The OP correct about best estimates for IFR at a global level, and you shouldn't be dismissing the number out-of-hand. The difficulty with "global average IFR"

The OP correct about best estimates for IFR at a global level, and you shouldn't be dismissing the number out-of-hand. The difficulty with "global average IFR" is that it neglects the massive variation in IFR by age. This Nature paper: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2918-0 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2918-0 made an attempt to break down the IFR by demographic, and found an almost 100,000-fold difference between the youngest and the oldest groups: https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2918-0/figures/2 https://www.nature.com/articles/s41586-020-2918-0/figures/2 As such, the "IFR" for a country is going to vary dramatically with the age of the population. It isn't particularly meaningful to talk about IFR as a single number, but it's decidedly true that for anyone under 60, the risk of death is measured in fractions of a percent. For those under 25, the risk is measured in thousandths of a percent.