Can anyone chime in why we're not simply looking at antibodies from those who have now recovered?

We are. Many avenues are being explored by different teams.

https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2020/04/03/promising-use...

Yeah the real confusion for me is why even bother looking at anything other than these actual existing SAR-2 antibodies.

"Hey these SARS-1 antibodies 'almost' work"

Meanwhile there's literally a ton of antibodies out there that work well.

One of the main reasons (most likely) is that these antibodies are already purified and in stock in the laboratories. So I'd be relatively easy to start researching the binding sites to SARS-COV-2. And since there is a relationship between the 2 viruses you can get useful information even if it's not perfect.

Labs definitely are. People are working on basically every avenue you can imagine - this is a true global emergency and it's been stunning to see how strong the response has been from the scientific sector. Just about everyone that provides my reagents are all on backorder, but they're still working to make things available for covid work / making it easier etc, even with the immense demand

From the post:

>Labs at Scripps Research and throughout the world are currently seeking antibodies, via blood donations, from people who have recovered from COVID-19 for further studies along these lines.