CDC releases new COVID-19 numbers among young Virginians

CHARLOTTESVILLE, Va. (WVIR) - New numbers from the CDC say the three out of every four kids in Virginia has already had COVID-19, even if their parents never knew it.

Seventy-six percent of children up between the ages of 6 months old and 7 years old display COVID-19 antibodies in their system.

“The study confirms that at a population level, many children have been exposed to COVID and they’ve had some degree of an infection, and that could be either asymptomatic or symptomatic,” said Lisa Thanjan with the Virginia Department of Health.

The survey does not show the total amount of antibodies found in the blood.

“It does not necessarily show if people have enough antibodies to protect them against a reinfection,” Thanjan said. “If an individual was to have a reinfection, having a previous infection does not necessarily guarantee that they won’t have severe outcomes.”

Virginia continues to see fluctuations in COVID-19 levels across all age groups, with more than half of the places in the commonwealth listed as medium or high exposure areas.

“The cases in Virginia right now are declining at a very slow pace, but we kind of started at an elevated level. Basically, that means that there are still a lot of people who are catching COVID,” Thanjan said.

the BA.5 subvariant remains the dominant variant of the coronavirus.

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