WHO peer reviewed study. IFR of 0.05% for under 70s. It is like flu

[hamstersarse]

www.who.int/bulletin/online_first/BLT.20.265892.pdf

Conclusion
"The inferred infection fatality rates
tended to be much lower than estimates made earlier in the pandemic."

Can we get a grip yet?

FT graphs of total deaths from all causes compared to the same period in previous years

The UK had 60,000+ deaths more than normal in the 3 months of the 1st wave

The deaths tailed off before lockdown ended, so it wasn't mostly lockdown killing people

March - May is too late for a flu or pneumonia epidemic

Other densely populated developed countries had the same pattern of very high excess deaths during the first wave:

The title of this thread implies that it's a WHO study, which is incorrect. John Ioannidis has nothing to do with the WHO as far as I know.

Anyhow, this is a slightly revised and now peer reviewed version of an earlier paper of his (pre-print from around May I think) which was criticized by quite a few epidemiologists at the time for containing errors etc.

Here is another peer review (twitter version, by an epidemiologist) of the latest version:
mobile.twitter.com/GidMK/status/1316511734115385344

Comments on previous versions (by the same person) are here:
mobile.twitter.com/GidMK/status/1283232023402868737?s=20

Some of the earlier comments from peers can be found here: mobile.twitter.com/CT_Bergstrom/status/1286727213816061952

Can't help but laugh at this. All the doom mongers out in force thinking they know better than a peer reviewed paper because it may be remotely positive

Can’t help but pity people who are so desperate that they are prepared to grasp any hint of good news, even when it relies on trusting figures coming out of Iran not than those from our own ONS. Can’t help but feel sad that the degree of scientific literacy in this country means that they accept any scientific paper at face value and feel unable to actually read it and analyse it themselves. Let’s trust anyone in a white coat, Milgram style.

@Hardbackwriter

I don't really understand the point you're making unless you think people over 70 aren't really people?

I think that is the point.

There is no problem if we exclude old people, people with underlying health conditions, BAME, city dwellers and presumably anyone in NI and the Nw.

There is no problem if we don’t mind losing 20% of our HCPs and teachers at any given time. Shutting down NHS provision and schools.

There is no problem if we just pretend there isn’t one. Despite evidence to the contrary.

Just get an opinion then trawl social media to find misinformation and fake facts to support it.

Perhaps the OP would like to find out what the socioeconomic impact is of the flu each year in the UK and across the world. Does the OP know what just basic non Covid planning for the flu entails every year. Because it isn’t inconsequential and it does mean that operations are cancelled or deferred. It does mean that other services don’t get priority and that causes early death. That happens under Tory and Labour whatever the funding level.

I'm not sure what the paper changes though.

The basic facts remain the same:

• covid is not flu
• 60k excess deaths
• very infectious with low immunity
• range of severe symptoms (worse than flu) for those who don't die
• UK healthcare system at risk of being overwhelmed

The study changes none of these facts

[quote Ecosse]Two years is the average stay ending in death @SheepandCow.

www.pssru.ac.uk/pub/3211.pdf[/quote]
You’re cherrypicking Ecosse.

In the Bupa sample, the average length of stay was 801 days, but with a considerable tail of long-stayers. Half of residents had died by 462 days. Around 27% of people lived for more than three years, with the longest stayer living for over 20 years. People had a 55% chance of living for the first year after admission, which increased to nearly 70% for the second year before falling back over subsequent years.

And this was just for Bupa care homes.

@hamstersarse

www.who.int/bulletin/online_first/BLT.20.265892.pdf

Conclusion
"The inferred infection fatality rates
tended to be much lower than estimates made earlier in the pandemic."

Can we get a grip yet?

Can we stop arguing about death rate and consider the impact on healthcare and of sickness absence yet?

It’s not just about deaths. Our hospitals are well on their way to being overwhelmed. The situation in Liverpool is already dire. This will have a knock on effect on everyone.

@hamstersarse

www.who.int/bulletin/online_first/BLT.20.265892.pdf

Conclusion
"The inferred infection fatality rates
tended to be much lower than estimates made earlier in the pandemic."

Can we get a grip yet?

ffs just open your eyes and see how our health service is trying to plan and cope with increasing admissions and this is WITH restrictions in place. Telling people to get a grip - what is wrong with you! We are well aware of the state of our economy and no one is enjoying this nightmare.

See, this is why we need experts, and why the ‘had enough of experts’ narrative is so wrong and dangerous. People cherry picking snippets from studies and articles, misinterpreting them to try to prove their existing viewpoint.

The spanish antibody study puts the hospitalisation rate for 50-60 year olds alot lower than the 9% mentioned upthread.
This study from France estimates overall hospitalisations between 2 and 3%
science.sciencemag.org/content/369/6500/208

Obviously still not great, but not as high as being mentioned

I do however feel the IFR will end up being lower and more towards the one in this study. All these IFR studies are based on antibodies which we now know are unreliable and not everyone produces antibodies. Even if the % went up from 7% to just 10% with T Cells it would really change the IFR across a population.

@Ecosse

Except there have not been 45000 deaths from COVID *@FourTeaFallOut*. There have been 45000 deaths within 28 days of a positive test.

We don’t know how many people have died from COVID in the U.K.

That's a very good point. The figures only include deaths up to 28 days. More people go on to die from covid after 28 days, so overall the 45,000 is a significant underestimate in various ways.

@DamitJanet

See, this is why we need experts, and why the ‘had enough of experts’ narrative is so wrong and dangerous. People cherry picking snippets from studies and articles, misinterpreting them to try to prove their existing viewpoint.

I certainly don't disrespect all experts.

However, the experts have different opinions.

I find indie SAGE very good, as they aren't constrained to follow a political line and they talk to the science.

Sage "independent", best joke I've heard all year that.
It seems odd that when a peer reviewed paper comes out that offers remotely positive news, people on here start saying we cant always trust people just because they have a white coat/letters after their name.
Yet those same posters seem to be in thrall to Whitty and his mates because they have a few letters after their name (including the 'independent' one who has 600k worth of shares in a vaccine company lol).
Bottom line: you can take any peer-reviewed paper and cherry pick parts that agree or disagree with your narrative, and that applies to either side of the debate here.
We all know which side we are on and I stand by the contention that it broadly boils down to those who stand to lose jobs, homes (and their sanity!) with further lockdowns and those who can afford to take the financial hit, WFH etc.

Do we have the case fatality rate for flu then? Because you can't compare the case fatality for covid excluding the over 70s with the case fatality for flu including the over 70s

Although lockdowns were triggered by the hospital admission rates not fatalities, which is a result of the R value and the lack of any societal immunity. Triggered not by a need to reduce deaths but by a need to keep the NHS ( and society at large, like supermarkets and bin collections ) running

So low fatality rate should be a blessing but not one that affects the types of societal restrictions we live within

The problem is not the percentages, it’s the numbers.

Except there have not been 45000 deaths from COVID @FourTeaFallOut. There have been 45000 deaths within 28 days of a positive test

This is tin foil hat conspiracy territory. The 45k is an underestimate

I disagree that people who want fewer restrictions are more concerned about their job than their health. I

If you want to save the most jobs, we should have gone into lockdown MUCh earlier, countries that did are living close to normal now

Since we didn't , you then need test trace and isolate ( supported and monitored ) to enable suppression of virus to keep society open, which saves jobs

A collapsed nhs, damaged supermarket supply chains, a population living in fear, a lack of confidence in the richer parts of society will not save jobs

There were 50,000 excess deaths in winter 2017 notevenat20. Flu was a large part of that due to an ineffective vaccine.

Accuracy is important here. See www.bmj.com/content/361/bmj.k2795/rr-6 for example. It is not true that most of the 50,000 excess deaths were due to the flu.

I know people are taking the piss out of the loss of smell but it’s a neurological symptom in Covid which actually makes it quite scary. It’s not like being bunged up with a cold.

That's a very good point. The figures only include deaths up to 28 days. More people go on to die from covid after 28 days, so overall the 45,000 is a significant underestimate in various ways.

This is not right. The ONS estimate is just under 50,000 which is more than 45,000 but not hugely more.

I do however feel the IFR will end up being lower and more towards the one in this study.

IFR only really makes sense if you give it by age of infected person. If lots of young people are infected then your IFR goes down but the disease didn’t get any less deadly.

@notevenat20

I do however feel the IFR will end up being lower and more towards the one in this study.

IFR only really makes sense if you give it by age of infected person. If lots of young people are infected then your IFR goes down but the disease didn’t get any less deadly.

That's also why you can't say "well that can't be the IFR because there would be more deaths in the UK". We had many infections in the elderly in march and April so this would have led to higher deaths.

@toxtethOgradyUSA

Sage "independent", best joke I've heard all year that. It seems odd that when a peer reviewed paper comes out that offers remotely positive news, people on here start saying we cant always trust people just because they have a white coat/letters after their name. Yet those same posters seem to be in thrall to Whitty and his mates because they have a few letters after their name (including the 'independent' one who has 600k worth of shares in a vaccine company lol). Bottom line: you can take any peer-reviewed paper and cherry pick parts that agree or disagree with your narrative, and that applies to either side of the debate here. We all know which side we are on and I stand by the contention that it broadly boils down to those who stand to lose jobs, homes (and their sanity!) with further lockdowns and those who can afford to take the financial hit, WFH etc.

My line on mn is always that you should be critical of everything you read and to not take it simply on face value. And for years ive said that some academic papers are problematic because they are due to their methodology beimg flawed or them having a massive oversight or obvious bias. And thats why its important to understand these issues and be mindful of them. This requires actually understanding what they say rather than just reading the conclusion or write up.

However that doesn't mean we should treat conspiracy nut jobs with the same level of respect.

We also have to recognise that Whitty and co are experts in their field for a reason, so if you are being critical of them you have to do so keeping this in mind and having a bloody good reason for where they have got it wrong and thats actually quite hard to do with any degree of credibility. That doesn't mean they are above criticism. It means they are harder to criticise.

So your bollocks about being in the thrall of them is somewhat misleading.

Critical thinking does not mean you dismiss things with a good quality of expertise and evidence behind it. It means you have a higher level at which you need to find fault. Likewise if you are listening to something like the Wisdom of Donald Trump on Coronavirus its not quite as hard to reach the threshold for pointing out bullshit.

In this case, whilst the fatality rate isnt as bad as initially feared (its not) this doesn't mean there isnt a very real problem with covid which endangers the health of all age groups and produces issues in the provision of essential services on the ground.

The fatality rate will shoot up if health services fail and thats a very important point to be noted. Especially as our population is one of the most at risk in the world because of our age profile and because we have so many people with other risk factors. This make covid something of an anolomy in healthcare terms because normally western countries are least at risk.

A low case fatality on paper does not stop very real issues in reality when you get hotspots developing and health services overwhelmed and unable to cope with the number of covid cases and other issues. Thats when you start to get spikes in fatality which dont appear in peer reviewed papers like that because their methodology is to average out cases and deaths over a wide geographical and demographic area.

What is going on in the North of England right now is particularly concerning because places like Knowsley are the most at risk in the world to covid because of their underlying health, age, poverty and beds per head of population. And the current hotspots for covid are centred very firmly around many of our most vulnerable populations right now. That is likely to push our national fatality and hospitalisation rate up significantly and produce operational problems on the ground.

A white paper only examines whats within its scope. This doesn't include operational issues in the uk hotspots. Whitty and co are examining those type of issues so are better placed to give information and advice with regard to that. That doesn't mean they are infallible. But if you do not listen to them very carefully and very seriously you are being a fool who doesn't understand how to understand the quality of any evidence.

And thats the point - having the ability to identify the scope and limits of something scientific when assessing its relevance and its quality for the issue you are trying to understand...

10% difference is quite a big difference!