University of Miami researchers’ antibody testing out of Miami-Dade County in Florida showed that about 6% of the population has had the China-originated novel coronavirus, COVID-19, extrapolating to an estimated 165,000 infections countywide, about 16 times higher than reported.
Since the recorded number of infections via the health department is well below that number, around 10,600 infection, this means the fatality rate is also far lower than reported.
Ruling in the possibility of false positives, the researchers are 95% confident the true infection rate is between 4.4% and 7.9% of the population, leaving them with their 6% estimate as the best possible representation, the Miami Herald reported Friday. “That would mean about 165,000 estimated infections in Miami-Dade, with the margin of error equating to 123,000 residents on the low end and 221,000 residents on the high end,” the report noted.
There have been 287 COVID-19-related deaths in the county with an estimated 165,000 cases, meaning the death rate would hover around .17%.
As noted by The Daily Wire last week, antibody testing out of New York City showed that an estimated one in five New Yorkers have COVID-19, again significantly dropping the reported fatality rate of the virus.
“More than 21% of the New York City residents given coronavirus antibody tests earlier this week tested positive, Gov. Andrew Cuomo said Thursday,” a report from MarketWatch outlined.
“Monday marked the start of a statewide initiative to test 3,000 New Yorkers for the presence of antibodies, which are made in response to viral infections,” the report noted. “The preliminary results mean that one in five of the city residents tested have had coronavirus and developed the antibodies to fight it. Across the state, 13.9% of the individuals tested were positive for antibodies, Cuomo told reporters at a daily news briefing.”
Similarly, antibody testing recently conducted in California’s Santa Clara County found that the death rate for COVID-19 to be significantly lower than reported, too.
“Highly anticipated antibody testing results out of Santa Clara County in California headed by a Stanford University professor were released on Friday, showing that the estimated number of positive novel coronavirus cases is likely 50-80 times higher than reported, thus significantly dropping the estimated fatality rate,” The Daily Wire reported last week. “The study, the first large-scale community antibody testing in the nation and led by Dr. Eran Bendavid, the associate professor of medicine at Stanford University, found that 2.5 to 4.2% of the 3,330 subjects tested were found to have COVID-19 antibodies.”
“These prevalence estimates represent a range between 48,000 and 81,000 people infected in Santa Clara County by early April, 50-85-fold more than the number of confirmed cases,” the study’s abstract said.
“The population prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in Santa Clara County implies that the infection is much more widespread than indicated by the number of confirmed cases,” according to the researchers. If the number of the recovered cases are similarly undercounted across the nation, the fatality rate would accordingly be overstated.
The trend in antibody testing results seems rather clear: the novel coronavirus or COVID-19 is far more widespread than reported, thus the fatality rate of the disease is correspondingly significantly lower than reported.
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