Buried lede: New WHO estimate downgrades COVID-19 death rate by 3.8-7.7X
Original estimates had cataclysmic consequences.
Talk about burying the lede. The WHO held an entire summit this week without telling anyone the most important news about their new calculations: their COVID-19 death rate estimate has plummeted.
On Monday, a top World Health Organization (WHO) official released the organization’s “best estimate” for global COVID-19 infections, placing that number at 10 percent of the world’s population, or around 760 million people.
The Associated Press reports:
The head of emergencies at the World Health Organization said Monday the agency’s “best estimates” indicate roughly 1 in 10 people worldwide may have been infected by the coronavirus — more than 20 times the number of confirmed cases — and warned of a difficult period ahead.
Dr. Michael Ryan, speaking to a special session of the WHO’s 34-member executive board focusing on COVID-19, said the figures vary from urban to rural areas, and between different groups, but that ultimately it means “the vast majority of the world remains at risk.” He said the pandemic would continue to evolve, but that tools exist to suppress transmission and save lives.
The WHO, remaining on brand, used this opportunity to continue to fearmonger about the potential danger posed by COVID-19, with several WHO officials at the conference issuing dark warnings about how that means 90% of the world is still “threatened” by the virus.
As you can see in the dashboard below, WHO estimates that there are about 20 times more infections than reported cases worldwide, which is how they got to their 10% of the world population number.
The most important part of the WHO estimate, the statistical elephant in the room, remained unspoken.
With just over 1 million with/from COVID-19 deaths registered worldwide, that drops the WHO’s COVID-19 infection fatality rate (IFR), to just 0.13 percent, which is significantly lower than WHO literature assessed just two months ago.
(Quick explainer: IFR is understood as an estimated proportion of deaths among *all* infected individuals. CFR is the death rate among all *reported* cases)
WHO infamously placed the original COVID-19 case fatality rate estimate at 3.4 percent. It was unclear at the time whether there was much of a separation between confirmed cases and the total number of cases. Early literature from WHO on COVID-19 estimated that there was somewhere between 2-7 times gap between IFR and CFR. That would place WHO’s IFR number, based on a CFR of 3.4%, at somewhere between 0.5-1.5%.
The 3.4% CFR number was based on early “data” they compiled with the Chinese government, and used by epidemiologists worldwide to model their COVID-19 responses. And early on in the outbreak, top WHO officials were sowing confusion in comparing apples and oranges by placing COVID-19 CFR numbers with seasonal influenza IFR numbers.
These fear models, based on the 3.4% number, were taken to the president by Dr. Fauci and Dr. Birx, who insisted that millions of Americans would die from COVID-19 if the United States did not institute draconian lockdowns. Countless nations locked down immediately upon hearing about the 3.4% reported death rate coming out of WHO.
WHO has not released an official new estimate on COVID-19’s infection fatality rate (IFR), but the numbers speak for themselves.
The most recently updated WHO brief on IFR, which was published in early August, placed the COVID-19 infection fatality rate at between 0.5 and 1 percent.
Given their new cases estimate, WHO has apparently recognized there are many more asymptomatic, mild, undiagnosed cases than originally observed, resulting in an unexplained 3.8-7.7X reduction in IFR from their August numbers.
Another day, another WHO debacle. The “public health experts” have failed us yet again.
Commenter Jon Schulz eloquently misses the point like so many pandemic panic porn purveyors (including those with endowed chairs). While there are many personal and social reasons why humans seek to elevate the severity of a crisis, the past few months have demonstrated how pernicious such psychopathology can be--killing more with a cure fueled by academic hubris and political fecklessness.
It's time for those who have staked their reputations on worst case speculation to admit that it hasn't come to pass. All the modeling and in vitro experimentation must yield to real world, observable clinical outcomes. Very few people outside of the clearly defined at risk group are getting sick from this and virtually none are dying. If Mr. Schultz, you're now going to tell us that serious latent morbidity awaits us because this virus is different from Cov-1, we're going to ask you politely to throw your panic party elsewhere. We have lives to live.
Death rate is only one negative aspect. Let's discuss cost of hospitalizations