When Covid-19 closed the US economy in March, Elon Musk had a rocket to launch.
The billionaire’s space exploration enterprise, SpaceX, was planning to launch a manned spacecraft into the sky in May and wanted to stay on time. That meant finding a way to keep the facility open safely and limit the spread of Covid-19, a challenge when tests were lacking.
To monitor the prevalence of the virus among SpaceX workers nationwide, Mr. Musk and the missile company’s senior medical director worked with doctors and academic researchers to build an antibody testing program. More than 4,000 SpaceX workers volunteered for monthly blood tests.
This week, the group released its findings, which suggest that a certain antibody threshold could provide people with lasting protection against the virus. Mr. Musk is listed as a co-author of the peer-reviewed study, which appears in the journal Nature Communications.
“People may have antibodies, but that doesn’t mean they’re immune,” said Covid-19, said Galit Alter, a co-author of the study who is a member of the Ragon Institute at MGH, MIT and Harvard. The study found that people who had fewer milder symptoms of Covid-19 generated fewer antibodies and were therefore less likely to reach the threshold for long-term immunity.