ARE THE PEOPLE TESTED
REPRESENTATIVE?
Generally speaking, the larger the study,
the better.
“The more people you can test — both for
current infections and the antibodies created by
prior infections — the more accurately you can
determine who’s safe from the virus and who’s
spreading it to others,” said Dr. Albert Rizzo,
the American Lung Association’s chief medical
officer, in a statement.
It’s important to get people of different
ages, different races and different parts of a
geographic area. So it matters how participants
are recruited.
The highest-quality studies involve going house
to house to recruit a cross-section of society, said
Natalie Dean, a University of Florida statistician
and researcher.
“In general the first (studies) out are going to be
the easiest to do,” Dean said.
HOW WERE PEOPLE RECRUITED FOR THE
EARLY STUDIES?
The study in Santa Clara County, California,
got most of its 3,300 participants through a
Facebook ad that asked people to drive to a
parking lot where they would get their finger
pricked and their blood tested.
Many experts criticized researchers for relying
on volunteers, some of whom may have
harbored suspicions they had previously been
infected. It could have left out a range of people,
including those who aren’t on Facebook, don’t
have cars or otherwise aren’t able to participate.