Major League Baseball employees are set to take part in a nationwide coronavirus antibody study.

According to a report from ESPN's Jeff Passan, up to 10,000 MLB employees -- including players, front office staff, concession workers and more -- will be tested for coronavirus antibodies in an effort to see how widespread the virus is in major metropolitan areas.

Stanford University, USC and the Sports Medicine Research and Testing Laboratory (SMRTL) will be running the study, using a pinprick blood test to detect for two different antibodies -- one that forms early on in those infected by coronavirus and one that lasts long after the initial infection. A positive test for either of these antibodies would mean a person did indeed contract Covid-19, even if they never showed any symptoms.

According to Passan, results of the tests will be available within 10 minutes.

Passan also notes that doctors have cautioned that the results of this study are not expected to hasten baseball's return in any way, and that the antibody test is not similar to the PCR tests needed to detect active Covid-19, which are needed in hospitals and other testing facilities across the world.

"This is the first study of national scope where we're going to get a read on a large number of communities throughout the United States to understand how extensive the spread of the virus has been," said Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, a professor of medicine at Stanford University who will be assessing the data.

"Why MLB versus other employers? I've reached out to others, but MLB moved by far the fastest. They've been enormously cooperative and flexible. We're trying to set up a scientific study that would normally take years to set up, and it's going to be a matter of weeks."

Passan's report notes that MLB was chosen from among other nation-wide companies, but the league's reasoning for participating had more to do with helping overall public health than any self-serving interests in returning baseball to action.

"This is going to be unbelievable for public health policy, and sport is giving back, said Bhattacharya. "Baseball gets nothing out of this other than to test-drive public health policy."

The report states that the hope is these antibody tests become much more widespread soon, but for now, Major League Baseball could be playing a huge role in helping doctors learn more about this virus.

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