The coronavirus continues to surprise. A new study published in the Journal of the American Medical Association estimates that based on its analysis of blood samples taken from 10 different localities between March 23 and May 12, there were likely greater than 10 times more coronavirus infections than the number of actual reported cases in those areas.
This mirrors both preliminary and peer-reviewed findings from other studies out of New York and California, which have also found sizable numbers of coronavirus antibodies, indicating a higher-than-reported infection rate. These findings make complete logical sense considering prevailing agreement about the virus’s asymptomatic tendencies.
The findings should be taken as good news. A higher presence of infection functionally increases the denominator in the case fatality rate, lowering it. The findings also offer some hope for broad public immunity to the virus in the absence of a vaccine, which might already be happening in hard-hit places like New York City.
Research on coronavirus antibodies is limited at this juncture. The study’s authors make that qualification with strong words: “At present, the relationship between detectable antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 and protective immunity against future infection is not known. Extrapolating these estimates to make assumptions about population immunity should not be done until more is known about the correlations between the presence, titer, and duration of antibodies and protection against this novel, emerging disease.”
Still, even if researchers confirm that natural antibodies aren’t a permanent solution, there is obviously reason to believe that they have contributed to reduced illness in a portion of those infected. The new study is a proper occasion for remembering that there’s still a lot we don’t know about this virus, and more importantly, it reinforces the serious limits of what our current testing regime and data figures tell us. It’s already clear that although case numbers make for good panicky headlines, they simply don’t capture the virus’s true reach or reflect its true threat.
