New study finds covid19 Infection Fatality Rate at 0.15%

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This is the paper by Professor John P. A. Ioannidis. It hasn't received unanimous praise.

(As a layperson I think it might end up being about right but kind of useless and perhaps meaningless. What does a global IFR even mean? It's clearly wrong that the IFR in the UK is 0.15% since over that percentage of the whole population has died and we haven't even all been infected.)
 
Bruce Stephens said:
(As a layperson I think it might end up being about right but kind of useless and perhaps meaningless. What does a global IFR even mean? It's clearly wrong that the IFR in the UK is 0.15% since over that percentage of the whole population has died and we haven't even all been infected.)
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I think it's important because it put's into context the measures taken on March 23rd 2020 and elsewhere in the world against the actual risks compared with how they have dealt with other things like flu and all other risks posed to humans generally.
 
Amity Island said:
I think it's important because it put's into context the measures taken on March 23rd 2020 and elsewhere in the world against the actual risks compared with how they have dealt with other things like flu and all other risks posed to humans generally.
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But it doesn't, does it? While the IFR globally might be 0.15% (though it's probably not because of other issues with his paper) it's obviously higher in the UK.
 
He says himself that the IFR will vary depending on population type.
'As an example, he pointed to the disparity in fatality rates related to COVID-19 between disadvantaged New Orleans districts and the affluent Silicon Valley.

“Differences are driven by population age structure, nursing home populations, effective sheltering of vulnerable people, medical care, use of effective or detrimental treatments,” he explained. “IFR will depend on settings and populations involved,

And the IFR will be skewed in the UK because we tried to make sure that those at greatest risk were shielded from it, and got their vaccines first.(OK, we failed in some cases, in that we did have outbreaks in carehomes etc, but there were a large number of care homes that managed to keep it out)
 
Robin said:
And the IFR will be skewed in the UK because we tried to make sure that those at greatest risk were shielded from it, and got their vaccines first.
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That would lower the IFR, but ours must be higher than 0.15%. We don't know exactly how much higher (we'd need to know the number of people who have been infected; the ONS has some estimates but I forget what they are) but we know it's over 0.2% since over 0.2% of our total population has died of COVID-19. [Edit: on the other hand had we in fact managed to protect those in care homes we could presumably have reduced the death toll and so (maybe) our IFR (by infecting fewer older people and more younger ones who'd be less likely to die).]

It seems likely ours would be skewed higher because (compared to many developing countries) we have an older population, and probably one with more obesity, etc.

Some criticisms are, I think, partly unfair since as you say the global average IFR isn't directly applicable to any particular place. But that also makes it not terribly useful.

He's also been criticised about the estimates for how many people have been infected: in most of the world we just don't have good data, and people have said that he's assuming more of some of the estimates than they can provide.
 
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Bruce Stephens said:
That would lower the IFR, but ours must be higher than 0.15%
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That’s what I mean (I’m expressing myself badly). If ours is a) higher than 0.15% and b) would have been higher still but for our precautions, then it would suggest to me that his estimate of the IFR of Covid (at least for the U.K.) is too low.
But as you say, we don’t have the data, so any conclusions drawn are neither accurate nor useful.
 
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