Around one in 20 people in the U.S. are confirmed to have been infected by the coronavirus since the start of the pandemic, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. But the CDC cannot say how many of them have recovered.
Health experts have had difficulties agreeing on what defines a recovered case and how to measure the rate of recovery. Several states, including California and Florida, decided not to track recoveries at all.
The COVID Tracking Project, a voluntary data service launched early in the pandemic, stopped reporting recovery figures because of the lack of standard definitions and consistent reporting. People who might still be suffering longer-term symptoms may be counted as recovered in some states, it notes. Using only the available figures “results in a significant undercount” of people who have survived COVID-19.