Lee County Commissioners approved funding Tuesday for Florida Gulf Coast University researchers to conduct a COVID-19 antibody study.
The News-Press reports, commissioners approved spending no more than $450,000 dollars from the $134.5 million the county received from the federal CARES Act for the research.
The two-phase study is aimed at collecting more data to get a clearer picture of the community's true infection rate, which could help guide response to a potential second wave of the viral pandemic.
The first phase involves taking blood draws from 4,000 asymptomatic volunteers who live in Lee County. The second involves performing antibody testing of first responders and frontline healthcare workers who have already been diagnosed with the coronavirus, all to get a snapshot of the county’s infection rate.
The study is set to begin in July and researchers plan to have some preliminary results available four months later.