The CDC says that multiplying the laboratory-confirmed COVID-19 “cases” by approximately 8 is the best estimate of the actual number of Americans who’ve been infected by the SARS-CoV-2 virus (i.e., “had Covid,” though if there were no symptoms, this is not the medically accurate term). See “Government Model Suggests U.S. COVID-19 Cases Could Be Approaching 100 Million” (NPR) and the academic journal paper on which it reports, “Estimated incidence of COVID-19 illness and hospitalization — United States, February–September, 2020”.
As of today, the CDC says that the U.S. has had 20,732,404 “cases” of COVID-19. Multiplying by 8, that’s 165,859,232 (important to have 9 digits of precision when guessing wildly for #Science). The Census Bureau’s pop clock says that the U.S. has 330.8 million residents (though Yale says that the error bars on undocumented migrants are in the millions).
I’m not sure that we’ll ever get a better estimate so it is reasonable, in my view, to say that today was the day when the majority of Americans had been infected, at least to some extent, by the virus we call “COVID-19.”
Related:
- “These three states have the worst Covid infection rates of anywhere in the world” (NBC): Arizona currently has the highest per-capita rate of new Covid-19 infections, with 785 cases per 100,000 people over the past seven days, followed closely by California and Rhode Island.
- Friend in Texas runs, but cannot hide, from coronavirus
Once again I quote Judith Persichilli from March 21, 2020 for your consideration as my nomination for the most accurate and forthright statement by a senior public health official in the United States, in the Year of Our Lord 2020:
‘I’m definitely going to get it. We all are.’
https://www.nj.com/coronavirus/2020/03/im-going-to-get-it-we-all-are-njs-top-health-official-says-as-she-leads-the-states-coronavirus-war.html
“She attained a master of arts in administration, summa cum laude, from Rider College in 1980.[1]”
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Judith_Persichilli
I don’t mean to lionize her too much, but when I was a (very) young man in high school, our NJ State Championship-winning rifle team won one of our titles using what was then the Rider College rifle range. Now it is a “University” and they no longer have a rifle team, and I believe their range has been deconstructed, but during the 1980s, at least, I can say that a lot of people at Rider knew how to shoot straight.
I saw Meatloaf perform at Ryder when it was still a college!
@Mememe: We might plausibly have bumped into each other at some time or another. Probably not on the RC rifle range, though. They used to have a beautiful indoor range, and the venue was chosen by both teams to eliminate any “home advantage.” We won fair and square, which was mostly because of our coach, one of the unsung Great Men in NJ history. Lots of fun, it was a great experience.
@Mememe: What red-blooded American still possessing what’s left of their faculties can forget?
So, did you get it Phil? are you one of the lucky ones (whichever way)? Ourselves, we live in a extremely low prevalence country, so it would be hard to get it even trying.
Last winter/spring involved numerous cold/flu-style ailments in our household. Also a bunch this fall as the kids went back to school (Maskachusetts kept schools for low-income children closed, while public and private schools for rich kids reopened; that’s practical “social justice”)
Just living in Massachusetts is a huge risk factor. If we were our own country we would have the highest death rate from/with Covid of any country in the world.
But testing has been impractical to obtain here, so I can’t be certain.
Considering that UK was already at 50% infected back in March 2020 and 9 months later they’re in their 3rd lockdown, I’d say you still have a long way to go.
https://philip.greenspun.com/blog/2020/04/09/evidence-that-sunetra-gupta-and-her-oxford-team-were-right-r0-for-coronavirus-may-be-5-7/