Many countries across the world are worrying of second wave of coronavirus and taking precautionary steps. The countries are doubling down on testing policies that can grant or bar entry to travelers attempting to move across international borders. Quarantine, isolation, contact followup are few of the usual steps followed for a traveler. But an unusual new testing policy, was announced by China at the end of October, worries the health experts. New policy requires inbound travelers to present negative results from an antibody test which can neither reliably rule out infections nor prove that a person is not transmitting the virus to others. 

China now asks travelers to report they have tested negative on an IgM antibody test, taken within 48 hours of boarding. These tests detect disease-fighting molecules called antibodies, in particular one called immunoglobulin M, or IgM, which is usually the first type of antibody roused against infectious invaders. IgM’s presence is ephemeral; eventually, two other types of antibodies that are much longer-lived, called IgG and IgA. These are lagging indicator of a viral infection. It’s possible that an IgM test might turn positive as the virus is on its way out of the body. 

Previous changes of China’s policies tells  that travelers would need to test negative only by a “nucleic acid test,” a tool that hunts for the coronavirus’s genetic material. Most available tests that meet this requirement rely on a laboratory technique called polymerase chain reaction, or PCR, which will identify the virus even when it is present at very low levels in the body. 

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