenario, she says, we'll need to practice careful social distancing, use personal protective equipment, and reduce the number of people in a given workspace.
In an ideal world, we would have rapid, highly reliable, relatively inexpensive tests available that would let us know who was currently infected. We would also, in theory, have accurate antibody testing, to tell us who was recently infected and potentially immune. Based on these types of tests, only those without current infection and/or evidence of previous infection or immunity would be allowed to return to work. This would decrease the likelihood of viral transmission in the workplace.
Unfortunately, we are far from this ideal scenario. The main tests that are available as of the writing of this article are polymerase chain reaction and antibody testing, both of which either have challenges with sensitivity or specificity .1. PCR tests and the danger of high false negative rates