The challenge of estimating COVID-19 prevalence



Due to the lack of resources required to accurately test for every infection, there is speculation that the actual number of cases is 10-20x larger than the official number of reported COVID-19 cases.



Without an accurate understanding of the total number of cases, it is impossible to determine the public health risk associated with COVID-19. Therefore, we have relied on statistical models to estimate COVID-19 prevalence.





Image credit: (Javan et al., 2020)