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Before omicron, a third of Americans were infected with the coronavirus, but by the end of February, that percentage had risen to nearly 60 percent – including about 75 percent of children and 60 percent of people aged 18 to 49., according to federal health data released Tuesday.
Blood test data offer the first evidence that more than half of the U.S. population, or 189 million people, have been infected at least once since the pandemic began – twice the official number. However, officials warned that data from a report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention did not show that people had protection against the virus in the future, especially against increasingly transmissible variants.
“We continue to encourage everyone to be aware of their vaccinations, to receive their main series and booster when they meet the conditions,” CDC Director Rochelle Valenski told a media briefing.
Christie Clark, the CDC’s author of the report, said until February that “evidence of previous COVID-19 infections has increased significantly among each age group, probably reflecting the increase in cases we noted when omicron increased in this country”.
Clark said the biggest increase was in those with the lowest levels of vaccination, noting that older people were more likely to be fully vaccinated.
The biggest increase is in children and teenagers under the age of 17 – about 75 percent of them were infected by February based on blood samples that looked for antibodies developed in response to coronavirus infection but not in response to vaccination. That’s about 58 million children.
Blood test data shows that 189 million Americans had covid-19 by the end of February, well over twice the 80 million cases shown by The Washington Post’s follow-up case, which is based on government data on confirmed infections. . Clark said this is because blood tests detect asymptomatic cases and others that have never been confirmed in coronavirus tests.
As omicron grew, employees expected more infections. “But I didn’t expect the increase to be that much,” Clark added.
Separately, the CDC is set to publish another study that evaluates three infections for each reported case, she said.
This is an evolving story. It will be updated.
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