“Even if you have 10,000 people, you would still
have that issue,” Dean said.
The Los Angeles study used a market research
firm database to draw a more representative
sample. But the initial results had fewer
participants than the Santa Clara study.
The New York study collected about 3,000
samples from people shopping at grocery and
big box stores. It was a preliminary government
study, with more results expected soon.
None of the studies went through the kind of
peer-review process that generally is required
before publication in scientific journals.
WHAT’S AHEAD?
Two federal agencies have larger surveys in
the works.
The National Institutes of Health announced a
study that will recruit as many as 10,000 adults
across the country who were not previously
diagnosed with coronavirus infections to give
blood samples.
The CDC has several studies planned, including
one that would eventually test close to 20,000
blood samples collected at commercial
laboratories. Initial results from some areas may
be coming back next month, said Dr. Gregory
Armstrong, the CDC’s deputy incident manager.
The CDC also is working on another study that
would test leftover samples from previous
blood donations, and it is planning additional
surveys to be conducted in three or more U.S.
cities, he said.
“When things calm down in the country, we’ll do
something more systematic,” he said.