ttps://quadrant.org.au/magazine/2020/11/remdesivir-hydroxychloroquine-and-covid-19/
Has there ever been a worse public policy disaster than the response of almost all governments to COVID-19?
It is now clear that COVID-19, while very infectious, is no more lethal that various influenza epidemics, with an Infection Fatality Rate (IFR) of around 0.1 per cent. As I pointed out in Quadrant in March (“Logic, the First Casualty”), Stanford Professor of Epidemiology John Ioannidis correctly estimated the IFR for Covid as 0.125 per cent, this being the rate at which those infected perish. He also estimated the Case Fatality Rate (CFR) as about 1 per cent, this being the fatality rate of the cases being treated.
These estimates have proven to be accurate and comparable to those for seasonal influenza—and less than the 2 to 3 per cent CFR of the H1N1 influenza virus that caused the 2009 swine flu pandemic and less than the rate initially estimated by the WHO, which has not accepted the lower figure. While swine flu was not as infectious as Covid, governments did not close down societies and economies and trample civil liberties in response to the swine flu pandemic. Why have they with Covid?
There are several factors that help explain why. Media, both social and conventional, have inflated the perception of risk. Bad news sells, and the madness of crowds can now spread electronically.
The fact that the grim statistics, reported in a daily ritual, have been unreliable has not helped, with increased numbers often simply reflecting increased testing. The reporting of deaths has bordered on negligent, with those positive for Covid being registered as dying from Covid, despite (as the US Centers for Disease Control recently reported) 94 per cent of those dying with Covid having significant comorbidities (an average of 2.6 comorbidities each). Greater funding was made available for a Covid death, so there was an incentive to so record deaths. George Floyd, who died in police custody in Minneapolis, was positive for Covid and would have otherwise been counted as dying from Covid, had other causes not be assigned.