Millions of Americans have probably had the virus without knowing it. That’s the conclusion of officials at the Centers of Disease Control and many…
Millions of Americans have probably had the virus without knowing it.
That’s the conclusion of officials at the Centers of Disease Control and many other experts. « Our best estimate right now is that for every case that was reported, there actually were 10 other infections, » Dr. Robert Redfield, the director of the CDC, said during a call with reporters Thursday.
Redfield estimates that between 5% to 8% of the U. S. population has been exposed. He points to results from community-wide antibody tests and other surveillance measures that point to this range. But he emphasizes, that leaves more than 90% of Americans who’ve yet to be exposed and remain susceptible.
To date, 2.3 million Americans have confirmed coronavirus cases but by these estimates, the real number could be at least 20 million.
These estimates validate what many public health researchers suspected: that we’ve failed to capture with testing much of the spread of our virus within some communities.
« In the beginning, there wasn’t a lot of testing that was done of younger, asymptomatic individuals, » Redfield said. « So I think it’s important for us to realize that we probably recognized about 10 percent of the outbreak by the methods that we use to diagnosis between the March, April and May.
