S tamford Medicine Investigating Possible California Herd Immunity to COVID-19

Researchers at Stanford Medicine are working to find out what proportion of Californians have already had COVID-19. The new study could help policymakers make more informed decisions during the coronavirus pandemic.

The team tested 3,200 people at three Bay Area locations on Saturday using an antibody test for COVID-19 and expect to release results in the coming weeks. The data could help to prove COVID-19 arrived undetected in California much earlier than previously thought.

The hypothesis that COVID-19 first started spreading in California in the fall of 2019 is one explanation for the state’s lower than expected case numbers.

As of Tuesday, the state had 374 reported COVID-19 fatalities in a state of 40 million people, compared to New York which has seen 14 times as many fatalities and has a population half that of California. Social distancing could be playing a role but New York’s stay-at-home order went into effect on March 22, three days after California implemented its order.

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On Friday and Saturday, the study’s co-lead Eran Bendavid coordinated testing at sites in San Jose, Los Gatos and Mountain View. The teams used an antibody test from the company Premier Biotech. Technicians use a finger prick to draw blood for the test and it can tell within minutes if a person developed antibodies to COVID-19.

The same brand test is being offered at a lab in Monterey and healthcare workers there are closely watching the study. Spenser Smith with ARCpoint Labs is aware of the theory that COVID-19 arrived here as early as the fall and that some people may have had the virus unknowingly.

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Biobot Analytics, which is a lab associated with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, published research this week that an analysis of sewage from a treatment facility in “a large metropolitan area in the state of Massachusetts” suggested that many more people potentially have the highly contagious disease than tests have confirmed.

“On March 25, the area represented by the sample had approximately 446 confirmed cases of Covid-19,” Biobot researchers wrote Wednesday in a post about their research. “Based on our sewage analysis, we estimate that up to 115,000 people are infected and shedding the SARS-CoV-2 virus.”

Biobot, which didn’t respond to requests for comment, didn’t specify where in the state the samples came from.

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I’m reporting today that we passed two million tests completed in the United States,” Trump said during the White House coronavirus task force’s news briefing, adding that the tests are “highly sophisticated and highly accurate.”

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“We want to have it and we’re going to see if we have it. Do you need it? No. Is it a nice thing to do? Yes. We’re talking about 325 million people and that’s not gonna happen, as you can imagine, and it would never happen with anyone else, either,” the President said. “Other countries do it, but they do it in a limited form. We’ll probably be the leader of the pack.”
Trump also suggested there would be “massive testing” in “certain areas” of the country.

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While data may be lagging, and some county and state numbers differ, there is at least some evidence that new cases have slowed—for now. King County, which includes Seattle, saw its highest day of new infections on March 26 with roughly 200 cases, with lower daily numbers since then. Snohomish County experienced its largest daily tally on March 27 with 137 new cases, and has since seen a similar decrease. According to UW’s Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation, which provided Ms. Brandenburg with those initial estimates, the state’s peak of Covid-19 deaths may have already passed.

This past Sunday, Gov. Jay Inslee announced Washington would return more than 400 of the 500 extra ventilators it received from the federal government. Other states needed them more, he said.

“Even if we did see additional volumes of patients, we could absorb those right now. That tells us that we are in reasonable shape,” said Tim Dellit, chief medical officer at UW Medicine, which currently has 79 open ICU beds.

Hospital leaders say that early planning, swift implementation of social-distancing measures and the way the virus spread here have helped them weather the storm. So far, at least 421 people have died from Covid-19 in Washington, state data show, though that figure may not reflect all deaths tabulated by counties. In King County, there have been 244 deaths, or roughly 10.83 per 100,000 residents. New York City, by contrast, has had over 4,000 deaths, or about 47 per 100,000 residents.

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In the past two weeks, the number of virus patients hospitalized has grown more and more slowly, from over 20 percent a day at one point to single-digit percent increases this week.

From Wednesday to Thursday, the number increased by 200, to 18,279, or just 1 percent.

If the trend were to continue, the number of people in hospitals would soon start to decline — a sign that the virus had passed its apex.

But the number of people dying of the virus continues to grow. The state recorded 799 deaths from Wednesday to Thursday, another one-day high.

Deaths in New York State: 799 since yesterday, for a new total of 7,067.

Confirmed cases: 159,937 statewide, up 10,621 from 149,316, a 7 percent increase. In New York City: 87,028, up from 81,803.

People hospitalized: 18,279 statewide, up by 200 from 18,079 Wednesday, an increase of 1 percent.

In intensive care: 4,925, up 84 from 4,841 on Wednesday, a 2 percent increase.

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