COVID-19 antibody seroprevalence in Santa Clara County, California
DSA ADS Course - 2021
COVID-19 antibody seroprevalence in Santa Clara County, California
Seroprevalence, COVID19, Public Policy, Health Policy, Infection Fatality Rates
It is critical to estimate as soon as possible the infection fatality rate of next pandemic pathogen from seroprevalence data.
Accurate early estimates of infection fatality rates is critical for optimal strategy and policy decision-making in the next pandemic. We must learn from the failures of the public health establishments (locally and worldwide) and academics during C19 policy response failures.
February, 2021
Background
Measuring the seroprevalence of antibodies to Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) is central to understanding infection risk and fatality rates. We studied Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19)-antibody seroprevalence in a community sample drawn from Santa Clara County.
Methods
On 3 and 4 April 2020, we tested 3328 county residents for immunoglobulin G (IgG) and immunoglobulin M (IgM) antibodies to SARS-CoV-2 using a rapid lateral-flow assay (Premier Biotech). Participants were recruited using advertisements that were targeted to reach county residents that matched the county population by gender, race/ethnicity and zip code of residence. We estimate weights to match our sample to the county by zip, age, sex and race/ethnicity. We report the weighted and unweighted prevalence of antibodies to SARS-CoV-2. We adjust for test-performance characteristics by combining data from 18 independent test-kit assessments: 14 for specificity and 4 for sensitivity.
Results
The raw prevalence of antibodies in our sample was 1.5% [exact binomial 95% confidence interval (CI) 1.1–2.0%]. Test-performance specificity in our data was 99.5% (95% CI 99.2–99.7%) and sensitivity was 82.8% (95% CI 76.0–88.4%). The unweighted prevalence adjusted for test-performance characteristics was 1.2% (95% CI 0.7–1.8%). After weighting for population demographics, the prevalence was 2.8% (95% CI 1.3–4.2%), using bootstrap to estimate confidence bounds. These prevalence point estimates imply that 53 000 [95% CI 26 000 to 82 000 using weighted prevalence; 23 000 (95% CI 14 000–35 000) using unweighted prevalence] people were infected in Santa Clara County by late March—many more than the ∼1200 confirmed cases at the time.
Conclusion
The estimated prevalence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies in Santa Clara County implies that COVID-19 was likely more widespread than indicated by the number of cases in late March, 2020. At the time, low-burden contexts such as Santa Clara County were far from herd-immunity thresholds.
