Study: Broad virus exposure in New York

Millions of New York residents may already have had the coronavirus. When the state tested blood samples from about 3,000 people, 13 percent of them had antibodies to COVID-19. That number increased to 21 percent in New York City.

How reliable is this study? New York Gov. Andrew Cuomo cautioned that the data was preliminary. Health officials hastily recruited people at shopping centers and grocery stores, which means participants were healthy enough to be out in public. It’s also unclear how well antibodies protect from the disease. But other studies have also indicated more people have contracted COVID-19 than officials realized: Testing in California’s Santa Clara and Los Angeles counties revealed that roughly 3 or 4 percent of residents had the antibodies.

Dig deeper: Read Julie Borg’s report in Beginnings on the different kinds of COVID-19 tests.