Antibody testing is a non-pharmaceutical intervention – not recognized so far in the literature – to prevent COVID-19 contagion. I show this in a simple economic model of an epidemic in which agents choose social activity under health state uncertainty. In the model, susceptible and asymptomatic agents are more socially active when they think they might be immune. And this increased activity escalates infections, deaths, and welfare losses. Antibody testing, however, prevents this escalation by revealing that those agents are not immune. Through this mechanism, I find that antibody testing prevents about 12% of COVID-19 related deaths within 12 months.

抗体检测是一种预防 COVID-19 传染的非药物干预措施（迄今为止文献尚未认识到）。我在一个简单的流行病经济模型中展示了这一点，在该模型中，主体在健康状态不确定的情况下选择社会活动。在该模型中，当易感者和无症状感染者认为自己可能具有免疫力时，他们的社交活动会更加活跃。这种活动的增加加剧了感染、死亡和福利损失。然而，抗体测试揭示了这些物质并未免疫，从而防止了这种升级。通过这种机制，我发现抗体检测可以在 12 个月内预防大约 12% 的与 COVID-19 相关的死亡。