WHO Comments imply far lower IFR than previously claimed

-

An estimated 750M, 10% of world’s population have been infected by Covid-19, says WHO's Dr M Ryan


This implies far lower Infection Fatality Rate than previously claimed & potentially significant implications for many countries.



https://www.irishtimes.com/news/ireland/irish-news/covid-19-world-in-for-a-hell-of-a-ride-in-coming-months-dr-mike-ryan-says-1.4370626?mode=amp


While clearly this is only a "best guess" figure, we can still conduct a rough analysis, leading to an interesting conclusion:


10% of world population ~ 750M

Covid-19 deaths to date ~ 1M

Implied IFR = 1/750 = ~ 0.13%

(IFR = Infection Fatality Rate)


An IFR of ~0.13% is almost an order of magnitude lower than the ~1% values seen in much of the predictive modelling that has been used to guide policy, lockdown decisions etc. (E.g. ICL used 0.9% for UK in March - see 2 excerpts below).




-






Even for a rough estimate, this is a significant difference.

An order of magnitude reduction in IFR implies a similar reduction in predicted fatalities

For, e.g, UK & others, this means 10's rather than 100's of thousands of deaths.



ICL predicted several hundred thousand UK deaths in the "do nothing" scenario.

This did not happen.





UK total covid-19 fatalities to date are ~42k; indeed 10's & not 100's of thousands.

The same appears generally to be true for the higher fatality locations. Fatalities have been approximately an order of magnitude lower than predicted.

Responsible & fair to re-remind ourselves that the WHO surely meant this number as a rough estimate. However an order of magnitude difference is very large in this situation & adjusting that "10% infected" figure up or down somewhat would make little difference to the results.

Even more interesting is the potential implication of this for today & the future, especially for those locations that have already experience high fatalities (eg. UK)

Many in these locations believe that, unless strict measures are maintained, huge numbers of deaths will occur.

However, the WHO's own implied IFR & it's consequences would seem to support the hypothesis that, while further infections & deaths in these locations are possible (as with many viruses), in terms of the bigger picture the epidemic may well have largely run its course.





[Analysis, opinions and errors my own.]

@RuminatorDan







Popular posts from this blog

In the pandemic, what are the most important questions of all?

-
  In the pandemic, what are the most important questions of all? The PCR debacle, operation Moonshot, masks, school closures, ruined health, futures and incomes, liberties... All spring forth from our underlying beliefs about the virus. These issues, important as they are, distract our attention from the most important questions of all… No one denies that it's a nasty virus that can be lethal. I know people who've suffered with it. I also know plenty who've had horrible experiences with other things too (often caused by the avoidable actions of people). There's no risk-free option. It was claimed approx 500K people in the UK & 2M in USA would die, (~0.5-1% of the population). On that basis we closed much of the world. But, even the hardest hit countries lost roughly one tenth of that number of people (& that despite the differences in measures taken). You can - you should - look those numbers up for yourself. It looks like we overestimated the problem by somethi
Read more

Czech Republic & other European Higher Fatality Countries

-
Image
CZECH REPUBLIC & OTHER EUROPEAN HIGHER FATALITY COUNTRIES Signs of Czech Rep deaths slowing? I wish them well. Interesting, yet again, that the cumulative total is so similar to other hard hit locations, which are all around 10x lower than generally used predictions... The point is not to use these data for some ugly competition. Rather, these data and their differences - or similarities - can reveal very important information about #SARSCoV2 . For example, UK deaths were predicted to reach ~7500 per Million (=~500k people, without measures). However, if the hypotheses that led to such predictions were true, & such totals have only been averted by lockdown, then one would expect large variations between countries (as exact details & timing of lockdown and other measures would be critical). High sensitivity to timing would be the case if "high lethality+all susceptible+lockdowns work" hypotheses were true. Yet all the high fatality locations have quite similar tota
Read more

Analysis of SARS-CoV-2 growth illustration presented at Vallance-Whitty Downing Street Briefing on 21 Sep 2020

-
Image
ANALYSIS OF SARS-CoV-2 GROWTH ILLUSTRATION PRESENTED AT VALLANCE-WHITTY DOWNING STREET BRIEFING ON 21 SEP 2020 [26 Sep 2020v1] Implied CFR appears to be >50% lower than IFR used by ICL in March, suggesting new cases in red area would lead to ~2,000 deaths (~5% of spring total). The red area would contain a total of ~500,000 new cases. How many deaths would be expected to occur as a result? PV commented that, by mid October, there might be 50,000 new cases per day & that this would be expected to lead, a month or so later, to 200 plus deaths per day.  This implies a Case Fatality Rate of approx: CFR = 200 / 50,000 = ~ 0.4%. Since not all infections are detected, the Infection Fatality Rate (IFR) will be lower still. This ~0.4% CFR is, however, in itself 50%+ lower than the 0.9% IFR used in ICL’s March paper & modelling.  Total deaths resulting from the new cases that occurred during the red period would be: ~500,000 x 0.4% = ~2,000 deaths. This is equivalent to 5% of the spri
Read more