Welcome to Axisporata, where we normally take just 10 minutes to get you smarter on the collision of tech, business, and politics.

But today we are doing a special three-part series of shorter episodes on the coronavirus pandemic, which is changing our politics, our economy, and our way of life.

I'm Deppermak. This episode is about testing, not necessarily the tests you've

heard about or the shortages of those tests, but about the next test, which could be used to

help society return to normal faster. So let's go deeper with Axios Science Editor,

Alison Snyder. Can you explain what we're talking about here? We're talking about what they call

serological tests, correct? Correct. So basically, when your body is exposed to a virus, it starts to make antibodies that in future

will protect them from another reinfection.

And so this test is something that people are really interested in sort of racing to develop

because they want to be able to know if someone

who didn't have symptoms actually had already been exposed to the virus and therefore has some

level of immunity that would allow them to either go back to work or care for people with

less risk. There's been a lot of talk about, okay, if I get coronavirus and say I get tested, I know I got it,

then I get better. Usually you're immune to things, at least for a period of time. Do we have any

sense yet how long those people are actually immune to getting it again? Don't know for sure yet.

There is early evidence two key pieces in the past week. One is that researchers have said that

there's suggestions that the virus isn't

mutating very fast, so that bodes well for a longer lasting immunity. And then there was also a

study done in macaque monkeys that had been infected with the virus, and the researchers waited,

I think it was about a month, and tried to re-infect them again, and they weren't able to. Now, the caveat with that

is it's just a month. And so ideally, and I would imagine that studies happening, it will be,

they'll try again in, say, three months or something like that. And I assume those monkeys are

...