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covid-19 is not 5 times deadlier than the flu. It is about twice. The IFR sits at ca 0.19. Flu is about 0.1. Covid scare-mongers using inaccurate and outright

covid-19 is not 5 times deadlier than the flu. It is about twice. The IFR sits at ca 0.19. Flu is about 0.1. Covid scare-mongers using inaccurate and outright false data to cause panic, terror and so much confusion that the public is left to choose what to ignore and what to follow, are causing much more damage than covid deniers are. The fear of going to the hospital among people with other ailments come to mind. There was an article in Nature the other day on the 300% increase in stillbirths in UK due to lack of in-person pre natal care. Another delightful side effects of the extreme fear propaganda. No one listened to the idiot deniers anyway. They never were the problem. Source: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/eci.13423 https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/eci.13423.

jacobolus 6y ago
0.19% is much lower than even the low bound of consensus scientific estimates; the Ionnidis paper on which he bases these estimates has also received significant direct criticism. In my opinion Ioannidis is a disingenuous hack who has thoroughly discredited himself during this pandemic, and from what I can tell his agenda-driven Covid punditry is popular on Fox News and Breitbart but not taken seriously by professional epidemiologists. The US CDC's best estimate of IFR as of a planning scenaario document from September was 0.5% for people aged 50–70, and 5.4% for people aged 70+. (This is not the best source available, but miscellaneous journal papers could be criticized as cherry-picked.) Adjusted population IFR varies from place to place, depending on the proportion of seniors, people with pre-existing health problems, access to medical care, etc., but nowhere in the US is it as low as 0.19%. If you want a credible widely cited meta-analysis, try e.g. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10654-020-00698-1 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10654-020-00698-1 from December which calls Covid "far more dangerous than influenza", and estimates the IFR to be at least 5–10x higher. > The estimated age-specific IFR is very low for children and younger adults (e.g., 0.002% at age 10 and 0.01% at age 25) but increases progressively to 0.4% at age 55, 1.4% at age 65, 4.6% at age 75, and 15% at age 85. > As shown in Fig. 6, population IFR (computed across all ages) ranges from about 0.5% in Salt Lake City and Geneva to 1.5% in Australia and England and 2.7% in Italy. > Supplementary Appendix O: [We estimate that during winter 2018–19] the population IFR for seasonal influenza was in the range of 0.04% to 0.08% – an order of magnitude smaller than the population IFR for COVID-19. * * * > increase in stillbirths in UK The UK has royally screwed up most aspects of pandemic response. Just like Brexit and everything else the Tories have had their hands on in the past few years. You don't see the same problems in other wealthy island nations like New Zealand or Taiwan. (With the notable exception that the UK has done a decent job sequencing a large collection of viral samples.)
- deleted 6y ago
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- timr 6y ago
  0.19% is entirely in line with other credible estimates: https://www.who.int/bulletin/online_first/BLT.20.265892.pdf https://www.who.int/bulletin/online_first/BLT.20.265892.pdf > Across 51 locations, the median COVID-19 infection fatality rate was 0.27% (corrected 0.23%): the rate was 0.09% in locations with COVID-19 population mortality rates less than the global average (< 118 deaths/million), 0.20% in locations with 118–500 COVID-19 deaths/million people and 0.57% in locations with > 500 COVID-19 deaths/million people. In people < 70 years, infection fatality rates ranged from 0.00% to 0.31% with crude and corrected medians of 0.05%. But this is a meaningless debate. Your own preferred source makes it clear that the "average IFR" is heavily dependent on population demographics (i.e. in the very next sentence after the one you quoted: > our results indicate that about 90% of the variation in population IFR across geographical locations reflects differences in the age composition of the population and the extent to which relatively vulnerable age groups were exposed to the virus You're also completely misinterpreting Figure 6 from that paper. It is showing that their model of age-specific IFR correlates well with observed differences in reported IFRs. It is not claiming that those reported values are meaningful in the absolute -- in fact, all of the "reported" values seem to be higher than the model by a factor of ~2-4, and they're substantially higher than the numbers cited by the WHO bulletin. (and yes, I know you don't like Ioannidis, but this is a metareview, not original research. Also, not liking someone doesn't make them wrong.)

jacobolus 6y ago

0.19% is much lower than even the low bound of consensus scientific estimates; the Ionnidis paper on which he bases these estimates has also received significant direct criticism. In my opinion Ioannidis is a disingenuous hack who has thoroughly discredited himself during this pandemic, and from what I can tell his agenda-driven Covid punditry is popular on Fox News and Breitbart but not taken seriously by professional epidemiologists. The US CDC's best estimate of IFR as of a planning scenaario document from September was 0.5% for people aged 50–70, and 5.4% for people aged 70+. (This is not the best source available, but miscellaneous journal papers could be criticized as cherry-picked.) Adjusted population IFR varies from place to place, depending on the proportion of seniors, people with pre-existing health problems, access to medical care, etc., but nowhere in the US is it as low as 0.19%. If you want a credible widely cited meta-analysis, try e.g. https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10654-020-00698-1 https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s10654-020-00698-1 from December which calls Covid "far more dangerous than influenza", and estimates the IFR to be at least 5–10x higher. > The estimated age-specific IFR is very low for children and younger adults (e.g., 0.002% at age 10 and 0.01% at age 25) but increases progressively to 0.4% at age 55, 1.4% at age 65, 4.6% at age 75, and 15% at age 85. > As shown in Fig. 6, population IFR (computed across all ages) ranges from about 0.5% in Salt Lake City and Geneva to 1.5% in Australia and England and 2.7% in Italy. > Supplementary Appendix O: [We estimate that during winter 2018–19] the population IFR for seasonal influenza was in the range of 0.04% to 0.08% – an order of magnitude smaller than the population IFR for COVID-19. * * * > increase in stillbirths in UK The UK has royally screwed up most aspects of pandemic response. Just like Brexit and everything else the Tories have had their hands on in the past few years. You don't see the same problems in other wealthy island nations like New Zealand or Taiwan. (With the notable exception that the UK has done a decent job sequencing a large collection of viral samples.)

deleted 6y ago
[deleted]
timr 6y ago
0.19% is entirely in line with other credible estimates: https://www.who.int/bulletin/online_first/BLT.20.265892.pdf https://www.who.int/bulletin/online_first/BLT.20.265892.pdf > Across 51 locations, the median COVID-19 infection fatality rate was 0.27% (corrected 0.23%): the rate was 0.09% in locations with COVID-19 population mortality rates less than the global average (< 118 deaths/million), 0.20% in locations with 118–500 COVID-19 deaths/million people and 0.57% in locations with > 500 COVID-19 deaths/million people. In people < 70 years, infection fatality rates ranged from 0.00% to 0.31% with crude and corrected medians of 0.05%. But this is a meaningless debate. Your own preferred source makes it clear that the "average IFR" is heavily dependent on population demographics (i.e. in the very next sentence after the one you quoted: > our results indicate that about 90% of the variation in population IFR across geographical locations reflects differences in the age composition of the population and the extent to which relatively vulnerable age groups were exposed to the virus You're also completely misinterpreting Figure 6 from that paper. It is showing that their model of age-specific IFR correlates well with observed differences in reported IFRs. It is not claiming that those reported values are meaningful in the absolute -- in fact, all of the "reported" values seem to be higher than the model by a factor of ~2-4, and they're substantially higher than the numbers cited by the WHO bulletin. (and yes, I know you don't like Ioannidis, but this is a metareview, not original research. Also, not liking someone doesn't make them wrong.)