Cuomo: 21% of Those Tested in New York City Had Virus Antibodies

The release of preliminary data on state antibody testing adds to indications that the virus may have been spreading earlier than was understood.

About 21 percent of around 1,300 people in New York City who were tested for coronavirus antibodies this week were found to have them, Gov. Andrew M. Cuomo said on Thursday.

The results were from a state program that conducted tests of 3,000 supermarket customers across New York State. Nearly 14 percent of the tests came back positive, Mr. Cuomo said.

It was unclear just how telling the preliminary data was, as Mr. Cuomo acknowledged. And the accuracy of the antibody testing available in the United States in general has been called into question.

But if the New York numbers indicated the true incidence of the virus, it would mean that more than 1.7 million people in New York City, and more than 2.6 million people statewide, have already been infected.

That is far greater than the 250,000 confirmed cases of the virus that the state has recorded.

It would also mean that the fatality rate from the virus was relatively low, about 0.5 percent, Mr. Cuomo said.

Source: The New York Times

NBC New York:

New York City had a higher rate of antibodies (21.2 percent) than anywhere else in the state and accounted for 43 percent of the total tested. Long Island had a 16.7 percent positivity rate, while Westchester and Rockland counties saw 11.7 percent of their samples come up with the antibody. The rest of the state, which accounted for about a third of those studied, had a 3.6 percent positivity rate. There were early variations by race/ethnicity and age as well.

1/ Crucial points about the NYS antibody study: Other studies have shown the first wave figures understate the true prevalence by 50-100%. Thus it is quite likely the real number of infected in NYC is in the range of 3 to 3.5 million, at a minimum…

— Alex Berenson (@AlexBerenson) April 23, 2020

2/ This implies an infection death rate of roughly 0.5 percent, or 1 in 200. However that figure is almost certainly overstated, for two reason. First, as @JohanGiesecke pointed out, the virus seems to spread most quickly through populations most at risk…

— Alex Berenson (@AlexBerenson) April 23, 2020

3/ So the fatality rates seem higher than they really are early on. Second, physicians increasingly agree that ventilators were overused early on in the epidemic and may have – unfortunately- increased the death rate. As physicians refine treatments and test drugs…

— Alex Berenson (@AlexBerenson) April 23, 2020

4/ The fatality rate should continue to drop. Overall, the fatality rate seems to be settling in the 0.25 to 0.4% range, with the average age of death roughly 80.

— Alex Berenson (@AlexBerenson) April 23, 2020

5/ Not everyone will be infected, but the US is a big country, so on a population-level basis those numbers may look big; worth remembering that in terms of life-years lost the #covid19 figures will be smaller than annual road accidents and far smaller than overdoses…

— Alex Berenson (@AlexBerenson) April 23, 2020