Stanford Study Shows COVID-19 Infection Rates May Be “50 to 85 Times” Higher Than Official Numbers (VIDEO)

By The Mercury News. In a startling finding, new Stanford research reveals between 48,000 and 81,000 people in Santa Clara County alone may already have been infected by the coronavirus by early April — that’s 50 to 85 times more than the number of official cases at that date.

The estimate comes from a first-in-the-nation community study of newly available antibody tests that suggest how widespread the invisible — and perhaps benign — companion has been in the Bay Area’s hardest-hit county. Not only do the numbers show how the U.S.’s severe shortage of testing led to a profound undercount of COVID-19 cases, they indicate the virus is far less deadly than believed.

Just how much of an undercount? Stanford’s low-end estimate of Santa Clara County cases is nearly double the confirmed total — 28,000 — for the entire state of California. The study estimated 2.5% to 4.2% of residents here carry antibodies to the pathogen, a marker of past infection that suggests it may be safe for them to go back to work and school. . .

Santa Clara County, home to Stanford University and 1.9 million residents, was one of the first hot spots for the coronavirus in the country. As of Friday, it officially had recorded 1,833 cases and 69 deaths related to coronavirus.

The new Stanford study comes at a time when health experts and elected officials look to immunity as one way to blunt the impact of the pandemic. It is not yet known if antibodies prevent future infection. If so, antibody protection could offer people a safe route out of strict “sheltering.” (Read more from “Stanford Study Shows COVID-19 Infection Rates May Be “50 to 85 Times” Higher Than Official Numbers” HERE)

_______________________________________________________

Study Suggests Coronavirus Is More Widespread Than Realized

By Spectator USA. [I]t is one more piece in a jigsaw which is slowly building up a picture of a virus which may be far more prevalent — and possibly far less deadly — than was at first believed. As has been argued here before, knowing the general level of infection in the population is absolutely crucial because this informs both the virulence and the mortality rate of the infection. If only a small percentage of the population have had the virus, then it might be worth continuing with lockdown policies. But if SARS-Cov-2 is already endemic in the population there is nothing we can do to stop it but no great reason to try to stop it, either: it has already ripped its way through the population with only a small proportion showing any symptoms.

Last week, I reported a similar study from the town of Gangelt in north-western Germany where 15 percent of the population were found to have antibodies to SARS-CoV-2. Were that to be reflected in the wider population, it would still mean we were a long way short of the 60 percent infection rate which scientific advisers originally considered necessary for ‘herd immunity’ of the population. But it would mean we were well on the way.

That scientists in Germany and California have been able to perform antibody tests on good-sized samples of the population yet again raises the question: why have we still not performed such studies elsewhere? (Read more from “Study Suggests Coronavirus Is More Widespread Than Realized” HERE)

Follow Joe Miller on Twitter HERE and Facebook HERE