The latest surge in COVID-19 infections in California may surpass last winter’s tidal wave, health officials say. And judging by wastewater tests, infections may be even more widespread than the official numbers indicate.
One reason is that some people’s symptoms are so mild that they don’t seek treatment or even get tested. But another significant factor may be the large number of people using at-home tests and not reporting the results.
“Home testing leads to marked underestimates of case numbers,” Dr. Robert Wachter, chair of U.C. San Francisco’s Department of Medicine, said in an email. “Clearly many hundreds of thousands of people are now diagnosing themselves with positive home tests (generally plus symptoms), and these are not reported.”
