Jay Bhattacharya was curious about how many people where he lived had been infected with Covid. The official numbers seemed low; unlike Asia where borders were secured against sick people and Covid cases were kept low with a cordon sanitaire for over a year, the US was oblivious to infected people entering the country. There were 948 reported cases by clinics and hospitals in Santa Clara County, California at the time (March 27. 2020); serological testing by the group including Bhattacharya found that ~53,000 people had actually been infected and had antibodies to SARS-CoV2 at that time: academic.oup.com/ije/ar…

Since 50-times as many people had been infected as the authorities admitted, this meant that the infection fatality rate was 50-fold lower than quoted and that Covid was not nearly as dangerous as declared (it was still deadly in the Elderly; just that most Covid deaths were in those over age 80).

Bhattacharya's results interfered with the messaging that "No one is safe until everyone is safe". The CDC eventually estimated that only 1 in 4 Covid infections were reported: stacks.cdc.gov/view/cdc… , but did not acknowledge Bhattacharya's work. His colleague John Ioannidis used serological measurements to determine that the global Covid infection fatality rate for subjects under age 70 was 0.05% (=1 in 2000, almost all deaths in the 60 year olds and in the seriously ill): iris.who.int/handle/106….