The authors here are selective in what data they choose to include and also count the discredited Stanford Santa Clara County antibody study and the dubious contemporaneous Los Angeles one.For what its worth, this is from one of my favorite complimentary medicine sites:
New Data on the Number of Asymptomatic Infections Dramatically Lowers the COVID-19 Case-fatality Rate
New Data on the Number of Asymptomatic Infections Dramatically Lowers the COVID-19 Case-fatality Rate
Their 'analysis' is taking four figures of IFR from different antibody studies and averaging them. They conflate infection fatality rate (IFR) and case fatality rate (CFR), not understanding the difference. The early reports of the CFR of Covid-19 were not an estimate of the IFR. The CFR of influenza is an overestimate of the IFR of influenza, much like the CFR of Covid-19 is an overestimate of the IFR of Covid-19.PIC's analysis results in a COVID-19 CFR of 0.26%, which is comparable to the case fatality rates of previous seasonal and pandemic flu periods.
Emerging estimates of past and current infection prevalence in conjunction with total COVID-19 deaths could also be used to calibrate the model, noting that the 0·63% (95% CI 0·45–0·79) infection-fatality rate (IFR) suggested by Davies and colleagues' model might underestimate the true IFR in the UK. New seroprevalence data indicate 6·8% (5·2–8·6) of the UK population have had previous severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infection as of May 24. With 36 000 deaths, this suggests an IFR of 0·8%; with 44 000 deaths (using death certificate data), this suggests an IFR of 1·0%.
That's not very scientific of you.Coronavirus has reaffirmed the scientific method as the most powerful way of thinking.
If we simply compare 1918 Spanish Flue epidemic, we find that about 500 million were infected and 50 million died.
In contrast to that, 100 years later in 2020, an equally powerful virus COVID-19, only caused 7.27 million infections and just 413,000 deaths. So, in just 100 years, science reduced the number of deaths from major worldwide epidemics by 121 times.
That's not very scientific of you.
The Spanish flu pandemic began in January 1918 and lasted until December 1920, I would wait until this coronavirus run for the sam
e amount of time of 36 months before comparing final statistical numbers...In my opinion science has not come through yet for us in this current pandemic, I'd know many are working on vaccines but we haven't got that yet, if it will even be possible and it's likely lazy science which allowed this virus to escape from the laboratory in Wuhan...In a way we can blame science for this current pandemic...
...
Spanish flue lasted more or less 2 years or 24 months.
More...36 months...
...
But the principle holds, that science saved tens of millions of lives in comparison with 100 years earlier.
COVID-19 can mutate as much as it likes but every day we are one day closer to having the vaccine.
Was it scientific ignorance that caused such a high mortality in the Spanish Influenza epidemic? Or was it merely the virulence of the disease, coupled with, as now, pig-headed refusal to take sensible measures to kerb its spread?
The following picture was taken in 1918:
![]()
The following report is from March, 2020:
Face masks: WHO stands by recommendation to not wear them if you are not sick or not caring for someone who is sick - CNN
Until very recently, the WHO and many national health authorities and scientific advisers were saying that masks don't work. Or, spookily (scientifically?), they only work for doctors. Now, faced with the reality that, yes, mask usage by the general public has a large effect on the rate of disease spread, they have had to U-turn (although there are several national health authorities, particularly in east Asia, who knew this about masks all along, and did not struggle to remember what was known about the spread of respiratory infections in 1918).
The scientific advice in this country was to do nothing (because they were sticking rigidly to a plan for the wrong disease), until a U-turn in mid-March, which was far too late to prevent an enormous tragedy. Far from benefiting from scientific advances, the strict hospital admission criteria coupled with the expected case load and lack of effective treatment meant that many thousands were told "can you die at home, please?"
It was also scientific advice that informed Britain's poor preparations. The pandemic preparedness plan said that there was no need for a large number of contact tracers, as these would only be useful during the very early stages of the pandemic to establish the likely severity. It turns out that contact tracers, and large numbers of them, are useful all throughout a pandemic of a disease such as Covid. The press is distracted by nonsense that this is something to do with funding cuts and austerity, but if your war plan says that a weapon in your armoury is no longer needed, then you don't keep it around. It was this scientific 'advance' that said that something crucial was now obsolete, when the previous generation knew better.
Was it scientific ignorance that caused such a high mortality in the Spanish Influenza epidemic? Or was it merely the virulence of the disease, coupled with, as now, pig-headed refusal to take sensible measures to kerb its spread?
The following picture was taken in 1918:
![]()
The following report is from March, 2020:
Face masks: WHO stands by recommendation to not wear them if you are not sick or not caring for someone who is sick - CNN
Until very recently, the WHO and many national health authorities and scientific advisers were saying that masks don't work. Or, spookily (scientifically?), they only work for doctors. Now, faced with the reality that, yes, mask usage by the general public has a large effect on the rate of disease spread, they have had to U-turn (although there are several national health authorities, particularly in east Asia, who knew this about masks all along, and did not struggle to remember what was known about the spread of respiratory infections in 1918).
The scientific advice in this country was to do nothing (because they were sticking rigidly to a plan for the wrong disease), until a U-turn in mid-March, which was far too late to prevent an enormous tragedy. Far from benefiting from scientific advances, the strict hospital admission criteria coupled with the expected case load and lack of effective treatment meant that many thousands were told "can you die at home, please?"
It was also scientific advice that informed Britain's poor preparations. The pandemic preparedness plan said that there was no need for a large number of contact tracers, as these would only be useful during the very early stages of the pandemic to establish the likely severity. It turns out that contact tracers, and large numbers of them, are useful all throughout a pandemic of a disease such as Covid. The press is distracted by nonsense that this is something to do with funding cuts and austerity, but if your war plan says that a weapon in your armoury is no longer needed, then you don't keep it around. It was this scientific 'advance' that said that something crucial was now obsolete, when the previous generation knew better.