WASHINGTON (dpa-AFX) - COVID-19 cases in the U.S. could breach 20 million mark, almost 10 times higher than official count, according to new estimates from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
'Our best estimate right now is that for every case that's reported, there actually are 10 other infections,' said Dr. Robert Redfield, director of the CDC.
At present, there are 2.3 million infected Americans in the country. But, now according to CDC's new estimate, the actual number of cases could be at least 23 million.
The latest estimate is based on research of blood samples across the country for the presence of antibodies to the virus. For every confirmed case of COVID-19, 10 more people had antibodies, Redfield said. This indicates that the person's immune system previously fought off the coronavirus.
Redfield said that in the past, health officials did not effectively diagnose the coronavirus in people under 50 who did not require hospitalization.
'This virus causes so much asymptomatic infection,' Redfield said. 'The traditional approach of looking for symptomatic illness and diagnosing it obviously underestimates the total amount of infections.'
'There's not an exact cutoff of age at which people should or should not be concerned,' Dr. Jay Butler, head of the COVID-19 response at the CDC, said.
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