The US becomes the first country in the world to ‘officially’ hit 100 million Covid cases

America has become the first country to officially reach the milestone of 100 million Covid infections – which is probably a huge underestimate.

The latest data from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) shows cumulative U.S. cases hit nine digits on Dec. 21.

India has the second highest number of infections with just 44 million, according to the research database OurWorldInData, followed by France with 39 million.

But the raw number of cases does not take population size into account. If that is factored in, the US ranks only 58th globally.

But the raw number of cases does not take population size into account. If that is factored in, the US ranks only 58th globally

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Comparing Covid cases between countries is difficult due to different approaches to testing and data collection.

China alone has conducted more tests than the US – about 9 billion and 900 million, respectively.

But Beijing and places like Russia have been accused of withholding case numbers to mask that authoritarian regimes have struggled to contain outbreaks.

Up to 250 million people have been affected by Covid in China in the first 20 days of December after the country abruptly reversed its controversial zero-Covid policy.

Dr. John Brownstein, an epidemiologist and chief innovation officer at Boston Children’s Hospital, said reaching 100 million cases in the US was an important moment.

But he added that it was probably a serious undercount because of the huge proportions of Americans who are not testing or are asymptomatic.

Dr. Brownstein told TSTIME: “Obviously it’s a milestone that indicates the massive amount of transmission that’s happened around this virus and the population burden we’ve been dealing with.

“At the same time, we recognize that the reported cases are definitely a huge undercount — from the beginning of the pandemic, when testing was non-existent, to the shift to home testing, where a significant proportion of cases went unreported.

“I think we know that a large majority of the population is already infected with COVID,” Brownstein said. “And so this number only represents a fraction of all cases. [The milestone] was most likely hit many months ago.’

The official US case number, 100.7 million, indicates that about one in three Americans has had the virus at least once.

Still, an April 2022 CDC study estimated that 60 percent of the country was infected with the virus. The official number of cases does not differentiate between repeated infections.

The 100 million cases come as pandemic policies begin to creep back into everyday life in America.

Hundreds of thousands of students in the US will be forced to wear them in class when schools go back today as controversial mandates return.

The cumulative number of Covid cases in the US hit 100 million as of December 21 – making America the first country to surpass nine digits

The raw number does not take into account population size and is full of caveats – such as the US doing far more testing than most countries in the world. Here the chart shows how the US tamed the outbreak

Despite the number of Covid infections stagnating for months, elementary and middle schools in New Jersey, Massachusetts and Pennsylvania have made face coverings a condition of entry for students returning from the holidays.

Education officials say the policy aims to prevent an explosion in respiratory illnesses after more mixing during the first normal Christmas and New Year in years.

But there is little evidence that face masks actually reduce the number of infections, and mounting research shows that the mandates hindered children’s social development and education and robbed them of vital immunity to other seasonal bugs such as flu and RSV.

The government also announced last week that all passengers from China would be tested upon entry, despite there being no evidence that the policy is working either.