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Although new Omicron subvariants have led to another rise in coronavirus cases in the U.S. in recent weeks, deaths have remained at the some of the lowest levels of the pandemic.

The recent death toll breaks with the trend seen so far during the pandemic, where deaths tend to rise a few weeks after a surge in infections. That likely means most Americans now carry some form of immune protection, whether from vaccines or previous infections, according to The New York Times.

“In previous waves, there were still substantial pockets of people who had not been vaccinated or exposed to the virus, and so were at the same risk of dying as people at the beginning of the pandemic,” David Dowdy, MD, an infectious disease epidemiologist at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, told the newspaper. “Those pockets don’t exist anymore,” he said. Head over to WebMD to read the full story.