What Are COVID-19 Infection Fatality Rates?

On March 20th Governor Cuomo signed an executive order locking-down the State of NY in a historically unprecedented manner. To me it seemed absurd to take such drastic measures without knowing more about the coronavirus. How widespread was it? How dangerous was it? What was the "death-rate?" The news was posting all kinds of alarming IFRs, but they did note that an unknown % of cases were asymptomatic and so the actual IFR was "likely lower." Ok, but likely lower than 10% leaves a whole lot of room for speculation! In a sane society this lockdown would initiate a full-court press to try and find the answers to these questions, particularly how deadly the virus is.  While there was a lot of talk of testing, for some reason the testing protocols were set-up to target those who came to the hospital with symptoms.  This means we were not getting data on the asymptomatic cases and thus not getting any closer to answering the basic questions.

Now that the antibody testing has been done and the numbers have come in we know why they weren't interested in finding-out the IFR or asymptomatic rates: these numbers would have calmed the mass-hysteria that was the actual goal of the lockdowns. The entities intent on destroying the US economy and imposing totalitarian government control include the CDC, WHO, several State governments, many factions in the Federal government, and the silicon valley tech giants.  I suspect intelligence involvement given the international spread of the panic as well. All social media platforms have begun an intense campaign of banning and silencing anyone who tries to present the facts of the matter that might calm the panic and the rush to remake society into a "new normal" that would have made Orwell proud. So what does the data show about COVID's deadly properties?

NYS including NYC has the results of a 3,000 person antibody survey done at shopping centers, which is fairly random, but not perfect. The prevalence was 13% statewide and 21% in NYC, but the test has a bias towards false negatives so it's likely higher. IFR: 0.5%

LA County has survey 863 people using a marketing research firm to randomize their results.  Again the test is weighted towards false negatives so the actual infection % is going to be higher. The rates of infection ranged from 7% of Blacks to 2.5% of Latinos.  Part of this disparity may be that Latinos are simply more resistant to the virus and don't need to develop antibodies to shake it off. IFR: 0.1-0.2%

In Germany an initial study of 1000 people in 400 households finds 15% antibody prevalence, enough for them to recommend easing the lockdown. IFR: 0.37%

A Danish study used 1,500 blood donors to find an infection rate of 23%, well on the way to herd immunity. This is a low estimate because blood donors tend to be healthier than the general population. IFR: 0.16%

This interesting article from Helinski, Denmark shows IFR of 0.13%.  The summary is worth quoting here because it pretty much says it all:

"The World Health Organization has spread fear of COVID-19 without knowing the actual circulation rate of the virus. I calculated the SARS-CoV-2 infection fatality rate (IFR) from antibody prevalence blood samples taken from donors in the Capital Region of Denmark in early April. According to my calculations, the IFR is 0.13%, making the virus approximately as dangerous as seasonal flu. This IFR figure helps explain the limited global public health impact of COVID-19. Population-based serology results, expected soon from Finland, Germany and the US, will either refute or confirm my result. I believe that WHO Assistant Director General Bruce Aylward made a major mistake in February, when he claimed, after coming back from Wuhan, that his team “did not see evidence that a large number of mild cases of the novel disease called Covid-19 are evading detection”. He also claimed that SARS-CoV-2 would be approximately as lethal as Spanish flu. I present in this paper irrefutable evidence of the extremely rapid, but undetected, spread of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. So fast has the spread been that it is likely that New York has already reached herd immunity, and that it is this, rather than the lockdown, which explains the recent abrupt end of the outbreak. The world’s economy must be reopened as soon as possible. The cure now appears to be unequivocally worse than the disease."

-Mikko Paunio, MD, MHS

Italy had done a very large survey, IFR: 0.5% I expect that NYC and Italy will be shown to reflect extremely poor mismanagement of patients since those numbers are heavy outliers. Both NYC doctors and Italian doctors have been blowing the whistle on the dangers of the early intubation strategy that was adopted in the midst of the media-driven hysteria. I don't know if anyone has sauce on this nurse who makes very serious claims about what is happening in NY, but given the lack of patient advocates in a strictly controlled ward and the fear that is being pushed onto the medical staff, I don't doubt it is a horror-show. It also can't help that Cuomo forced the nursing homes to intake COVID+ patients via Department of Health Directive on March 24th, who made up 25% of fatalities. Of course while he was seeding homes with highly contagious sick people we were forced to "shelter in place" to protect the elderly. Truly, one cannot make this shit up!

Johnson County Kentucky found 3.8% infected in a randomized survey. IFR: 0.1%

For a general round-up of all the available data John PA Ioannidis has calculated the data on death risks for age demographics with and without other illness. About as deadly as your daily commute or less.

And on and on and on... Most of these studies are being followed-up on, so we will get an even clearer picture of what a massive, historic, catastrophic disaster the lockdown fiasco has been.  But don't expect the media to report any of these follow-ups and capture the videos off YouTube before they get deleted.

[EDIT: SWAPPED "INFECTION FATALITY RATE' FOR "CASE FATALITY RATE"]