COVID-19 cases are slowly rising across the country as a new subvariant that first emerged in upstate New York picks up steam, and the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention thinks that many more Americans are contracting COVID-19 than reported.
Most Americans have already had COVID-19, however, and have antibody protection, according to a new study from the CDC released Tuesday. The percentage of people testing positive for antibodies increased from 34 percent in December 2021 to roughly 58 percent in February 2022. The study found that approximately three in four kids had COVID-19 antibodies after omicron, likely due to that population’s low vaccination rates.
The agency will soon release a study showing that during the omicron surge, an estimated three infections occurred for every reported case, the CDC’s Kristine Clarke told reporters. She is co-leader of the CDC’s COVID-19 Epidemiology & Surveillance Taskforce Seroprevalence Team.
