Studies on COVID-19 antibodies by researchers at Stanford University and University of Southern California suggest the disease has circulated far more than previously thought.
The Stanford study estimates that between 2.5 percent and 4.2 percent of Santa Clara County residents had antibodies to COVID-19 in their blood by early April — an indication that their immune systems had responded to a past infection.
The U.S. has reported 837,719 coronavirus cases and 46,771 deaths. That’s almost a third of the total reported cases worldwide (2,621,436) and more than a quarter of worldwide reported deaths (46,771).
Santa Clara County, home to Silicon Valley, was an early coronavirus hotspot. It had reported about 1,000 cases in early April, but Stanford researchers estimate the actual number was between 48,000 and 81,000, or 50 to 85 times greater, according to the Los Angeles Times.
If 85 times more people nationwide have been exposed than the data shows, more than 71 million people in the U.S. may have antibodies to COVID-19 in their blood, based on the number of reported U.S. cases (837,719).
Los Angeles County Department of Public Health and the University of Southern California launched a similar study a week after Santa Clara.
Results were similar to Santa Clara County: an estimated 2.8 percent to 5.6 percent of the county’s adult population has an antibody to the virus. That means as many as 442,000 adults in the county have been infected. That’s 28 to 55 times higher than the 7,994 confirmed cases of COVID-19 reported to the county at the time of the study in early April, USC.edu reported.
“Many more people have been infected with COVID-19 than those who are being captured through our testing,” said Barbara Ferrer, LA county’s top public health official.
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The estimates suggest that health experts might have to recalibrate disease prediction models and rethink public health strategies, said lead investigator Neeraj Sood, professor of public policy at the USC Price School for Public Policy and senior fellow at the USC Schaeffer Center for Health Policy and Economics.
“These results indicate that many persons may have been unknowingly infected and at risk of transmitting the virus to others,” Ferrer said.
The results also indicate a lower risk of death among those with infection than was previously thought.
The data suggests LA county’s mortality rate is around 0.1 percent or 0.2 percent of true infections, Ferrer said. This is no consolation for the loved ones and friends of the people who have died, she added.
