India’s leading private lab, Thyrocare, who had carried out antibody tests for over 20 days across the country has said that the results of the tests indicate that nearly 18 crore people in the country already have antibodies against the novel coronavirus.
Thyrocare took its data from 60,000 antibody tests conducted across 600 pin codes over 20 odd days. Their estimate is that nearly 15 percent of the country may already have antibodies against the novel coronavirus, with a variation of plus minus 3 percent.
“Ours is the fastest, data driven prediction. Unfortunately it’s not getting the attention it deserves,” said Dr A Velumani, Chairperson, Thyrocare Technologies, told the media.
While this is not a randomised study, nor an official survey, but data from this reflects what is apparently in the second seroprevalence study conducted by the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR), India’s apex research body, conducted in the beginning of June. That data, according to various leaked reports, indicates that 15 to 20 percent of the country may already have antibodies to coronavirus. ICMR is yet to make that data public.