I have three different friends in three different US states who have contracted and recovered from COVID to varying degrees. One co-worker I work with had two family members die from the disease in the past month. My brother recently had a friend in Connecticut die from the disease. My wife was recently tested for COVID as well.

One thing to consider in the polling is the issue of testing. When my wife had to get tested, they were initially not going to test her because there was only sufficient testing for 2 percent of the population (mind you this is as of 2 weeks ago), so even if she had the symptoms, unless she checked off very specific criteria (frontline worker, exposed to someone diagnosed with COVID, recently traveled to a foreign country, etc.) they will not test. She happened to be a frontline worker which was the only reason she got tested.

The lack of testing is polluting the stats in both directions because many who have died are not being tested for COVID infections, and recent data is showing COVID is causing clotting issues leading to strokes, heart attacks and so on. As I understand it, people who die from those causes are not currently being tested for COVID post-mortem to rule out if their cause of death was related to COVID, and they are not being included in the COVID death count. That being said, it's only what I'm hearing from the healthcare workers in the hospital in my community whom I speak with, so take that however you will.