35mm cases have been confirmed using tests. Considering the vast majority of those who become infected with covid fail to display any symptoms whatsoever and are thus unlikely to be tested, this is very much a lower bound.
Luckily, CDC has some estimates about how many people have actually been infected at this point: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/burd...
They estimate ~120mm Americans have been infected with coronavirus at this point.
Considering we know that those with prior infection have durable, robust immunity (https://www.cell.com/cell-reports-medicine/fulltext/S2666-37...), that means roughly 1/3rd of Americans, regardless of vaccination status, are immune to covid.
Of course, there's plenty of overlap between those vaccinated and those with natural immunity, so you can't just sum the numbers, but with ~70% vaccinated, we have to be approaching some kind of herd immunity level at this point.
[1] SARS-CoV-2 infection induces long-lived bone marrow plasma cells in humans https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-021-03647-4.pdf
[2] Necessity of COVID-19 vaccination in previously infected individuals https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2021.06.01.21258176v...
Wouldn't getting vaccinated then be comparable to vaccine + booster, giving you even better protection?
> I'm going so far as to have my antibody levels checked
I didn't know you could do this. How do you get your antibody levels checked?
The typical report is binary - you either have antibodies or you don’t. I had to specifically request additional detail, but it was available.
I know several others who feel this way. Most of them are making the assumption that they have lasting immunity, but I'm going so far as to have my antibody levels checked. It's been several months and they are still in excess of what would be expected from having been vaccinated, so I see no benefit to getting vaccinated.
Further, there are reports of vaccine reactions being more common and more severe in people who have recovered from COVID. It's important to note that "reports of" does not mean "confirmed reports of". That said, I've not yet found anything that leads me to believe that there is a net benefit to my being vaccinated.
A quick glance at the CDC's site shows that ~35m - or ~10% of the US - have been infected to this point.