COVID-19: Just the Facts [09/05/21]

Twelve key questions about COVID-19 and lockdowns answered. All answers fully referenced from peer-reviewed research and leading authorities.

How deadly is COVID-19?

Stanford Professor of Medicine and Epidemiology John P. A. Ioannidis in the European Journal of Clinical Investigation has reviewed data from studies globally and estimated that the infection fatality rate (IFR) of COVID-19 is around 0.15%. It varies considerably by region (for reasons such as demographics and prior susceptibility) and between countries within regions. In Europe and the Americas it is around 0.3%-0.4%. In Africa and Asia it is around 0.05%.

It also varies considerably between ages and depending on the presence of underlying conditions. Cambridge Professor of Statistics David Spiegelhalter has used the mortality data from the spring 2020 epidemic in England and Wales to show that the risk of dying from a COVID-19 infection roughly increases by 12-13% for each year older, doubles every 5-6 years and is around 10,000 times higher for the oldest compared to the youngest. It is also roughly proportional to the normal risk of dying in a given year (though is partly in addition to that normal risk). Men have around double the risk of death of women of the same age.

The average age of death from Covid in England and Wales in the spring epidemic was 80.4 according to the ONS, splitting 78.7 for men and 82.5 for women. The average age of death in the UK is 79.3 for men and 82.9 for women (though note these are modelled estimates of life expectancy at birth based on life tables, not the actual average age of those who die each year). Public Health England has estimated that life expectancy was reduced by 1.3 years for men and 0.9 years for women in 2020 due to the Covid and lockdown death tolls, though these figures are also modelled.

Economist John Appleby writing in the BMJ has shown that every year prior to 2009 was more deadly than 2020 in England and Wales once the size and age of the population is taken into account. The same analysis also shows that previous pandemics have not resulted in continued elevated death rates for more than a year or two despite not having vaccines for the diseases, indicating how the human immune system and the diseases adapt into a less deadly relationship.

A Swedish review of Covid deaths outside hospitals (i.e., in care homes and private homes) in one county found 85% were from a different underlying cause. In Northern Ireland, 38% of Covid deaths in spring 2020 were determined to be not primarily due to COVID-19. However, the same figure in England and Wales was 8%, suggesting significant differences in how Covid deaths are registered between jurisdictions.

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