By February of this year, 58 per cent of the US population — or more than 190 million people — had been infected with Covid, according to an antibody survey carried out by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) published Tuesday.

The figure is far higher than the 80 million officially recorded cases, with the majority of infections undiagnosed, asymptomatic or unreported, reports AFP.

Roughly 75 per cent of people under 18 had been infected, according to a paper based on a nationally representative study of antibody levels.

There was a huge surge during last winter's Omicron wave, particularly among children. Each month from September 2021 to January 2022, the study examined some 75,000 blood specimens across 18 states, as well as 45,000 samples in February.