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They've done sampled serological tests in at least one town in Italy. If you compare that against excess deaths in March, you get an Infection Fatality Rate of
by cameldrv 7y ago
They've done sampled serological tests in at least one town in Italy. If you compare that against excess deaths in March, you get an Infection Fatality Rate of 2%.
Perhaps it will be better in the U.S. due to age structure, but perhaps it will be worse due to the high prevalence of obesity and diabetes.
Either way, California won't have reached herd immunity until approximately 600,000 people are dead, barring some therapeutic breakthrough.
- altcognito 7y agoHow can you use excess deaths to influence the IFR when excess deaths is across the entire population but the actual infection only reaches a small percentage?
- cameldrv 7y agoDeaths in that town were about 10x normal for the month of March. I estimate the IFR by looking at the serological results showing 70% were infected, and observe that 1.4% of the population of the town died in March. 1.4%/70%=2% of those infected died. Now it could be that there was some other cause for the death rate in the town to be 10x normal, but I think that's pretty unlikely. That said, I'm sure there are excess deaths from other causes, like heart attacks that didn't go to the hospital because they were overloaded, etc, but you could consider those deaths to be indirectly from COVID as well.