Nearly 60% in U.S. got COVID-19. Here's what that means.
Students arrive at Stewart Elementary School on Tuesday, Sept. 8, 2020 in Garden City. Credit: Howard Schnapp
Nearly 60% of the U.S. population has been infected with COVID-19 — including 75% of children age 11 and younger, according to a study released Tuesday by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. Here are some questions and answers about the study and its implications.
How did the study measure whether a person had been infected with COVID-19?
By analyzing blood samples, scientists were able to identify whether a person had antibodies to the virus — a telltale sign of previous infection.
If so many people have recently been infected, why didn’t hospitalizations and deaths rise?
A combination of less virulent variants of the virus — omicron is more contagious, but less dangerous, than delta — as well as widespread vaccinations, which reduce the chances that an infected person will get very sick, need to go to the hospital or die.
It’s a reminder, said Northwell Long Island Jewish’s Dr. Frederick Davis, an emergency room physician and associate chairman of emergency medicine, that COVID-19 is still circulating, even if it’s less harmful.
He noted that between December 2021 and February, the rate of those who had been infected jumped to 57.7% from 33.5%.
“A third of those that became positive have recently become positive within the past few months. This suggests how highly contagious omicron really was,” he said.
How could people have been infected and not known it?
The cases were milder than during the first waves, and the vaccines mitigated symptoms. And since home tests, rather than lab tests, have been more prevalent later in the pandemic, official infection rates might not be a completely accurate representation.
What’s the take-away from the fact that so many children had been infected?
Dr. Sharon Nachman, chief of the division of pediatric diseases at Stony Brook Children's Hospital, said: “The fact that we went from 0 to 75% in such a short time means it was so easily transmitted, and will continue to be easily transmitted.”
Just as with adults, “we’re not seeing the level of hospitalizations or even deaths.”
She said the prevalence shows that parents should be mindful that children need to be tested — particularly with rapid tests — if there are symptoms. That way, the infection can stop with the child, and not infect others, including vulnerable populations like the elderly or immunocompromised.
Why hasn’t more of the population gotten infected
The dynamics of virus transmission are complex, and immune systems vary person to person, Nachman said.
How do you know whether to go to seek treatment for COVID-19?
Use common sense, Nachman said. High fever, difficult breathing or chest pain merits a trip to the emergency room, she said. If you’ve got a runny nose and no underlying medical problems, isolate but you can stay home. If you’re unsure, particularly if you have an underlying medical condition, consult your doctor, she said.
Should the prevalence of the virus, absent a corresponding growth in hospitalizations and death rates, be comforting in a sense?
Yes, because it shows that the virus variants are becoming less virulent, Davis said.
“While people are getting them, and it’s highly contagious, they are not as sick as they were during the first few waves,” Davis said. He added, “It’s comforting in the sense to know that a large percentage of the population have had it, so that hopefully will offer some sense of immunity." It’s unclear how long that immunity, conferred by infection, might last — weeks, months, or perhaps longer, according to Davis.
He said that Northwell isn’t seeing a meaningful jump in hospitalization or death that would suggest infections are as bad as during the first waves in 2020. In fact, he added, there’s been a decline of both at Northwell.
How close is the pandemic to being over?
Dr. Anthony Fauci this week said that the United States is out of a “full-blown, explosive pandemic phase.” A pandemic, according to the CDC, is a disease “spread over several countries or continents, usually affecting a large number of people” and in a “transitional phase” that is expected to become a “more-controlled phase and endemicity.” (An endemic disease is “the constant presence and/or usual prevalence of a disease or infectious agent in a population within a geographic area,” says the CDC.
Still, Fauci, nation's top infectious disease expert, warned in an interview with The Washington Post: “The world is still in a pandemic. There’s no doubt about that. Don’t anybody get any misinterpretation of that," adding, "We are still experiencing a pandemic."
Matthew Chayes, a Newsday reporter since 2007, covers New York City.
