Antibody research against Stanford previously hints at the discovery that the county of California had 80,000 COVID-19 cases
Researchers at Stanford University have revised their study on how many people in Santa Clara County have antibodies to coronavirus, but say it’s still much higher than previously believed.
Last month, their analysis showed that between 2.5 and 5.2 percent of residents tested positive for antibodies.
That meant the number of infected Americans in the province was 50 to 80 times higher than officials reported.
Now, the team says that 2.8 percent of Santa Clara residents contracted the virus, but didn’t know they were sick.
That’s 54 times more than the 956 confirmed cases counted in the area on April 1.
A revised Stanford coronavirus antibody study suggests that 2.8% of Santa Clara residents contracted the virus, which is 54 times more than reported. Pictured: Justin Manalac, a senior clinical laboratory scientist at Stanford, prepares reagents for testing COVID-19 antibodies
Initially, the researchers said that between 2.5% and 5.2% of residents tested positive for antibodies, up to 80 times more cases than reported. Pictured: A sample of Santa Clara residents tested for antibodies
External experts criticized the results, saying researchers overestimate how many people had the virus. Pictured: Nurses Albert Legayada (left) and Fred Bueno care for a COVID-19 patient at the ICU at Sharp Grossmont Hospital in La Mesa, California, May 6
“The main implication of these findings is that the number of infections is much larger than the reported number of cases,” the authors wrote.
“This suggests that the vast majority of the population has no antibodies and may be susceptible to the virus.”
Published on the pre-print site for the study medRxiv.org, The team tested 3,300 people at three locations in Santa Clara County on April 3 and April 4.
The test is performed with a blood sample from a fingerstick. The drop is then placed on a paper strip.
If the test shows that someone has antibodies to the coronavirus, the blood causes the colors on the strip of paper to change.
At first, the study estimated the number of infected residents to be between 2.5 percent and 4.15 percent, suggesting as many as 80,000 people in Santa Clara were infected.
But not long after version 1 was released, criticism started pouring in.
Some experts criticized the antibody test the researchers used, which was not approved by the U.S. Food and Drug Administration.
Others said that because volunteers were recruited via Facebook, the participants were not arbitrary nor representative of the province.
In addition, the raw percentage of people who tested positive for antibodies was 1.5 percent, which would mean that the actual number of infections is only 30 times higher than reported,
However, researchers have adjusted that number for population and test performance characteristics.
Version 2 isn’t as weighted as its predecessor with estimates at the bottom of the first predictions.
“ The new report is an improvement from the first version, ” said Dr. Andrew Gelman, professor of statistics and political science and director of the Applied Statistics Center at Columbia University, according to The Mercury News.
Even with revised results, the Stanford study findings need to be interpreted with caution.
It is unclear what level of antibodies is required for immunity and how long antibodies remain in the body, be it weeks, months or years.
However, health officials say antibody tests can help scientists understand how widespread the virus is and how many people come in contact with the virus and don’t get sick.
This is important because the immune system could enable people to leave their homes and return to work, empower staff and help health professionals determine whether they are immune.
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