In the early days of the pandemic — March into May — testing was scarce, limited mainly to victims, first responders, and essential workers in pandemic “hot spot” areas such as New York City, so you would expect the percentage of confirmed cases to be high.
But by mid-May, testing in the general population was extensive as the “hot spots” in the northwestern and northeastern regions of the U.S. subsided, and “hot spots” popped up in the southern and southwestern states. So, assuming that testing is now essentially random among the population, the 8% rate appears to me to be a “baseline” nationwide infection rate, at least until any remaining “hot spots” disappear and the pandemic ends.
If extensive random testing had been available back in March and April, we would expect the true nationwide infection rate to have been around 8%, because that’s what we’re now seeing with massive testing and the current “hot spots.”
Applying the 8% baseline infection rate to the entire population, this means that every week after the beginning of April, another 2.67% of the people in the U.S. had recovered from COVID-19, were immune and non-contagious, and were not a threat to anybody. These numbers are additive. By July 17 (15 weeks), 40% of the country is now immune to the coronavirus, whether or not these people know it, and they cannot infect anybody else (for as long as the period of immunity lasts, likely well into the fall).
Mrs rktman heard from an acquaintance the other day that a friends daughter went and registered to have a test and after waiting over and hour bailed out and went home. A few days later she got a notice that her test results had come back positive. Uh, okay. Maybe the swabbed her chair? In FL, space coast area. Anecdotal?
“...So, assuming that testing is now essentially random among the population, ...”
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Sorry, your entire “analysis” is based upon a faulty assumption. The people being tested every day are NOT a random selection of the population. A significant chunk of those tested were referred by a doctor or were self-selected because they think they may have symptoms or were in contact with an infected person. Another chunk are people who earlier tested positive and, upon the passage of time, are being retested (possibly for the Nth time) to see if they no longer test positive.