Thre is a new (October 14, yesterday) paper on the Infection Mortality Rate for Covid-19, published on the World Health Organization website.
https://www.who.int/bulletin/online_first/BLT.20.265892.pdf
Read the whole thing of course. I am publishing the summary paragraph from page 10, in the next post (due to 500 character limit).
https://www.who.int/bulletin/online_first/BLT.20.265892.pdf
"..over half a billion people have been infected as of 12 September, 2020, far more than the
approximately 29 million documented laboratory-confirmed cases. Most locations probably have
an infection fatality rate less than 0.20% and with appropriate, precise non-pharmacological
measures that selectively try to protect high-risk vulnerable populations and settings, the infection
fatality rate may be brought even lower."
Hopefully, if resources are applied correctly, we can protect the elderly and others at risk. But the estimate of ~0.20% seems to be consistent with the CDC estimate in the spring. Still dangerous, but could have been a lot worse.
Also, if half a billion people are already infected (over 10x the official case count), hopefully some locations will start to develop herd immunity, at least until a trusted vaccine is available.
