57% of Americans Have Been Infected with COVID-19
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This illustration provided by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention CDC shows the Novel Coronavirus. Photo credit: Alissa Eckert, MSMI, Dan Higgins, MAMS
Due to the highly contagious omicron variant, the percentage of Americans who have been infected by COVID-19 has risen to 57%, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The percentage of Americans with COVID-19 antibodies went from 33.5% to 57.7%. in just two months, from December 2021 to February 2022, according to the CDC. COVID-19 peaked at roughly 800,000 per day across the U.S. during those months, as well.
For children, the numbers are even higher. The percentage of children up to age 11 with antibodies jumped from 44.2% in December 2021 to 74.2% in February 2022. The percentage of teenagers ages 12-17 with antibodies went from 45.6% to 74.2% over that same period.
Older Americans, though, haven’t caught the virus as much. Only about one in four Americans over the age of 65 had COVID-19 antibodies by February 2022. Part of the reason is that older adults were much more likely to have the COVID-19 vaccine than children. While 90% of adults 65 and older are vaccinated, the CDC says only 28% of those ages 5-11 and 59% of those ages 12–17 have the COVID-19 vaccine.
COVID-19 was the third-leading cause of death in the United States in 2021, according to the CDC, only behind heart disease and cancer.
