60 percent of Americans, including 75 percent of children, had been infected with the COVID-19 by February this year, according to a new Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) research.

The organization emphasized once more the importance of vaccination in the statement.

A high infection rate

"These findings illustrate a high infection rate for the Omicron variant, especially among children. Seropositivity for anti-N antibodies should not be interpreted as protection from future infection. Vaccination remains the safest strategy for preventing complications from SARS-CoV-2 infection, including hospitalization among children and adults. COVID-19 vaccination following infection provides additional protection against severe disease and hospitalization. Staying up to date with vaccination is recommended for all eligible persons, including those with previous SARS-CoV-2 infection," wrote the CDC.

Meanwhile, The New York Times reported  that scientists were hopeful that cases would start to decrease in the United States and that when they do occur, they will be a lot less devastating. 

Less and less severe diseases

“We will see less and less severe disease, and more and more a shift toward clinically mild disease,” said Florian Krammer, an immunologist at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in New York. “It will be more and more difficult for the virus to do serious damage."

Administration officials are also focused on reducing the effect of the cases instead of stopping infection altogether. At a news briefing on Tuesday, Dr. Ashish Jha, the White House’s new Covid coordinator, said that preventing infections was “not even a policy goal. The goal of our policy should be: obviously, minimize infections whenever possible, but to make sure people don’t get seriously ill.”

On January 3, 2022, the U.S. set a global record of daily cases, reporting over a million COVID-19 infections. Meanwhile, data released earlier this month revealed that the pandemic may have claimed roughly 18 million lives worldwide.

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