In a new study, researchers found that far more Americans have been infected with COVID-19 than reported case counts reflect.
They found COVID-19 infections were anywhere from six to 24 times higher than the number of reported cases in 10 different sites across the U.S. tested at different times during the pandemic
In seven U.S. locales, there were more than 10 times the number of COVID-19 infections than there were reported cases.
The findings may reflect the number of persons who had mild or no illness or who did not seek medical care or undergo testing but who still may have contributed to ongoing virus transmission in the population.
The research was conducted by a team at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The percentage of people with COVID-19 coronavirus antibodies in their blood ranged from 1% in the San Francisco Bay area up to nearly 7% in the New York City metro area, based on analysis of previously gathered blood samples.
Those numbers far outpace reported case counts but unfortunately still aren’t broad enough to promote herd immunity.
In herd immunity, enough people are immune to a virus to protect those who haven’t been either sick or vaccinated.
In the study, the team retested blood samples taken between March and May by two commercial clinical laboratories from sites across the nation, looking for antibodies that would reveal previous COVID-19 infection.
They then compared the evidence of infections they found to the actual case counts reported in those areas at the time the samples were drawn.
They found that the case counts are off by at least 10-fold and maybe even more.
The researchers say that scientists were missing a great number of coronavirus cases throughout the pandemic, and still are.
The study underscores the need to drastically expand coronavirus testing in the United States.
The United States will need to increase its viral testing capacity nearly 18 times more, becoming able to test approximately 4.3 million people each day, to effectively suppress further disease transmission, according to the researchers.
One author of the study is Dr. Fiona Havers from the CDC’s COVID-19 Response Team.
The study is published in JAMA Internal Medicine.
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