Total US Coronavirus Cases Likely 10x Higher Than Official Tally, CDC Warns

Via ZeroHedge

As public health officials argue about whether the US will see the coronavirus death rate return to its deadliest peak back in late April/early May, the CDC just issued a warning claiming that the number of Americans infected with the coronavirus is probably 10x higher than we know.

If accurate, that would mean the total number of cases in the US alone is closer to 20 million. These numbers are based on the results of a few rounds of surveillance testing using antibody-detection tests. While the CDC stands by the numbers, some experts have raised questions about antibody tests and their susceptibility to false positives. However, some rounds of surveillance testing in NY and NYC have found that as many as 1/5 people tested (in NYC) tested positive for antibodies.

Here’s more from Reuters:

Government experts believe more than 20 million Americans could have contracted the coronavirus, 10 times more than official counts, indicating many people without symptoms have or have had the disease, senior administration officials said.

The estimate, from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, is based on serology testing used to determine the presence of antibodies that show whether an individual has had the disease, the officials said.

The officials, speaking to a small group of reporters on Wednesday night, said the estimate was based on the number of known cases, between 2.3 million and 2.4 million, multiplied by the average rate of antibodies seen from the serology tests, about an average of 10 to 1.

“If you multiply the cases by that ratio, that’s where you get that 20 million figure,” said one official.

If true, the estimate would suggest the percentage of U.S. deaths from the disease is lower than thought. More than 120,000 Americans have died from the disease since the pandemic erupted earlier this year.

With 20 million infected, the mortality rate in the US of just 0.6%. That would also explain why deaths have continued to plateau, or even trend lower, even as new infections are being diagnosed.  One widely quoted epidemiologist from Harvard, Dr. Eric Feigl-Ding, said he felt the numbers were ‘reasonable’ given his experience with serology testing.

Still, as Dr. Feigl-Ding pointed out, these data shouldn’t be used to support the notion that the US has developed high enough levels of ‘herd immunity’ to move forward without a vaccine. As Sweden’s top epidemiologist pointed out just the other week, herd immunity for COVID-19 is something that takes a surprisingly long time to develop. Especially since we don’t know yet whether mutations in the virus will render these anti-bodies, or any forthcoming vaccine, obsolete.

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31 Comments
Anonymous
Anonymous
June 25, 2020 6:44 pm

If the early data from Italy is to be believed, about 15% of the cases require hospitalization, and 6.7% of cases remain asymptomatic over the course of the disease. So, the US should be catching at least 15% of the cases – either as hospital admissions or as deaths of those people that didn’t seek medical care soon enough – so there should be about 7x (as the upper bound) as many cases then are being tallied in the official numbers.

Nothing new.

YourAverageJoe
YourAverageJoe
June 25, 2020 6:53 pm

Commentary on Zero Hedge is now subject to Twitters Terms of Service, so it is no longer a free speech zone.

I wear my banishment with pride.

Glock-N-Load
Glock-N-Load
  YourAverageJoe
June 25, 2020 7:50 pm

How does Twitter have anything to do with the comment section on ZH?

e.d. ott
e.d. ott
  Glock-N-Load
June 25, 2020 9:22 pm

A lot of the Hedge’s stories use Twatterfeed commentary as a basis for information and reference for stories.

brewer55
brewer55
June 25, 2020 6:56 pm

Would someone please enlighten me? What’s with Zero Hedge? Every day they have run the hype on this so called Pandemic. I’m not saying it is not a real disease — it is. However, the data that came out since this whole thing started have shown that none of the predictions on hospitals being overrun have come true. None of them.
Also, it does not take a rocket scientist to understand that there is rampant testing now. 50% of the tests are false positives. If you’ve had a cold, or a flu shot, you will most likely come up asymptomatic positive for coronavirus. It has also been proven that it is next to impossible to absolutely determine that the variant someone is testing positive for is actually the COVID-19 virus.

But back to Zero Hedge, why are they so bent on playing into this?

TN Patriot
TN Patriot
  brewer55
June 25, 2020 7:18 pm

I can probably give you a million reason$ they have jumped on the bandwagon.

hardscrabble farmer
hardscrabble farmer
  brewer55
June 25, 2020 8:04 pm

Remember Drudgereport?

Brewer55
Brewer55
  hardscrabble farmer
June 25, 2020 8:19 pm

It was my daily go to for years until it swerved left. Are you saying the same thing has happened to Zero Hedge?

hardscrabble farmer
hardscrabble farmer
  Brewer55
June 25, 2020 8:27 pm

If it walks like a duck…

e.d. ott
e.d. ott
  Brewer55
June 25, 2020 9:28 pm

ZH has obviously taken a knee and has started with keyword censoring. It drives off some of the more strident retards who don’t have a filter and makes others wary of posting.

e.d. ott
e.d. ott
  hardscrabble farmer
June 25, 2020 9:26 pm

Drudge Report has changed since it was sold off. The mainstream BS is starting to become overweighted in the newsfeed.

Brewer55
Brewer55
  e.d. ott
June 26, 2020 6:37 pm

I was not aware that it had been sold.

Long Time Lurker
Long Time Lurker
  brewer55
June 26, 2020 6:33 pm

(((They))) got a hold of it

SomeDude
SomeDude
June 25, 2020 7:17 pm

Have any of these idiots stopped to wonder what the influenza statistics would look like if they went nuts testing for the flu like they’re supposedly testing for Covid19? I’d bet one whole weeks pay that the flu number would be astronomically higher than Covid19. But hey, let’s keep taking people seriously who not only were caught inflating the statistics but admitted to doing it. These people are liars. They lied from the beginning and they’re still lying now. They won’t stop until somebody stops them.

Fleabaggs
Fleabaggs
June 25, 2020 7:22 pm

Scami-Flu II coming soon to a town near you. They got away with Scami-Flu I and Floyd I easier than they had expected. Get ready for the next round.
We refuse to rebel or even discuss it in any way, shape, or form, so why should they respect us.

hardscrabble farmer
hardscrabble farmer
June 25, 2020 7:34 pm

Dr. Fiegel-Ding.

When you carry that kind of baggage going in you’d better be able to back it up with something more than gibberish.

“Nothing suggesting anything approaching the 60% minimum and 75-80% optimal needed for herd.”

What language is that? How is it relevant to the fact that 99.7% of people who get the virus recover completely? What about all the counter-intuitive actions that prevented “the herd” from developing immunity in the first place?

We live in a literal open air insane asylum where people with ridiculous names and meaningless credentials give barley literate opinions on grossly mismanaged policies that are both inhumane and unnatural as if it had any value. And we’re expected to believe it as if it were anything other than the ramblings of a homeless man.

Imagine for one second what someone’s life experience must be when your name is Fiegel-Ding. Imagine what kind of impact on your thinking, your personality, your general view of people would be with a name like that. Now imagine how having such a handicap might affect your particular slant- no pun intended- and your intent towards people in general. I wouldn’t trust him based on that fact alone. Is it possible he’s a normal well-adjusted guy with a deep well of knowledge? Anything is possible, but it’s very unlikely. Like Dr. Fauci the petite, life leaves scars on people that manifest themselves through their behavior as adults based on their experience when they are younger. They turn into blowhards and bullies when they find themselves in positions of power and look for opportunities to get payback. Like demanding healthy people wear masks or lock themselves up for months on end over a disease that has a 99.7% chance of having zero effect on them.

Sorry Fiegel-Ding, but It’s just the flu, bro.

Anonymous
Anonymous
  hardscrabble farmer
June 26, 2020 6:23 pm

How is it relevant to the fact that 99.7% of people who get the virus recover completely?

It seems to be about 95% to 96% ‘recover’ and 4% to 5% die. 10% of those infected have lasting damage.

It’s 40x to 50x more lethal than the flu. It ain’t the flu, bro.

Long Time Lurker
Long Time Lurker
  Anonymous
June 26, 2020 6:35 pm

OK Karen

Monger
Monger
June 25, 2020 8:15 pm

The US death rates can’t really be believed either… politics State by State get in the way of what’s been claimed and people were probably dying of “complications” from it back in dec/jan off the radar.

e.d. ott
e.d. ott
June 25, 2020 9:03 pm

So hiding at home “flattening the curve” doesn’t prevent people from eventually catching the bug.
Gee, who knew?
In my opinion, this whole fiasco was never about keeping people safe, it was about reducing hospital overloads that never happened and enabling a long-term crisis and guaranteeing a “Second Wave”. This way people who caused the lockdowns can keep leveraging the public with FUD for gain.

Craven Warrior
Craven Warrior
June 25, 2020 9:28 pm

Well, Dr. Tingly Fingly, I’m not too worried as about 99% recover. The rest die. People die every day. It’s called life.

hardscrabble farmer
hardscrabble farmer
  Craven Warrior
June 25, 2020 10:08 pm

160,000 men and women every day.

Kinda puts the hysteria in perspective.

daddysteve
daddysteve
  Craven Warrior
June 25, 2020 11:56 pm

” People die every day. It’s called life……………………snicker

Digital Persona
Digital Persona
  daddysteve
June 26, 2020 1:32 am

Visualizing the smirks on Bill and Melinda’s faces.

MrLiberty
MrLiberty
June 25, 2020 11:55 pm

Until enough are infected, so-called herd immunity cannot happen. Positives do not determine hospitalizations. If more emphasis was put on how people can boost the function of their immune system than on how many people are offended by 100 year-old statues, people would be better prepared to fight a virus that most certainly is not going away.

Anonymous
Anonymous
  MrLiberty
June 26, 2020 1:33 am

You mean Cheetos and Mountain Dew won’t help us survive?

Old Krank
Old Krank
June 26, 2020 3:50 am

Apparently there aren’t enough people afraid of the flu any longer. Let’s give them another conjectural pile of bullshit to scare them some more, shall we?

And as far as the Hedge goes, they just posted a short piece on the history of slavery in the Americas. I think this, along with their censoring the comments section, puts the final nail in their original ideological platform.

Tom
Tom
June 26, 2020 6:24 am

The Ding dong was wrong early on. I was following him and he got pulled back on a number of tweets that were way over the top scare mongering. That said there are still a number of troubling pieces of the Kung Flu story.

A-A soft bio weapon was used on the US population by China.
B-This bio weapon was used as a pretext to destroy small and medium businesses and to cull the elderly
who are a drain on fiscal resources as well as to run a massive PSY OP mind fuck while allowing mini tyrants free
rain to piss on every constitutional concept ever.
C-The economy was then further ass raped by vampire banks and wall street crime syndicates to the tune of
trillions (pay attention, Orange Man Bad went along with this, think about why, i’ll wait).
D-The food and farming infrastructure was/is targeted heavily and like business small and medium sized farm
operation are being kicked in the balls again.
E-Constant Orwell like programming is being played everywhere all the time now.
F-Millions and millions of useless idiots are running around with glorified maxi pads on their faces pretending they
can actually defeat a BL4 bug with the equivalent of chain link fence strung across their faces. Unfortunately
wearing these masks and holing up in your house is only going to WEAKEN your immune systems for Phase 3.\
That’s right kids breathing in your own respitory effluent all day is actually not great for you. And your immune
system stays strong by daily vanquishing of enemies (*this is an important concept, remember it).
G-When the Kung Flu narrative began to ‘fail *Ding!’, St. George Floyd (patron saint of home invaders of pregnant
women) was killed on film so that phase 2 could commence.
I-Phase 2 involved riots, looting, arson and murder thrust upon the population by complicit elected officials. It was
pretty clear that the general population was “greenlighted” in the street sense of the word. You have been
greenlighted, remember that. You may want to look that term up for a fuller understanding.
J-Now that it’s clear that you (white people specifically and all good people everywhere of every color) have been green lighted, the entire clown world expects you to genuflect and suck some rappers dick daily or “Racist”. Cause if you’re not sucking some street dick like a crack ho while apologizing for your existence then you are indeed racist.

Recommended courses of action:

-Arm up and toughen up
-Get out of the cities
-Grow your own food (veggies fruits and livestock) and support local farms
-Find like minded folk for mutual defense and support
-Read Folsom Prison Guide to knife fighting, carry a knife and be ready and willing to hit 24 7.
-Carry a pistol locked, cocked and one in the pipe 24 7
-Don’t stop for a protest, if you have to run them down and keep going do it. Stopping will get you killed.
-Get out of the cities.
-Read everything HSF has written and then try to emulate
-Join Gab today as like minded free media is there and important to your morale.
-Study and understand ‘the Graham Killhouse’ rules. Number one is that no one is coming to save you.

SITREP:
-Economy continues to fail hard despite massive injections
-Economic covid psy op constraints are hurting the US economy badly
-Jackals are circling the USA currently (overseas force projections by unfriendlies)
-Ongoing coup attempts from treasonous US gov elements
-Leftist pols willing to burn their own cities to make their demented plans go forward
-Cucked right still not willing to declare war
-Second wave narrative being pumped now that people have puked on statue toppling and rioting

All the best, smile we get to die like fucking warriors.

ReluctantWarrior
ReluctantWarrior
June 26, 2020 8:07 am

That may or may not be true. I would tend to question the CDC numbers. It may actually be that the numbers are being inflated. That may be more likely. But if you inflate the infection rate then what that tells us is that the virus is not that deadly. If you deflate the infection rate then it is more deadly but less infectious. The truth is that the virus is in abatement at the moment. That is the true science of viruses in this family. We The Sheeple are being conned big time.

Fedup
Fedup
June 26, 2020 8:57 am

What became of the prevailing thought that once the summer temperatures arrived that covid19 would disappear?

old white guy
old white guy
June 26, 2020 9:35 am

Who cares, the fatality rate is still no worse than the seasonal flu. Get up, get out , get over it.