I came across that meta-study that jsb posted that estimates the IFR at 0.74% (but didn't post it because it seemed too flimsy) because its author shared it as a counterpoint to a new study from the Stanford professor who was behind the Santa Clara study, and who continues beating the drum that the true IFR is 0.1% or some such preposterous number. It's kind of funny that jsb got ridiculed for posting the Stanford guy's study, and then—for the same reason—is getting ridiculed for posting a study from a guy refuting the Stanford study.
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Originally Posted by grizy
true IFR is sub 1%, and very possibly under 0.6% (where SK is now I think).
Link to antibody data on South Korea?
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Originally Posted by Kelhus100
Iceland with an IFR of around 0.5% is probably a very best case scenario, where probably a lot of young travelers got infected, but they responsibly quarantined and didn't give it to older people in poor health.
Here's Iceland's data. Their disease burden isn't really from young travelers. The median age of infected is well over the median age of the country. It's convenient to ignore the Iceland data when there's so much other data pointing to a higher death rate, but I think that's a mistake. In Iceland, 869 people between 40 and 69 had the virus, including 212 over age 60, and only two people died.
What's annoying about these IFR discussions is that it's super difficult to prove anyone wrong unless they're off by an order of magnitude. If jsb wanted to be a dick, he could continue trotting out Iceland, or Qatar, and proclaim IFR is well under 1%. It obviously changes by population, but what I don't see mentioned hardly ever here is that it changes over time. Not just in terms of who has died so far—have younger people been disproportionately infected, and seniors are an IFR time bomb, or is NYC's IFR so high because Cuomo insisted COVID-positive seniors be sent back into nursing homes and dying seniors skewed the IFR upward—but in the fact that treatment gets better over time. A huge number of deaths are from when we were venting patients right away, thinking this was all about ARDS, but now that has shifted dramatically and we're treating the systemic endothelial damage much better. It wouldn't surprise me if the IFR were cut in half just from the change in treatment protocols over the past month or two. That was much of why when TS and I talked about the IFR several pages ago, I said I would take the under on 1% by the end of the year. So I think discussions on a precise IFR even for a particular country or time period are pretty moot. The value in IFR estimates is knowing whether herd immunity is viable, or whether a vaccine is worth administering given its side effects. Even if you think IFR is 0.5%, which may be true in Iceland, going back to a pre-COVID lifestyle with no contact tracing or mask wearing results in too many deaths.