Challenge

Reported cases of COVID-19 represent a subset of total infections because some infected people have mild or no symptoms or do not seek medical care or get tested. Furthermore, the availability of viral testing was limited early on in the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s (CDC’s) Multistate Assessment of SARS-CoV-2 Seroprevalence in Blood Donors tests residual blood donor samples from 60+ metropolitan regions in the U.S. for the presence of SARS-CoV-2 antibodies.

Solution

Westat is providing study coordination, data collection and management, and analytical services.

Using U.S. census data, we are weighting the results to extrapolate seroprevalence data from blood donor samples to the general population in the geographic regions in which the blood donors live.

Results

This seroprevalence study will allow CDC to:

• Assess increasing penetrance of SARS-CoV-2 infection into distinct U.S. communities
• Determine overall seroprevalence at various points in time