The Early Estimates Of The Fatality Rate Were Very Wrong

 The Infection Fatality Ratio estimates the percentage deaths in all those with an infection: the detected and those with undetected disease.

We compared the two IFR estimates, which shows the Imperial College estimates are much higher than Stanfords across the age groups.

Estimating IFR in the early stage of outbreaks is so error-prone that it should come with a warning.

Antibody studies provide a more accurate understanding of how many people have been infected and permit a more precise estimate of the IFR. However, early in the pandemic, such studies are not available-Verity et al.

The case fatality ratio was estimated on just one severe case in those under 19s. Instead of early models and predictions, an alternative strategy is to analyse the data as it emerges: work out what is going on.

The early IFR estimates frrom Imperial College were substantially overestimated across the ages compared to Stanford's seroprevalence studies - more than ten-fold in those under 19.

An analysis distinguishing causation in under 18s, as opposed to those who died of another cause but were coincidentally infected, reported a mortality rate in < 18-year-olds of two per million-suggesting an IFR of 0.0002%, and covid is possibly the underlying cause of death in only about a quarter of young people when it is registered on the death certificate.

https://brownstone.org/articles/the-early-estimates-of-the-fatality-rate-were-very-wrong/