COVID-19: US May Have Over 20 Million Cases – CDC

The Centers for Disease Control (CDC) in the US has expressed fear that the number of COVID-19 patients in the US may be 10 times higher than reported figures.

The director of CDC, Robert Redfield, made this known while speaking with newsmen, on Thursday.

He said the reason for this is testing only symptomatic persons, as asymptomatic carriers are not tested.

Over 2.5 million cases has been recorded, according to Worldometer, a website which provides real-time update on the disease situation globally.

Although, over one million patients have recovered from the infection, the country has recorded more than 126,000 deaths.

Redfield said there are increasing concerns as the US witnesses a spike in cases.

He said the country is in a different situation when compared to the previous months of April and May.

“Our best estimate right now is that for every case that’s reported, there actually are 10 other infections,” he said.

“This virus causes so much asymptomatic infection. The traditional approach of looking for symptomatic illness and diagnosing it obviously underestimates the total amount of infections.

“It is clear that many individuals in this nation are still susceptible. This is still serious. But I am asking people to recognize that we are in a different situation today than we were in March or April.

“We probably recognized about 10% of the outbreak by the methods that we use to diagnosis between the March, April and May.