CDC Antibody Studies Confirm Huge Gap Between COVID-19 Infections and Known Cases

1. Until we get herd immunity, all of these infections, all of the deaths, all of the people who got really sick and thought it really sucked, as is the case with the flu too, and all of the people who never knew they had been exposed to the virus, all of that was already a foregone conclusion.
2. Although these samples may not be representative of the general population, they provide a clearer picture of virus prevalence than screening limited to people who sought virus tests because they had symptoms consistent with COVID-19 or because they were in close contact with known carriers.
3. In Texas, where newly confirmed cases rose 10-fold between May 26 and June 25 before falling slightly, the share of virus tests that were positive rose from 4.3 percent on May 26 to 13.2 percent on June 26, which indicates that expanded testing is not keeping pace with rising infections.
4. What do these findings imply about the infection fatality rate (IFR) in these places? New York City had recorded 2,580 COVID-19 deaths as of April 1, when the CDC estimates 641,800 residents had been infected, which implies an IFR of 0.4 percent.
5. When it became known that the true fatality rate was lower (the mortality rate in China outside of Wuhan was reported as 0.7% before we in the US knew it had even gotten here), we heard about the exploding confirmed cases, which is to be expected when we start testing for a disease that we never tested for before, but somehow the media didn't feel the need to hammer that point home along with the rise in cases.
6. That suggests COVID-19 patients have fared worse in New York City and Connecticut than they have in Utah and Missouri, for reasons that may include the prevalence of preexisting medical conditions, the stress that the epidemic put on local health care systems, and policies regarding high-risk people such as nursing home residents.
7. In New York City, where the samples were drawn from March 23 through April 1, nearly 7 percent tested positive for COVID-19 antibodies, implying that infections outnumbered reported cases during that period by 12 to 1.
8. Unless that vaccine does come to pass, the only way of getting herd immunity is to have people live through having an infection as much as possible, the way that people have been dealing with viruses for thousands of years before anyone knew what a virus was.
9. It looks like the gap between confirmed cases and infections is growing in places like Texas, while it is shrinking in places like New York City, where the test positivity rate (based on a three-day average) plummeted from 70 percent on March 30 to 2 percent on June 25.
10. Infections might have been unusually common among people who ventured out to stores during the study period, either because they were more likely to encounter carriers or because they had already recovered from COVID-19 and therefore felt safe leaving their homes.
11. CDC Antibody Studies Confirm Huge Gap Between COVID-19 Infections and Known CasesThe difference implies that the virus is much less deadly than it looks, but it also makes contact tracing a daunting challenge.
12. I guess he knows that telling them the disease is death like Cuomo said will just make people laugh now, especially 20-somethings who know their risk of death is practically zero, so now a piece of paper that says you tested positive is the best he can come up with as a reason to be afraid, be very afraid.
13. At the same time, the CDC's antibody studies imply that efforts to control the epidemic through testing, isolation, quarantine, and contact tracing will not be very effective, since they reach only a small percentage of virus carriers.
14. At the same time, the CDC's antibody studies imply that efforts to control the epidemic through testing, isolation, quarantine, and contact tracing will not be very effective, since they reach only a small percentage of virus carriers.
15. The light gray lining of this dark cloud is that newly infected people in states such as Texas, Florida, Arizona, and California are substantially younger now than they were earlier in the epidemic, which means the death rate in those places should be falling.
16. As more people with mild or no symptoms get tested, the denominator includes more low-risk cases, driving down the apparent death rate.
17. More people building antibodies to the disease while the death rate continues to fall is not a cause for panic it's a cause for celebration.
18. Newly published antibody test results from half a dozen parts of the country confirm that COVID-19 infections in the United States far outnumber confirmed cases.
19. Greg Abbott has responded to the new wave of infections, which he says is driven largely by young people who have been getting together for drinks in close proximity, by closing bars.
20. Whether masks will work here in the US in the summer when people aren't really sneezing/coughing, when people are outdoors in much of the country, where Americans really don't have a clue how to wear masks or view it as a partisan political symbol.
21. The ratio of estimated infections to known cases in these studies, which the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) reported on Friday, range from 6 to 1 in Connecticut as of early May to 24 to 1 in Missouri as of late April.
22. The CDC put the ratio of infections to confirmed cases in South Florida at 11 to 1, which is the same as the ratio it estimated in Utah, where the samples were collected from April 20 through May 3, and in western Washington, where the samples were collected from March 23 through April 1.
23. The CDC analyzed blood samples drawn for routine tests unrelated to COVID-19 from patients in New York City, Connecticut, South Florida, Missouri, Utah, and western Washington state.

https://reason.com/2020/06/28/cdc-antibody-studies-confirm-huge-gap-between-covid-19-infections-and-known-cases/