Profession John Ioannidis: “Infection fatality rate of COVID-19 in community-dwelling populations with emphasis on the elderly: An overview”

2022-01-11 • SEND FEEDBACK |
Related: John Ioannidis, pandemic of the vaccinated, SARS-CoV-2 aka COVID-19 aka Coronavirus, vaccination

re: COVID
re: John Ioannidis

Professor John Ioannidis is one of the few experts I trust. The data in this study comes from seroprevalance of antibodies—not perfect, but far more credible than the GIGO data from PCR tests and/or hospital data.

And here we are months later from this study with the Omicron variant, spreading like a wind-driven wildfire with not much impact on deaths and massive infection rates.

No figures like this would be complete without at least some context:

• About 659,000 people in the United States die from heart disease each year — about 1 in 500!
• About 100K people die from drug overdoses each each — about 1 in 3600 — but real rate (almost all adults) is far higher.
• Prescription drugs are the third leading cause of death after heart disease and cancer in the United States and Europe, an estimated 128000 Americans or about 1 in 2578 (and probably more here in 2021/2022).
• Baseline death rate prior to COVID is about 1 in 115 in 2018, changed only a little from COVID (about 1 in 111 in 2021 as per this chart). The future will show us how many will die from COVID policies (hint: far more than from COVID).

Infection fatality rate of COVID-19 in community-dwelling populations with emphasis on the elderly: An overview

Posted 2021-12-23.

For persons 0-19 years, the median IFR was one death per 76,900 persons with COVID-19 infection, followed by estimates of 1:11,300 in ages 20-29, 1:4800 in ages 30-39, and 1:2400 in ages 40-49. The Imperial College study (62) has ∼10 times higher estimates for persons 0-19 years and ∼3 times higher for persons 20-29 years old; otherwise estimates in age groups <50 years are fairly consistent across previous (4, 5) and current analyses despite methodological differences.

Results Twenty-five seroprevalence surveys representing 14 countries were included. Across all countries, the median IFR in community-dwelling elderly and elderly overall was 2.9% (range 0.2%-6.9%) and 4.9% (range 0.2%-16.8%) without accounting for seroreversion (2.4% and 4.0%, respectively, accounting for 5% monthly seroreversion). Multiple sensitivity analyses yielded similar results. IFR was higher with larger proportions of people >85 years. Younger age strata had low IFR values (median 0.0013%, 0.0088%, 0.021%, 0.042%, 0.14%, and 0.65%, at 0-19, 20-29, 30-39, 40-49, 50-59, and 60-69 years even without accounting for seroreversion).

Conclusions The IFR of COVID-19 in community-dwelling elderly people is lower than previously reported. Very low IFRs were confirmed in the youngest populations.

And, previously:

Infection fatality rate of COVID-19 inferred from seroprevalence data

2021-10-14.

...

Positive controls for the antibody assays used were typically symptomatic patients with positive polymerase chain reaction tests. Symptomatic patients may be more likely to develop antibod- ies.87–91 Since seroprevalence studies specifically try to reveal undiagnosed asymptomatic and mildly symptomatic infections, a lower sensitivity for these mild infections could lead to substantial underestimates of the number of infected people and overestimates of the inferred infection fatality rate.

A main issue with seroprevalence studies is whether they offer a repre- sentative picture of the population in the assessed region. A generic problem is that vulnerable people at high risk of infection and/or death may be more difficult to recruit... This sampling obstacle would result in underestimating the seroprevalence and overestimating infection fatality rate.

...An unknown proportion of people may have responded to the virus using immune mechanisms (mucosal, innate, cellular) without generating any detectable serum antibodies.

...

Acknowledging these limitations, based on the currently available data, one may project that over half a billion people have been infected as of 12 September 2020, far more than the approximately 29 million documented laboratory-confirmed cases. Most locations probably have an infection fatality rate less than 0.20% and with ap- propriate, precise non-pharmacological measures that selectively try to protect high-risk vulnerable populations and settings, the infection fatality rate may be brought even lower.

WIND: in other words, COVID is far, far less serious than the fear-mongering propaganda has made it out to be. And here we are 15 months later, with the Omicron variant. The real fatality rates are clearly much lower.