Following the record surge in COVID-19 cases during the Omicron-driven wave, some 58% of the U.S. population overall and more than 75% of younger children have been infected with the coronavirus since the start of the pandemic, according to a U.S. nationwide blood survey released on Tuesday.
Source: More than half of Americans have had COVID infections -antibody study | Reuters
And that is up through February. In the 7 weeks since then, those percentages will have grown even more – it is likely that 65% of the population has now had Covid-19.
In the UK, their ONS released data collected by NHS, finding almost 71% of the population of England has had a Covid infection, and 30% had Covid-19 more than once. They sampled about 1/2 million residents, continuously, over a long period of time, and translated that to a finding of 71% of the population has had Covid.
England had tougher mitigation measures than the U.S. Mitigation measures can never end a pandemic – at best, they can slightly delay the progression. The only end point is immunity – either via vaccination or acquired by infection.
A return to more mitigation measures in the months ahead would be pointless. What we need is better vaccines; their efficacy was oversold to the public in late 2020 and all of 2021.
As I joke, “just 15 days to flatten the curve” has given way to “just 15 booster shots to flatten the curve”.
[…] blame this on the lack of mitigation measures – especially masks. In spite of mitigations, 75% of children aged 12-17 have now had Covid, and 58% of total U.S. population have had Covid – in spite of, not because of, our […]