More than 140 million Americans have had Covid-19 since the start of the pandemic, The Washington Post reports, based on a study by the health agency CDC.
That is twice as much as was previously thought based on the number of positive tests. This is 43 percent of the American population.
The CDC looked at blood samples from 72,000 Americans and estimated how many people had been infected. These are data through the end of January, so the actual number of infected Americans could be much higher.
The omikron wave was still in full swing at the beginning of February, and half a million new cases were reported daily. In the meantime, the number of infections in the US has fallen sharply.
The number of infections is much higher among children and teenagers. According to the CDC, 58 percent of children and young people under 17 have had a corona infection in the past two years. For adults up to 49 years, the infection rate is 49 percent; for people between 50 and 64 years, it is 37 percent, and for people over 65, it is 23 percent.
According to the CDC, the infection rate declines with age because many measures target the weakest groups and because children and younger adults are more likely to work or go to school and thus interact with others.