Anywhere between 221,000 and 442,000 Los Angeles County residents could have been infected with the COVID-19 illness, per a newly released antibody study done in partnership between USC and the L.A.
County Department of Public Health. The numbers represent preliminary results from the first round of testing done in early April at a time when there were only 7,994 confirmed cases of the novel coronavirus, showing that actual infections could have been 28 to 55 times higher, reflecting an estimated 4.1 percent of the county's population, which totals around 10 million.
The data further confirms how easily transmittable the virus can be, while also significantly dropping the county's mortality rate, which last week had risen to 4.2 percent..