COVID-19 was about as deadly as a bad flu, according to a study recently published in Environmental Research..Stanford University professor of medicine and epidemiology John P.A. Ioannidis and four fellow researchers analyzed the pre-vaccination infection fatality rate (IFR) in 38 countries. The study, “Age-stratified infection fatality rate of COVID-19 in the non-elderly population” reported,.“At a global level, pre-vaccination IFR may have been as low as 0.03% and 0.07% for 0–59 and 0–69 year old people, respectively..“These IFR estimates in non-elderly populations are lower than previous calculations had suggested.”.IFRs for age brackets could also be found for 31 of the 38 countries, the stats reading as follows:.· 0-19 years: 0.0003%.· 20-29 years: 0.002%.· 30-39 years: 0.11%.· 40-49 years: 0.035%.· 50-59 years: 0.123%.· 60-69 years: 0.506%.This meant those infected in their sixties overcame the virus 99.5% of the time, causing only five deaths in 1000 cases..Wealthy nations had infection survival rates of 99.962% for those under 60, and 99.902% for those under 70. However, in poorer nations, such rates were better still at 99.992% and 99.988% respectively. The paper speculated that lower obesity rates in poorer countries may have improved their survival rates..The paper said 44% of people had already been infected with COVID-19 before Omicron arrived in Fall 2021. It said even an infection rate of 50% would have caused “probably modestly higher than seasonal flu fatalities” for those under 70, but still “lower than pre-pandemic years when only the younger age strata are considered.”.The paper reported, “The large majority of the global population has indeed been infected at least once.” However, an infection rate of 100% would only kill 4.7-5.3 million people under age 70 even if no vaccines or “potentially beneficial interventions” were available..The findings challenge the enormous fatality projections that prompted heavy-handed responses from governments. On March 26, 2020, the Imperial College of London predicted COVID-19 would kill 40 million people but “rapid adoption of proven public health measures – including testing and isolation of cases and wider social distancing” would supposedly save 38.7 million lives..An April 2021 analysis by Simon Fraser University economist D. W. Allen estimated that lockdowns took 3.6 to 282 as many lives as it saved. “It is possible that lockdown will go down as one of the greatest peacetime policy failures in Canada’s history,” he wrote.
