'There are people walking around with vulnerabilities to COVID and they don't even know it.'
COVID cases throughout the Bay Area have been increasing for the past two weeks with the majority of the region in the red.
"What is fascinating about these discoveries is that these autoantibodies, these antibodies against yourself uniquely attack the part of the immune system that is responsible for the first line of defense against viruses which likely explains why people who have these antibodies are susceptible to severe or critical COVID," said Dr. DeRisi.
The first discovery was made by researchers on the East Coast and now they've determined that the risk increases for men over 70 years old."If you are 70 years old and you want to find out if you are part of this group. Is there a way?""Unfortunately at this time there is no clinical test here in the US that can tell if you are part of this group. However, I think these discoveries are going to rapidly lead to tests that allow people to know if they are vulnerable or not.