‘PLAYING WITH FIRE’

U.S. COVID Cases May Be 30 Times Higher Than Known

A new survey in New York suggests official case counts are severely underreported.

The number of COVID infections in the U.S. may be 30 times higher than has been officially reported, according to a new study in New York. “It would appear official case counts are under-estimating the true burden of infection by about 30-fold, which is a huge surprise,” Denis Nash, an author of the study and a distinguished professor of epidemiology at the City University of New York School of Public Health, said. According to the study, which has not yet been peer-reviewed or published, about 22 percent of adults in New York were infected with the virus in a single two-week period between April 23 and May 8 this year, far more than the official count, The Guardian reports. Nash said the findings likely apply to the rest of the country since New Yorkers generally have better access to testing than residents in rural areas, where undercounting may be even worse. While the country has largely returned to normal, experts warn of the effects of “long COVID,” which can occur in 10 to 30 percent of cases. “We just don’t know what COVID could lead to in the future… We’re playing with fire,” Lara Jirmanus, a clinical instructor at Harvard Medical School, told The Guardian.