>>”This gives those antibody tests a high false positive rate, which pretty much negates any value they may have as a research tool.”<<
I understand that critics have found fault with some of those studies, but there have been several, and if some weren’t reliable, then more reliable ones need to be devised that include samples of the population of the whole. Obviously not everyone who’s sick is being treated by doctors and recorded in the stats — not to mention tested — and the lack of that information likewise negates much of the value of reported cases as a research tool. The CDC must have had some reason for estimating that around 35% of the cases are asymptomatic, and for including that estimate.
I do not know what assumptions the CDC made when coming up with those exceedingly low case fatality rates for the pandemic scenario.
However, what I do know is that the antibody studies are deeply flawed, and no other "studies" even came close to using any real data. The antibody studies are flawed due to the physicochemical properties of antibody/antigen interactions. There isn't a way to get around the fact that antibodies tend to recognize proteins that are similar in shape, hydrophobicity, and charge status. There are not "more reliable" antibody studies, since no one can get around the laws of physics. The *only* reliable way to show that someone has been infected with Covid-19 is by a direct test for virus, either by detecting viral RNA through an RT-PCR analysis, or by culturing the virus. Once a person has had Covid-19, their body clears the virus. I do not know if there is a window where virus would still be detectable in patient samples after recovery from the illness. But that would be the only way to establish that a person has had Covid-19 after the fact.