COVID-19 Infection Fatality Ratio is About 1.15%, new ICL study

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 "COVID-19 Infection Fatality Ratio is About 1.15%" - new ICL study


Higher than 0.7% IFR in ICL's Oct '20 'fading antibodies' study.

Higher than 0.9% UK IFR in the March report predicting ~500k deaths, used to justify lockdowns.

Interpret with care...

https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20201030/covid-19-infection-fatality-ratio-is-about-one-point-15-percent



IFR - its value & even its definition - is an issue open to some debate. Suggested values vary and comorbidities confuse matters.

The WHO, for example, recently implied an IFR of ~0.13%; similar to the sort of value found by John Ioannidis.

What actually matters though is not just the probability of succumbing to the virus if infected but also the probability of becoming infected in the first place.

Population Fatality Rate (PFR) = probability of infection X IFR

...is a very useful concept for this.

We have been modelling & making policy under the assumption that 100% of the population are susceptible to infection.

Further, we assume that only antibodies prove immunity.

However, this fits neither established scientific knowledge nor cold analysis of the data.

This article by Michael Yeadon ( @MichaelYeadon3 ) includes a discussion of pre-existing immunity, T-cells etc (as well as some contribution from me).


https://lockdownsceptics.org/what-sage-got-wrong/

Another approach is to test whether the implications of these beliefs re susceptibility & antibodies match observed reality (data).

They don't seem to.

The ICL 'fading antibodies' paper, for example, is more disproof of the idea that only measurable Ab's prove immunity. V important as a lot hinges on that belief. If it were true then UK should have seen several hundred reinfections already. I've seen none reported (& only a handful worldwide).




IFR, whatever its value, is not the whole story.





@RuminatorDan



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