A new study from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published November 24 2020, shows that most of the U.S. population may still be susceptible to SARS-CoV-2, the virus that causes COVID-19. The study focuses on CDC’s collaboration with commercial laboratories to conduct and publish results from large-scale geographic seroprevalence surveys to estimate the percentage of people in the United States who already have antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 and how that percentage changes over time in each geographic site. This includes infections that resulted in mild illness or no symptoms and those that were potentially not reported in official confirmed case counts.

Highlights from the study include:

• More than 177,000 samples were collected across 52 sites in 50 states, the District of Columbia, and Puerto Rico during 4 periods between July 27 and September 24
• Forty-nine of those sites had enough samples to calculate seroprevalence estimates across all periods and yielded seroprevalence estimates ranging from less than 1% in several sites to approximately 23% in New York State
• For 42 of the 49 sites with sufficient data, seroprevalence was estimated to be less than 10%
• Estimates varied by sex, age group, and metropolitan/nonmetropolitan status
• These results indicate that as of September 2020, most people living n the United States did not have serologic evidence of past infection with SARS-CoV-2

I don’t think this is a surprise to any of us with the second wave hitting the U.S. hard right now. What it tells us, however, is that we need to stay the course, stay strong, stay well, mask up, and stay tuned!