Now we are finding out, 2½ years after the panicdemic began, and 1½ years after vaccines started to become available, that a lot of children contracted the SARS-CoV-2 virus, or were exposed enough to it to develop anti-bodies, than we ever thought, and almost all were either only mildly sick, or didn’t get sick at all.

No, my source is not some evil reich-wing publication, but the very much pro-vaccine, and pro-vaccine-and-mask mandates Philadelphia Inquirer!

Many more children have had COVID-19 than you might think

The CDC’s figures come from blood samples that were taken for non-COVID reasons.

by Tom Avril | Friday, August 19, 2022

With so many people using at-home COVID-19 tests, if they’re testing at all, experts acknowledged long ago that the true number of cases is higher than what is officially reported.

New CDC data suggest that among children, the true number is a lot higher.

The evidence comes from the blood samples of children who had their blood drawn at commercial labs for non-COVID reasons, such as measuring levels of cholesterol or lead. Among 26,725 blood samples collected in May and June, nearly 80% contained a type of antibody that the immune system produces only in response to infection — not in response to the vaccines.

Assuming that percentage holds true for all U.S. children, the CDC estimated that at least 57 million youths had been infected with the coronavirus by the end of June, four times the cumulative total of reported cases at that point. Even that figure could be an underestimate of cases dating to the beginning of the pandemic, as the levels of these telltale antibodies drop to undetectable levels in most people within a year.

Breaking that down in more detail, the e American Academy of Pediatrics and the Children’s Hospital Association reported that, as of June 30, there were 13,768,212 known cases of COVID-19 reported, which was 18.73% of all reported cases (73,493,180).

But there’s more to the numbers. If “at least 57 million youths” have been infected with the SARS-CoV-2, that’s roughly 78% of the under 18 population, approximately 73 million, for the entire United States!

The proportion of children with COVID-positive blood samples was slightly lower in Pennsylvania (73.2%), New Jersey (72.5%), and Delaware (75.7%), but still well above official reported totals, said Craig Shapiro, an infectious diseases specialist at Nemours Children’s Health in Delaware.

“The fact that more than 75% of those samples were positive for antibodies does tell us that we’re definitely underestimating the number of children who’ve been infected,” he said.

In other words, the restrictions we put on children, on attending school, on forced masking, were not necessary and did not work!

Comparable data for adults are available only as late as April, but even then, nearly 60% of adult blood samples contained the antibodies that indicate infection.

While some of these infected people may have tested themselves at home and did not report the results, others probably had no idea they were infected and never got tested, Shapiro said. Their immune systems, in many cases bolstered by vaccination or previous infection, may have snuffed out an infection before it caused any symptoms.

Or, perhaps, as was the case with me, they got slightly sick, and had an experienced registered nurse — my wife — say, “You’ve got COVID,” but when tested twice, four days apart, while ill and while recovered, tested negative anyway. There can be both false positive and false negative tests for COVID. Full disclosure: at that point I was fully vaccinated, but this was before boosters were recommended.

But with school already underway in some parts of the country, Shapiro cautioned that vaccination rates are still too low. As of Aug. 17, fewer than one-third of children ages 5 to 11 had gotten both doses of a vaccine, according to the CDC. Among those ages 6 months to 4 years old, fewer than 2% were fully vaccinated.

What we have not seen, however, is a huge mortality, or even hospitalization, rate for children. If fewer than one-third have been fully vaccinated, yet there are indications that more than three-quarters have been infected at some point, then just what evidence is there that vaccination has been lowering the severity of the disease, at least among children, in those who do contract the virus?

That, after all, has been the latest claim. No, vaccination does not seem to prevent someone from contracting the virus in the first place, and no, vaccination does not seem to prevent a vaccinated person who does contract the virus from transmitting it to another person, but, we have been told, vaccination does show a strong correlation in reduced severity of illness among those who do contract the virus.

Now, at least among children, even that claim might not be supportable.