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ANALYZING COVID CONTROLS
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The CFR (Case Fatality Rate) is not the all-important IFR (Infection Fatality Rate)
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How deadly is the coronavirus? Scientists are close to an answer Public-health researchers use the infection fatality rate to gauge how to respond to a new disease, but it’s tricky to calculate.
Researchers use a metric called infection fatality rate (IFR) to calculate how deadly a new disease is. It is the proportion of infected people who will die as a result, including those who don’t get tested or show symptoms.
“The IFR is one of the important numbers alongside the herd immunity threshold, and has implications for the scale of an epidemic and how seriously we should take a new disease,� says Robert Verity, an epidemiologist at Imperial College London.
Some of the first indications of the virus’s deadliness were gleaned from the total number of confirmed cases in China. In late February, the World Health Organization crudely estimated that 38 people had died for every 1,000 with confirmed COVID-19 diagnoses. The death rate among these people � known as the case fatality rate (CFR) � reached as high as 58 out of 1,000 in Wuhan, the city where the virus emerged. But such estimates exaggerated the disease’s deadliness because they did not account for the many people who had the virus but were not tested, obscuring the outbreak’s true spread.
Researchers tried to address this gap by estimating the IFR from models that projected the virus’s spread.
How deadly is the coronavirus? The true fatality rate is tricky to find, but researchers are getting closer Early reports from January painted a grim picture about just how deadly the coronavirus was. Initially, the World Health Organization estimated that the percentage of infected individuals who die from COVID-19 was 3.4%. That statistic is called the infection fatality rate (IFR) � or colloquially, the death rate � and means that for every hundred people infected with COVID-19, on average, between three and four would die.
As time has gone on, it has become clear that the true risk of death is much lower. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention currently has a best guess of 0.65% for the IFR. But current estimates fall anywhere between 0.2% and 1%, a surprisingly large range when calculating the infection fatality rate should be as simple as dividing the number of deaths by total infections. And these estimates are changing all the time. In fact, in the time it took to write this article, the CDC changed its best estimate of the fatality rate from 0.26% to 0.65%.
As a reference point, Influenza is said to have about a 3% CFR death toll, but that is also TOTALLY irrelevant...and influenza usually has only a 0.1% IFR (apart very bad Infleunza seasons that ocassionally happen, as in 2017-18, which have more like 0.2-0.3% IFR rates).Main reason to calculate CFR is it is very useful for staff in hospitals, I'm told. They need to know how deadly something is within hospitals to estimate beds and staff needed during an outrbreak of any virus. But of course only severe cases get registered as infected, let alone hospitalized...
James Morcan, thank you for that! I know personally of only one person tested, she tested negative. Thousands have been tested here, many more haven't, yet probably have had it
"CDC now believes (as do I) that ~10% of the U.S. has already been infected (i.e. 32M)" "It is irresponsible to report on “lab confirmed� cases without providing an estimate for “unreported� or “estimated infections.� The 5% we see in the news is really closer to 0.3% (for people infected). And of course, far more people have been exposed, but nobody reports the lower “exposure to fatality� ratios."
A systematic review and meta-analysis of published research data on COVID-19 infection-fatality rates An important unknown during the COVID-19 pandemic has been the infection-fatality rate (IFR). This differs from the case-fatality rate (CFR) as an estimate of the number of deaths as a proportion of the total number of cases, including those who are mild and asymptomatic. While the CFR is extremely valuable for experts, IFR is increasingly being called for by policy-makers and the lay public as an estimate of the overall mortality from COVID-19.
The issue is with the death count of CFR is that the fatality rate is including people who died of other comorbidities but were 'weakened' by corona and so their other diseases became stronger. In this argument it is that they died, 'with' rather than 'of' corona. This has been argued by multiple doctors (1,2) publicly, that they are being pushed to write that people died with corona to be added to national death counts, when normally an autopsy would not be done on an old person to determine cause of death. Due to old people being frail and any number of ailments can kill them at this stage. 1. This link has some transcript, with the videos at the end .
2. Articles citing the Italian government's doctors: and .
If you look at the Italian government, one of the countries first hit very heavily by the coronavirus: . This document is in english and is updated regularly. In the charts you can see that the rate of death for the healthy is extremely low, about 4% which is inclusive of every age range including the old and frail. That 60% of people whom have died, have died with 3+ comorbidities at their time of death. So the CFR would be extremely low, especially so if you take in the total hypothetical IFR, for the healthy of any age. And for the old, as prior stated, normal influenza is deadly for also.
The CFR and IFR should take in the rate of death for the total population, not just those older. As they are very unlikely to show the ages publicly. This is a problem because in places like Sweden when corona hits aged care homes it can wipe people out because they are already frail. But the disease is not 'wiping out the general population', but that is what the media overseas discusses it as. Some of us do live in an ageing population I guess... still stupid to inflate its severity for like 80% of age groups (most severe 70+ years old).
Siren wrote: "The issue is with the death count of CFR is that the fatality rate is including people who died of other comorbidities but were 'weakened' by corona and so their other diseases became stronger. In ..."Well summarized, thanks.
Another 0.01% IFR fatality rate estimate (1 in every 1,000 estimated to die, better than the worst Influenza seasons), this time a medical study from the Middle East...Qatari researchers led by Dr Laith J. Abu Raddad from Cornell University, Doha, used a mathematical model to get an idea of how many people in Qatar had been infected over the pandemic.
The model was based on data about how the SARS-Cov-2 naturally spreads in a population and the results of a series of studies in Qatar that used swab and antibody tests until around the date July 10.
The model showed that the IFR was 0.01 per cent, which was 'remarkable', the researchers said.
Characterizing the Qatar advanced-phase SARS-CoV-2 epidemic
Laith J. Abu Raddad PhD,1,2,3* Hiam Chemaitelly MSc,1,2 Houssein H. Ayoub PhD,4 Zaina Al
Kanaani PhD,5 Abdullatif Al Khal MD,5 Einas Al Kuwari MD,5
Adeel A. Butt MD,5 Peter Coyle
MD,5 Andrew Jeremijenko MD,5 Anvar Hassan Kaleeckal MSc,5 Ali Nizar Latif MD,5
Robert C.
Owen MD,5
Hanan F. Abdul Rahim PhD,6
Samya A. Al Abdulla MD,7
Mohamed G. Al Kuwari
MD,7
Mujeeb C. Kandy MSc,7 Hatoun Saeb MSc,
7 Shazia Nadeem N. Ahmed MD,8 Hamad Eid
Al Romaihi MD,8 Devendra Bansal PhD,8 Louise Dalton MA,8 Sheikh Mohammad Al Thani
MD,
8 and Roberto Bertollini MD8
1
Infectious Disease Epidemiology Group, Weill Cornell Medicine-Qatar, Cornell University,
Doha, Qatar
2
World Health Organization Collaborating Centre for Disease Epidemiology Analytics on
HIV/AIDS, Sexually Transmitted Infections, and Viral Hepatitis, Weill Cornell Medicine–Qatar,
Cornell University, Qatar Foundation � Education City, Doha, Qatar
3
Department of Population Health Sciences, Weill Cornell Medicine, Cornell University, New
York, New York, USA
4
Department of Mathematics, Statistics, and Physics, Qatar University, Doha, Qatar
5
Hamad Medical Corporation, Doha, Qatar
6
College of Health Sciences, QU Health, Qatar University, Doha, Qatar
7
Primary Health Care Corporation, Doha, Qatar
8
Ministry of Public Health, Doha, Qatar
I have two issues that I really haven't been able to find answers for.1. In addition to the IFR, what about permanent damage to the lungs and other organs? You can survive the virus but be left with lifelong compromised health. That plus death would be a better accounting of the risk, in my opinion.
2. I have never seen the stats given on how many people have been infected cover the false positive rate (which is said to be about 5%). When I started asking this question, there was about 0.6% infection rate (or so they say).
This means that even if you test positive, there's a 5%/(0.6% + 5%)= 89.3% chance that it's actually false positive. I've never seen more accurate follow up testing explained, so we know if false positives are accounted for. For all I know many of the asymptomatic cases counted were actually false positive.
This former Pfizer VP says the IFR (infection fatality rate) for Covid-19 is "only a little bit more" than the IFR for the average seasonal flu...and no worse than in a bad flu season. And he insists the lockdowns are pointless and scientists are lying to their governments!...
Virologist Dr. Michael Yeadon, is one of the most credentialed medical professionals speaking out about the dangers of the Covid-19 vaccines, yet it has fallen on deaf ears.
Lance wrote: "This former Pfizer VP says the IFR (infection fatality rate) for Covid-19 is "only a little bit more" than the IFR for the average seasonal flu...and no worse than in a bad flu season. And he insis..."ive tried to explain this to my family and it makes no difference. love the highwire!
Infection fatality rate of COVID-19 in community-based elderly lower than earlier estimates "0.06% IFR for the flu, more than double the IFR for COVID-19"
Jess the Shelf-Declared Bibliophile wrote: "ive tried to explain this to my family and it makes no difference...."In my view this is because most humans, including so-called "experts" and "scientists", are the opposite of computers - i.e. the human brain evolved over thousands of years to digest narratives NOT facts. That's why we are seeing so many scientists, doctors, etc, clearly being anti-scientific and exhibiting cult-like behaviour without realizing it. Because this false narrative has been constantly reported in the media like no other news STORY in history. Remarkable really and you gotta take your hat off to the spin doctors who pulled this scam off.
There has arguably been more pseudoscience regurgitated within mainstream academia in the last 18 months than ever before. People cherry picking facts to try to prove the narrative their brain has already accepted (that's the antithesis of science and the likes of Einstein and Tesla would be rolling in their graves).
"After all, the average (IFR) death rate of covid is a mere 0.26% of those infected (this is a stat that the media consistently and deliberately refuses to mention to the public). This means that 99.7% of the public is in NO danger from covid whether they are vaccinated or not."
How Deadly is Covid-19? "The world’s self-destruction over Covid-19 has been justified on the basis that SARS-COV-02 is so deadly that we have no choice but to resort to the drastic actions we are used to. But more and more people now question the science, the motivation, the numbers, and the overriding objective of saving lives, without regard to the need for freedom, without regard to the possibility that we are causing deaths, without regard to perspective and without regard to the pain caused for so many. Mental health cannot be cured with money."
"The science applied during the pandemic is so appalling that we cannot determine reliably how deadly the virus is. This has resulted in academic estimates which have grossly inflated the risk of dying which is not supported by the numbers."
"...Based on this data the current UK Case Fatality Ratio is 0.1% which is at alleged seasonal flu levels."
READ FULL ARTICLE HERE:
The mental health and other related issues are far worse than a virus which shares the overall mortality rate of a bad flu season. If anyone disputes that claim or questions Covid's fatality rate refer them to this article The New England Journal of Medicine... The key take-way >>> highlighted thus <<< is this excerpt:
"If one assumes that the number of asymptomatic or minimally symptomatic cases is several times as high as the number of reported cases, >>> the case fatality rate may be considerably less than 1%. <<< This suggests that the overall clinical consequences of Covid-19 may ultimately be more akin to those of a severe seasonal influenza (which has a case fatality rate of approximately 0.1%) or a pandemic influenza (similar to those in 1957 and 1968) rather than a disease similar to SARS or MERS, which have had case fatality rates of 9 to 10% and 36%, respectively.2"
I suspect the IFR stats would be even more revealing.
Lance wrote: "The mental health and other related issues are far worse than a virus which shares the overall mortality rate of a bad flu season."Another thing I've been saying since the start. I'd rather have a cold than depression and anxiety any day.
And now we have the dreaded Monkey Pox to contend with...Or should that read Money Pox?
From what I have heard, Monkey Pox is not ransmitted by airborne means, so soap and water is probably your best investment here.
The IFR does use estimates (like many things in medicine), but it is the ONLY thing that matters as it also includes all those who never got tested, those who never knew they had the virus, etc etc. That's why the London Imperial College estimates 8M Brits have already had the virus and of that 44,000 or so have died (that rate there is the IFR). Whereas when you look at the CFR (which no medical studies bother much with as it's basically irrelevant) ONLY 250,000 Brits are registered as having the virus (as of early July).
Now of course, estimates are only estimates. But in the year 2020 medical science is advanced enough to estimate with very strong accuracy. Given the amount of testing to date (various testing including antibody studies) they are definitely in the ballpark.
We can all rest assured this will be nowhere near the Spanish Flu (which had a whopping IFR of 3.5%!) and basically we are arguing now over decimal points with our current virus. e.g. Will the IFR be 0.2% or 0.35% or 0.5% or 0.65% (those level figures). Medical science will be proved here to be completely useless, and might've even been replaced by voodoo science, if somehow the final IFR ends up anywhere near the Spanish Flu or the percentages some medically-naive media outlets have been quoting as sensational and Armageddon--like headline news (again, by inadvertently sharing the CFR as if that represents the death toll). And yet, remember, originally this was said to be something like the Spanish Flu and NOTHING like Influenza (Now, the IFR of Rona is revealing itself to be much closer to Influenza than the Spanish Flu).
Infection fatality rate
The term infection fatality rate (IFR) also applies to infectious disease outbreaks, and represents the proportion of deaths among all the infected individuals. It is closely related to the CFR, but attempts to additionally account for all asymptomatic and undiagnosed infections.[7] The IFR differs from the CFR in that it aims to estimate the fatality rate in all those with infection: the detected disease (cases) and those with an undetected disease (asymptomatic and not tested group).[8] (Individuals who are infected, but always remain asymptomatic, are said to have "inapparent" � or silent, or subclinical � infections.) The IFR will always be lower than the CFR as long as all deaths are accurately attributed to either the infected or the non-infected class.
CFR IS NOT IFR
One source of great confusion has been the case fatality rate (CFR) versus the infection fatality rate (IFR.) These are two very different numbers.
An infection is when the flu virus gets into the body and the body produces antibodies to fight it off. Usually the infection is mild or even asymptomatic. No medical attention is required.
A case is when someone gets sick enough to be hospitalized or diagnosed affirmatively by a physician in a medical environment.
One source of COVID-19 fear has been mistaking the CFR for the IFR. Let’s take the flu for instance, the CFR for the flu is about three percent, three out of 100, about the same as COVID-19. But the flu’s IFR is one-tenth of one percent (one out of 1,000.)
In other words, if you get sick enough to see a doctor or be hospitalized, the flu will be fatal for three out of 100 of those people, the same as COVID-19. But if you just catch the flu, it is only fatal for one out of 1,000 infected.
We have studied the flu enough to know the difference between the CFR and the IFR of the flu. But because COVID-19 is less studied, we have less understanding of its characteristics. We know its CFR is three percent, similar to the flu’s CFR, but we don’t know COVID-19’s IFR.
In the last few weeks, research is giving us insight into the IFR of COVID-19. It is looking very much like the IFR of the flu. That’s because for every COVID-19 infection that leads to illness, there are many, many more infections that are asymptomatic or mild.