CDC: COVID-19 infected more than 75% of Americans 16 and older [View all]
Source: UPI
While a little more than half of American adults think they've had COVID-19, the reality is about 77.5% have been infected at least once, new government data shows. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention has released final estimates for people ages 16 and up for 2022.
About 96.7% of adults had antibodies to the virus either from infection, vaccination or a combination of the two, the CDC reported. But U.S. census data shows that only 54.9% of Americans think they have had COVID-19.
While young adults and teens had the highest percentage of prior infection at 87.1%, seniors were the least likely to have had a prior infection, with about 56.5% of those over 65 having had COVID-19, the CDC found. The teen and young adult category includes those ages 16 to 29.
"It's become very difficult to measure prior infection in vaccine effectiveness studies. So, if you think about the typical person being hospitalized that's picked up in one of these studies, they may have had half a dozen prior infections that they did a nasal swab at home and were never reported," the CDC's Ruth Link-Gelles said at a meeting of its outside advisors recently, CBS News reported.
Read more: https://www.upi.com/Health_News/2023/07/05/usCOVID-infection-rate/8301688562687/
Link to CDC study page - https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#nationwide-blood-donor-seroprevalence-2022
Additional data publication - https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/72/wr/mm7225a3.htm
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