US coronavirus: Confirmed cases don’t show the ‘total burden’ of the pandemic, study says
CNNCNN — The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in the US were greatly undercounted, mostly because of a lack of testing, a new study shows. Researchers at the University of California Berkeley School of Public Health suggest the case tally in the US does not “capture the total burden of the pandemic because testing has been primarily restricted to individuals with moderate to severe symptoms due to limited test availability.” The report, published in the journal Nature Communications, says the US may have experienced over 6.4 million cases of Covid-19 by April 18. Vaccine will be effective or ‘it won’t get moved along,’ surgeon general says Dr. Francis Collins, director of the National Institutes of Health, and Dr. Jerome Adams, US Surgeon General, pledged in a Senate hearing Wednesday they would get the Covid-19 vaccine if and when one is deemed safe. “I am ready to roll up my sleeve as soon as they say it’s effective,” Collins said, when asked if he would get the vaccine in public view. Collins, the NIH director, said the AstraZeneca hold is due to “spinal cord problem.” Collins said the pause is “not at all unprecedented.” Indeed, pausing in vaccine trials is very common, according to Farrar, of the Wellcome Trust, and Dr. Melanie Saville, Director of Vaccine Research and Development at the Coalition for Epidemic Preparedness Innovations.