COVID-19 still circulates worldwide, but at far lower levels than during the pandemic’s peak years. As of early 2026, global test positivity sits around 2.4%, and roughly 25,000 to 50,000 new cases are reported to the WHO each week. Those numbers represent a fraction of actual infections, since most people no longer test or report results. Still, the virus has settled into a predictable seasonal rhythm, and the vast majority of the global population now carries some degree of immunity.
Current Infection Levels Worldwide
In the 28-day period ending March 15, 2026, 80 countries reported a combined 38,516 new COVID-19 cases to the World Health Organization. That was a drop from the previous 28 days, when 86 countries reported about 50,752 cases. Global test positivity during late March 2026 fell to 2.4%, down from a late-summer 2025 peak of 7.5% in late September.
These official numbers drastically undercount real infections. During the height of testing infrastructure in the U.S. alone, roughly 7.6 million COVID tests were being performed daily in January 2022, but only about 2.5 million of those results were reported to federal tracking systems. The gap has only widened since then, as most testing shifted to at-home kits that go unreported. Wastewater surveillance, which detects viral fragments in sewage, has become one of the more reliable ways to track trends, though the correlation between wastewater signals and actual case counts varies by region, sampling methods, and how much clinical testing is happening locally.
How COVID-19 Follows Seasonal Patterns
COVID-19 has developed a recognizable seasonal rhythm. WHO surveillance data from 2025 shows a clear late-summer and early-fall surge: global test positivity climbed from around 3.2% in late March to a peak of 7.5% by the end of September, then gradually declined through the winter months. By late March 2026, it had dropped back to 2.4%.
In the United States, the winter 2025-26 season brought rising respiratory virus activity around Thanksgiving, but COVID case rates remained relatively low compared to previous winters. The virus tends to produce its biggest waves in late summer and again in winter, though winter surges have been less dramatic in recent years. This pattern means your chances of encountering the virus roughly double or triple during peak months compared to the quietest periods of the year.
Why Official Numbers Miss Most Infections
The reported case counts you see on dashboards capture only a small slice of actual infections. Between 2020 and 2022, the U.S. alone produced approximately 6.7 billion COVID tests, including 3.2 billion over-the-counter home tests. The results from most of those home tests were never reported to any public health system. Today, with testing volumes far lower and home tests being the default for most people, the gap between reported cases and real infections is larger than ever.
Some infections are never tested at all. A meaningful share of people infected with SARS-CoV-2 never develop symptoms. Children are especially likely to remain asymptomatic. The CDC notes that it remains unclear exactly what percentage of initially asymptomatic people eventually develop symptoms versus those who never feel sick at all. Either way, many infections simply go undetected and uncounted.
Nearly Everyone Has Some Immunity Now
By the end of 2023, antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 were detectable in over 95% of adults and 90% of children in the United States, from either vaccination, prior infection, or both. That level of population-wide immunity is one of the main reasons infections today tend to be milder and waves are smaller than during 2020-2022.
This immunity is not permanent or complete, though. Antibody levels wane over time, and the virus continues to mutate, which is why reinfections happen. An NIH study tracking over 212,000 people who reported a second COVID infection found that reinfections surged when Omicron variants appeared in late 2021 and early 2022. Reinfections were defined as occurring at least two months after a first infection, and they tended to be roughly similar in severity to the original bout. Multiple reinfections over the course of several years are now common, particularly as new variants partially evade existing immune protection.
What “Common” Looks Like in Practice
COVID-19 is no longer the crisis-level event it was in 2020 or 2021, but it remains one of the most frequently circulating respiratory viruses in the world. During peak periods, roughly 1 in 13 to 1 in 15 respiratory tests come back positive for SARS-CoV-2 globally. During quieter stretches, that drops to around 1 in 40. For comparison, the test positivity threshold that once triggered public health concern during the pandemic was 5%.
Your personal likelihood of catching COVID in any given year depends on how much time you spend in crowded indoor spaces, whether you’ve been recently vaccinated or infected (which temporarily boosts protection), and what time of year it is. Most healthy adults can expect to encounter the virus at least once every year or two, though many of those encounters may produce mild symptoms or none at all. The virus is common enough that it’s a routine part of the respiratory illness landscape, but uncommon enough on any given week that most people around you are not actively infected.