SCW NEWSWATCH: TRANSCRIPT: "Dr. Robert R. Redfield Statement on SARS-CoV-2 infections" - CDC

[The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) on Wednesday, July 22, 2020, released a statement from CDC Director Dr. Robert R. Redfield addressing media reports that had alleged Covid-19 infection rates were 24 times the numbers reported.

The CDC statement allowed that, in a study featured in the Journal of the American Medical Association (JAMA) article, one state in a 10-state study had, indeed, been estimated to have had nearly 24 times as many infections as had previously been reported, looking at one time frame back in the spring. However, the range included some areas with only six times as many infections as had been reported.

Overall, CDC expects the infection rate might be 10 times as much as previously reported:

"As CDC has been saying, our retrospective estimate is that there were 10 times more cases than reported from the period where we’ve been examining antibody data: March through May."

One aspect of the matter involved less extensive testing among persons who never exhibited symptoms, yet later had antibodies turn up in antibody testing. The CDC indicates that testing is now more widespread.


For Immediate Release: Wednesday, July 22, 2020
Contact: Media Relations (404) 639-3286

Misleading media reports have suggested there are 24 times more SARS-CoV-2 infections than reported cases. As CDC has been saying, our retrospective estimate is that there were 10 times more cases than reported from the period where we’ve been examining antibody data: March through May.

The JAMA article estimated that the range was as low as 6 times in certain areas. Moreover, the article also points out that in 10 jurisdictions sampled, somewhere between 1% and 6.9% of individuals in those jurisdictions are calculated to have had infection at some point based on antibody testing.

Of the 10 states in which data was collected for this study, one state was estimated to have 23.8 times more infections than reported cases, but this may be due to underreporting or less testing done at the time the data was collected. The article indicates that the underreporting was in part due to asymptomatic individuals that were not seeking testing at the time.

Lastly, this study covered a time period from March to the beginning of May. Today, we are testing more individuals and identifying more asymptomatic individuals than was able to be done previously.

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