the staff of the Ridgewood blog
Santa Clara Ca, researchers have struggled to assess the true spread of the COVID 19 virus. Initial results from a Northern California study on coronavirus antibodies suggest the virus has circulated much more widely than previously thought, according to a report released Friday.
The preliminary study, conducted by researchers at Stanford University, estimates that between 2.5% and 4.2% of Santa Clara County residents had antibodies to the new coronavirus in their blood by early April. Antibodies are an indication that a person’s immune system has responded to a past infection.
Though the county had reported roughly 1,000 cases in early April, the Stanford researchers estimate the actual number was between 48,000 and 81,000.
Santa Clara County was an early epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic in California. By sampling the blood of 3,300 county residents and testing it for coronavirus antibodies, researchers hoped to estimate the prevalence of the virus in the population.
https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.04.14.20062463v1.full.pdf
What this means is more wide spread infections equals far lower mortality rate ,lower in fact than the flu.
Here is a online video interview with Dr. Jay Bhattacharya, one of the researchers that ran the aforementioned study – 42:09 long – worth a look while you “shelter in place”.
https://www.hoover.org/research/fight-against-covid-19-update-dr-jay-bhattacharya
So basically what they are saying is:
1) The death rate is much much lower since there are so many more infected.
2) The impact of infection is much less severe for a large portion of the population since so many people got the infection and didn’t even know it.
Which means that the reaction to COVID-19 has been WAY WAY WAY overblown and hysterical.