Spanish antibody study suggests 5% of population affected by coronavirus
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Preliminary results from a nationwide coronavirus antibody study showed that about 5% of the overall Spanish population had contracted the novel virus – about 10 times more than the tally of diagnosed cases suggests.
The results point to 2.3 million of Spain’s 45 million population being affected by the virus, if without symptoms in many cases, considerably more than the official count of under 230,000 cases.
Still, the results, which showed a higher prevalence in the central regions of Spain, validated the government’s strategy of phasing out one of Europe’s toughest lockdowns based on the health data of each region, Health Minister Salvador Illa told a news briefing.
“We have not been surprised” by the results, Illa said. “There is no herd immunity in Spain.”
The study, carried out by the Carlos III Health Institute and the National Statistics Institute, began on April 27. It tested some 60,000 people for the presence of antibodies generated to fight off the coronavirus.
Madrid, one of the worst-affected regions, showed a prevalence of 11.3%. Soria and Cuenca, in the central regions of Castilla y Leon and Castilla La Mancha, are the provinces with the highest prevalence, with 14.2% and 13.5% respectively.
