Wake Forest Baptist Health Antibody Study Suggests NC Real Rate of Infection 14 Times Official Numbers

WINSTON-SALEM – You might file this one under ‘No Duh,’ but as much sense as it makes it will still come as a surprise to many. An antibody study conducted by Wake Forest Baptist Health is ongoing, as medical researchers collect test samples in an effort to determine just how widespread the novel coronavirus truly is.

Official confirmed case counts registered by the N.C. Department of Health and Human Services stand just under 14,000.

That number of cases has got to be an underestimation for obvious reasons — lots of infected people simply do not get tested because they’re never that sick. But unless we can determine how widespread the pathogen actually is, it’s nearly impossible to understand how deadly or dangerous it is, and subsequently develop appropriate and measured policies. The official numbers (under counted) and the ‘liberal approach’ to counting COVID-19 deaths (per Dr. Birx), suggests a death rate 30 to 40 times that of the flu.

If the data is faulty, the results are incorrect. Hence, the antibody studies to get a better handle on how many people really have contracted the virus.

How about nearly 200,000 people, or two percent of North Carolinians, and 14 TIMES the official numbers? That’s what the initial findings from the antibody study suggest:

“Our goal is to enroll more than 500,000 participants in the COVID-19 Community Partnership Research study over the next few months, with particular interest in enrolling a representative demographic including the elderly (age 65 and older), youth (age 17 and younger) and racial/ethnic minority groups. The data below reflects study participation since April 2020. Additional data will be included in the future.

Updated 5/7/2020

• • Current study enrollment: 7,194
  • Completed daily symptom logs: 33,304
  • Positive antibody tests (percentage): about 2% […]”

North Carolina has a population of over 10 million people, So roughly 200,000 people may have been already infected across the state. The number of deaths stays the same, of course, no matter how generous the attribution to COZVID-19 is.

The extrapolated death and hospitalization rate for the Wuhan virus therefore shrinks by almost 15 times. If this were accepted by public health officials and elected leaders, would such numbers justify a blanket closure of the entire state?

Read more about the Wake Forest Baptist study here.