A new study reveals more U.S. residents have been infected by the coronavirus than previously thought — and many of the survivors may be carrying antibodies that could ward off the virus.
The results of the Stanford study, which were released Friday, suggest between 48,000 and 81,000 residents of Santa Clara County, California had been infected by April 3rd — well more than the 1,000 cases that were being reported at the time. The reason for the discrepancy, the study theorizes, is most of those people never realized they’d been infected because their systems’ antibodies successfully fought off the virus, says lead researcher Dr. Eran Bendavid.
Furthermore, in testing 3,300 Santa Clara County volunteers, researchers found up to 4.2 percent of them possessed COVID-19 antibodies. Researchers hope the findings can lead scientists to isolate the antibodies in their quest to defeat the coronavirus, Bendavid says.
