4 ms·

At the start the media flat out lied about covid mortality rates to scare people into compliance, using the case fatality rate instead of the infection fatality

At the start the media flat out lied about covid mortality rates to scare people into compliance, using the case fatality rate instead of the infection fatality rate (the former is much higher because only more serious cases end up in hospital, so there's a selection bias, especially when many cases are asymptomatic). It also ignored the age-stratified nature of risk, which the data showed really early on, quoting the mortality rate for 80 year olds as if it applied to everyone, when in fact the mortality rate decreased roughly 10x for every 10 years of age below 80.

deleted 2y ago
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TheOtherHobbes 2y ago
The global IFR is around 0.6%. And a complex mix of persistent COVID sequelae - including cognitive decline, heart disease, severe chronic fatigue, and reduced immunity - are happening in around 10% of those infected, at all ages. The big problem with bird flu - actually any flu - is that even if people don't die they can be off sick for a couple of weeks. And if you have tens of millions off sick for a couple of weeks at the same time, everything stops working.
- Izkata 2y ago
  The global IFR was claimed to be around 3% and CFR around 10% in early 2020 because of how the tests were restricted, artificially reducing the denominator. I think serious side-effects were claimed around 40-50% as well, but not sure I'm remembering that one right. It was never actually that high, but most people had no idea what was actually going on and it caused all sorts of panic which led to the lockdowns.