Johnson County Sheriff’s Office plans to spend up to $30,000 on COVID-19 antibody tests
The Johnson County Sheriff’s Office is planning to spend up to $30,000 on antibody tests for employees to test their immunity to COVD-19.
A department spokeswoman on Wednesday told The Star that each test cost $150. As of Wednesday, the sheriff’s office had 200 employees signed up. The test is also being offered to civilians.
“If we have more people interested I’m sure we’ll order more,” said Shelby Colburn, a spokeswoman for the department.
Sheriff Calvin Hayden on Tuesday announced that the department would partner with a biotech company Aditext for its immune monitoring technology, AditxtScoreTM, which is meant to provide a personalized comprehensive profile of the immune system.
The test promises “an accurate reading of an individual’s COVID-19 immunity,” according to a release the department put out Tuesday.
The $30,000 to pay for the antibody tests, the department said, will come out of the administrative budget.
Sheriff Hayden told The Star Wednesday: “Almost all of our budget is paid by the tax payers.”
The sheriff’s department is the first in the country to purchase this technology for employees to “score” their antibody levels, according to an Aditext news release.
Most of the money was originally department savings or ear marked for budgeted expenses like motor vehicles and purchasing, the sheriff wrote. He says he wants the tests to give employees the ability to share information with their doctors about COVID-19 immunity.
Tests will only be provided to the employees that expressed interest on a department wide survey starting Tuesday.
The crime laboratory team will draw blood from workers and then run the first 200 tests through the department’s laboratory, Colburn said.
In the past the department has not required employees to undergo weekly testing if they are partially vaccinated, which in October went against county rules. He released a statement that month defending his decision.
“People may say this is all about the vaccine, but that’s missing the point. This issue is so much more than that. This is about valuing, empowering and supporting individual decisions,” Hayden said in the statement.
Late on Monday, Kansas Governor Laura Kelly promised to sign a bill that prevents employers from investigating a worker’s religious exemption to the workplace COVID-19 vaccine mandate.
