The novel coronavirus has infected roughly 4.1 percent of the population in California’s Los Angeles County, suggesting the region’s outbreak is far more widespread than previously thought, between 28 and 55 times higher than the number of confirmed cases, new research shows, echoing the findings of a similar study elsewhere in the state.
However, the new data, if accurate, also indicates that the coronavirus death rate in L.A. County, the
most populous in the country, is lower than initially predicted.
Researchers from the University of Southern California (USC) and the L.A. Department of Public Health
gleaned the data from antibody testing of about 863 county residents. Antibodies are an indication that an individual’s immune system has responded to a past infection.
On Monday, CNBC
reported:
USC and the health department released preliminary study results that found that roughly 4.1% of the county’s adult population has antibodies to the coronavirus, estimating that between 221,000 adults to 442,000 adults in the county have had the infection.
This new estimate is 28 to 55 times higher than the 7,994 confirmed cases of Covid-19 [coronavirus illness] reported to the county in early April. The number of coronavirus-related deaths in the county has now surpassed 600, according to the Department of Public Health. The data, if correct, would mean that the county’s fatality rate is lower than originally thought.
If accurate, the top end of the estimated number of L.A. County residents who may have contracted the virus would amount to more than half (56 percent) of the
total number of cases in the United States, while the lower range would equal to about 30 percent of the overall number in America.
Stanford University researchers who looked at California’s Santa Clara County, much less populated than its L.A. counterpart, reached similar conclusions, finding that the coronavirus outbreak may be more widespread but less deadly than originally estimated.
