The information comes from the federal health agency’s infection-induced antibody seroprevalence surveys, which are based on blood tests collected across the country. The most recent update was posted on February 25, but only includes data through late January 2022, when the US was averaging about half a million new COVID-19 cases per day, indicating that the number is likely even higher.
According to estimates based on those test results, a shocking 140 million Americans have had COVID-19, amounting to 43% of the US population. Moreover, 58% of children under the age of 17 showed SARS-CoV-2 antibodies, meaning a majority of US adolescents have gotten the disease.
These numbers contrast sharply with official case numbers, which are based on tallied positive COVID-19 tests. According to that data pool, the US has seen just 78.7 million cases of the highly infectious respiratory virus.
However, the data gets even more interesting. Infection rates decline in older age cohorts, with just 37% of those between the ages of 50 and 64 having had the virus, as opposed to 23% in those over the age of 65.
Together, those age cohorts account for 92% of all COVID-19 deaths in the United States, despite their lower infection rates: people between the ages of 50 and 64 accounting for 18.5% of deaths and those over 65 accounting for 73.5% of deaths.
Earlier this month, the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington in Seattle calculated that 73% of the US population was immune to the Omicron variant of COVID-19, a highly infectious version of the already-infectious virus that is responsible for the latest and worst outbreak in the US. They predicted that by March, that number could be 80%.
A reported 945,688 Americans have died of COVID-19, according to CDC data, but that number is also a significant underestimate. A recent study published in The Economist found that worldwide excess mortality during the pandemic is between two and four times that of the 5.5 million officially recorded deaths.