Recent studies conducted by Stanford University Professor of Medicine Dr Jayanta Bhattacharya have concluded “the coronavirus is less deadly than experts realised”.
Studies across a range of counties in the United States found “roughly about three to four percent of the population in these counties show evidence of antibodies to COVID-19,” Dr Bhattacharya told Sky News host Andrew Bolt.
“What that means is roughly 50 times more people have had the disease than we have realised based on case counts alone”.
Dr Bhattacharya said COVID-19 was “likely to have a fatality rate of 1-2 in 1000 rather than 30 in 1000 which is what the World Health Organisation originally said”.
However, he said despite the higher than expected evidence of antibodies in the population, the United States was not close to achieving herd immunity “which would require a very substantial fraction of the population to be infected”.
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