Following on from touching on issues with the modelling for 2020, the discussion continues regarding fatality rates and the misuse of case fatality rates, when infection fatality rates would provide a more balanced picture.
In March 2020, Stat featured an article by one of the most eminent medical experts in the US, Stanford Professor John Ioannidis, where he notes that the new coronavirus may be no more dangerous than some of the common coronaviruses, even in older people. He argued that there is no reliable medical data backing the measures that had been imposed.
Swiss Propaganda Research Group (SWPRS) has collated a massive amount of information regarding COVID-19. As early as their 20 March, 2020 update, (which has been subsumed by more recent updates), they wrote that many doctors did not expect this corona virus to be worse than the common flu, and also expressed concern that lockdowns could be more detrimental than the impact than the virus. (For a comprehensive and continuously updated collation of the findings of peer-reviewed papers, reports etc. regarding many aspects of COVID-19, their website is one among others worth exploring).
Case fatality rate versus infection fatality rate
The German Network for Evidence-Based Medicine (EbM) point out, among others, that the infection fatality rate (IFR) should be taken into account, rather than the case fatality rate (CFR). The IFR divides all of those infected (including asymptomatic) by the number of people dying, to reach the mortality rate, while the CFR only divides the number of ill by the number of deaths, therefore the CFR has been considerably higher and caused undue alarm.
Analysing the data in Germany and other European countries, the EbM found that the prevalence numbers had already started to fall before the lockdowns were imposed in Germany, Switzerland and Austria, as per a statement released on 13 October 2020. And even though the CDR was initially reported, it was still lower than the predicted 10% in some regions, while, as mentioned, the IFR would be far, far lower to include those with very mild symptoms as well as asymptomatic people.
In the spring (European), they calculated the IFR was between 0.1% and 0.4% in Germany and between 0.1 and 0.6% for Austria, noting that this does not include “the number of undetected infected persons (because not measured or tested false negative) nor a possible false positive rate is taken into account,” in other words the IFR could even be lower.
Resonating with these results was one of the first scientific studies, done in Germany by Professor Hendrik Streeck, head of the virology institute at the University of Bonn, who found a low fatality rate of 0.37%, leading to urging that public life should return to normal and that businesses did not need to be killed off – lockdown could be ended. This verdict came in mid-April 2020.
Stanford University Professor John Ioannidis reviewed 61 seroprevalence studies, “Infection fatality rate of COVID-19 inferred from seroprevalence data,” in the Bulletin of the World Health Organisation in October 2020. While he noted that there is significant variation across regions, overall the “inferred infection fatality rates tended to be much lower than estimates made earlier in the pandemic.”
“Across 51 locations, the median COVID-19 infection fatality rate was 0.27% (corrected 0.23%): the rate was 0.09% in locations with COVID-19 population mortality rates less than the global average (500 COVID-19 deaths/million people)."
The EbM comment that their findings are aligned to the results of Ioannidis and Streeck et al. While estimates need to be used with care because of the wide variations between the studies, overall it is fairly clear that the fatality rate have been far below the modelled estimates, they comment, reiterating that most deaths in Germany were in the elderly and many of the deceased had underlying conditions, as with similar patterns around the world.
It has been widely reported that the elderly are the most at-risk group, by the UK Column, United Health Professionals, etc. The SWPRS noted during the first lockdowns that in the hotspots in Italy, the average age of those who died, having tested positive, was 81 years. This trend has been similar in other parts of the world.
In the Unherd interview cited in a previous post, Gupta mentioned that her team had also estimated a low IFR, to be less than 1 in a 1000, and quite possibly as low as 1 in 10,000 – between 0.1% and 0.5% – which is much lower than a very bad influenza year and would never usually result in the draconian measures imposed. In 2020 news broadcasts of The Highwire, US journalist Del Bigtree pointed out that the average flu season mortality rate in the US is around 0.13%, and in the past even if the rate went up as high as 5%, this would not be grounds for lockdown.
From the start, reporting the IFR instead of the CFR created a skewed representation of reality
As cited by SWPRS, another epidemiological study, published in June 2020, concludes that the fatality of COVID19 even in the Chinese city of Wuhan was only 0.04% to 0.12%, also lower than that of seasonal flu, which has an estimated mortality rate of about 0.1%. SWPRS write: “As a reason for the overestimated fatality of COVID19, the researchers suspect that initially only a small number of cases were recorded in Wuhan, as the disease was probably asymptomatic or mild in many people, which would push up the case fatality rate but disregard the incidence fatality rate.”
Most infected people are barely symptomatic
On April 3, 2020, SWPRS noted: “The medical evidence from all parts of the world is clear: for the vast majority of the population, even the elderly, C19 produces no symptoms or mild symptoms. Local healthcare collapses and excess mortality have psychological and political reasons first and foremost”.
Influenza numbers globally dropped to almost zero
Many commentators, as for example Mike Robinson and Patrick Henningsen, in the UK Column news broadcast on YouTube on 19 February 2021, have pointed out that deaths from influenza in the UK, as well as the rest of the world, as reported by the WHO, had from the onset of the alleged COVID-19 pandemic dropped off into statistical insignificance, and continued this trend right through the (European) winter of 2020/2021. They infer therefore that these cases had been subsumed into the number of COVID-19 deaths. Some analysts, such as Dr James Lyons-Weiler, in Vaccines Revealed, have also cautioned that the COVID label is causing medical professionals to misdiagnose other conditions as COVID, leading to, for example, bacterial pneumonia being improperly treated, which can lead to death.
The next post offers a dive into the all-cause mortality rates.