Thought of the Day - July 16 - First Antibody Testing in BC

I was pleasantly surprised to see discussion on preliminary results from a new joint study from the University of British Columbia, the B.C. Centre for Disease Control, LifeLabs and public health scientists (https://clifffraser0.wixsite.com/covid-19/post/thought-of-the-day-july-8-developments-in-testing, https://clifffraser0.wixsite.com/covid-19/post/thought-of-the-day-june-11-why-are-we-not-doing-antibody-testing). The serology testing, which has not been peer-reviewed, is the first in Canada to report estimates of coronavirus in the general population.  The study looked at samples taken in March and May from labs in the Lower Mainland where community cases of coronavirus were expected to be highest.

The study author says around eight times more B.C. residents have been infected than the number of cases reported. Thus they estimated less than one percent of British Columbians were infected with coronavirus by the time first wave restrictions were eased mid-May (I had estimated the number to be around 1% : https://clifffraser0.wixsite.com/covid-19/post/thought-of-the-day-may-24-by-the-numbers).

If we extrapolate to today's figures and take into account that this study focussed on the most highly infected area, this means about 25,000 people in BC have been infected to date, and equates to a fatality rate in B.C. of around 0.9%.

Here is the link to the paper: (https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.07.13.20153148v1.full.pdf+html). Watch for more information as the details of the study are further presented over the coming week.

Cheers

Cliff