The IFR represents how many of those who got it and ended up dead (regardless of whether their case was tested, diagnosed or confirmed). It doesn't represent the whole population.
The same study estimated 60-80% of people could eventually contract the disease. 70% * 0.66% = 0.46% mortality rate from the disease. This would equate to about 35 million people globally. (70% infection rate is not going to happen overnight and I would hope that one way or another fewer people get infected than this - on the Diamond Princess where they tested nearly everyone, only about 25% of passengers got infected - but we will see.)
It's important to understand the definitions of all the terms involved. A misunderstanding of the statistics has resulted in panic -- people see a 5% death rate from a specific group of confirmed cases and assume that translates to their demographic, or overall population etc. when it does not.
The mortality rate is the percentage of the total population that dies. The infection fatality rate is the percentage of all cases, diagnosed or undiagnosed. The case fatality rate is the percentage of diagnosed cases. [2]
Not saying it's not a serious disease, 35 million deaths is many many times more than the flu. But we aren't going to lose 1% of humanity to this disease. And personally I would advocate for a smart and measured response like we've seen in South Korea or Taiwan over a panicked and destructive response like we are seeing in the US and UK.
[1] https://www.thelancet.com/journals/laninf/article/PIIS1473-3...
No one wants to have to think about these numbers, but if you're responsible for making policy, it's very important to have good estimates of how many lives your policy will save and how many it will ruin. If you don't you're just reacting to the latest panic in the news cycle as sadly far too many politicians do.
Data matters, facts matter.
You're talking about a difference between a massive number of people dying, and a massive number divided by two dying, and then arguing that a massive number divided by two is not nearly as serious.
Nobody knows what the true numbers will be, but only the rough range they'll be in, so arguing over a factor of two is meaningless. These are terrifying numbers either way.
> If you don't you're just reacting to the latest panic in the news cycle as sadly far too many politicians do.
The "panic" is caused by people finally listening to what epidemiologists have been saying for months. False calm has been far more damaging on this pandemic than panic. If politicians had listened to the panic mongers earlier, the world wouldn't be in this situation.
Unfortunately, the short-sighted rush to reopen everything too quickly, or not to shut it down in the first place, is undermining these efforts. The shutdown worked in China, where it was strictly observed and enforced for several weeks. I hope the US can do the same.
IMF poverty line is < $1.90 a day so surely many of them will die from malnutrition or preventable disease as well.
Edit: it was Oxfam that published the report to inform the IMF and World Bank at their meeting next week
It's a relevant perspective, but I can't seem to find any source for IMF claiming that. Do you have one or are you referring to research publicized by Oxfam[1]?
The average COVID-19 death in Italy is 78 years old and sick.
The average hunger death is going to be young, otherwise healthy, and in the developing world (likely somewhere in sub-saharan Africa).
You can draw your own measures, but I would not personally weight these lives saved equally. I would personally throw several 78 year olds under the COVID-bus to save the life of one young child. I think most people would draw similar lines.
> The first thing that jumps out from the medical history section of Table 1 is that 93% of those critically ill with COVID-19 were “able to live without assistance in daily activities” prior to developing the disease. That typically suggests reasonable health. 3/8
> Secondly, just 7% of 2,124 intensive care admissions had “very severe comorbidities”. That’s significantly less than typical viral pneumonia patients (as illustrated in table 1)
> So 19 out of 20 were free of the most severe life-limiting conditions. 4/8
> Lastly, for now, the age distribution. Most critical cases are aged between 50 and 80.
> People of this age, without severe comorbidities, could reasonably have expected to have years of life ahead of them before they contracted this disease. 5/8
Not making any comments on the rest of your points, but I have to heavily disagree with this one. Sure, people who have cardiovascular and heart issues, diabetes, asthma, etc. are all "able to live without assistance in daily activities". That doesn't suggest reasonable health to me at all, it just tells me that they are able to live their lives without a caretaker by their side.
And data from Italy suggests that over 99% of the people who died from COVID had existing conditions like those[0].
0. https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-18/99-of-tho...
They need to be intentional choices, with an understanding of the costs, where the costs are often paid by people we don't see or frequently think about.
The visualization at https://91-divoc.com/pages/covid-visualization/ is IMHO the clearest to explore this stuff. It's based on the Johns Hopkins data set, which is relatively well curated.
Separately Sweden is also a country with an extensive social safety net, where every citizen has the right to free healthcare and every employee will receive 80% of their salary for two weeks without a doctor's note at no cost for the employer[2].
Time will tell if the Swedish approach was the right one and even if so the Swedish case will end up being dependant on rather unique constraints that simply will not map to the US, at least not on a national level.
[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Amendment_to_the_United... [2] https://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=1130&langId=en&in...
Most people are infected with some form of Herpes virus AIUI, from Chickenpox to Cold Sores, it's very common.
One ironic downside of “flattening the curve” is that it makes it longer. So, barring a vaccine or effective therapeutic treatment, we will all get the virus eventually (but in an orderly fashion, which is good for the health system), and that 75 million deaths will become a reality. Note that’s also assuming a 1% death rate which may be a vast overestimate depending on asymptomatic percentages.
That said, I tend to agree with you that we should keep social distancing in place until we are able to contain new cases, or until we have a much better understanding of the virus itself. At this point there is just too much uncertainty, so it’s better to wait it out until we can establish some clarity and have a better idea of how to approach therapeutics.
Source for this? That sounds like a shockingly high number if true.
https://www.sfgate.com/news/medical/article/Some-doctors-mov...
https://www.evms.edu/covid-19/medical_information_resources/...