Stanford Epidemiologist John Ioannidis, DSc, M.D.: Odds of Dying From COVID Lower Than Odds of Dying While Driving to Work

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this study aimed to generate an estimate
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of how many people in Santa Clara County
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have been infected with a virus and the
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way to find out is to try to see whether
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they have developed antibodies to SARS
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cough – we realize that the number of
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infected people is somewhere between 50
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and 85 times more compared to what we
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thought compared to what had been
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documented immediately that means that
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the infection fatality rate the chance
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of dying the probability of dying if you
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are infected diminishes by fifty to
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eighty five fold because the denominator
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in the calculation becomes fifty to
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eighty five fold bigger if you take
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these numbers into account they suggest
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that the infection fatality rate for
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this new corona virus is likely to be in
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the same ballpark as seasonal influenza
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of course there is still a little bit of
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uncertainty about the exact number but
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it’s clearly very different compared to
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the original thoughts or speculations or
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preliminary data that suggested a much
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much higher infection fatality rate we
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also try to estimate what is the
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absolute risk if you’re less than 65 and
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we try to compare that against the risk
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of dying if you drive your car over a
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given distance in doing this we try to
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correct for the number of days that the
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pandemic is ongoing so you can get an
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estimate per day in many locations like
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Germany the risk of dying from corona
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virus until when we did the analysis on
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April 4 is in the range of the risk of
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dying driving from home to work or or
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even less if you think that covered 19
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has pretty much the same infection
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fatality rate as let’s say seasonal
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influenza one immediately would argue
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well do we really see this type of
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as we have seen in some epicenters of
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the pandemic like some cities in Italy
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some cities in Spain and several
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locations in the u.s. prominently New
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York City and the New York metropolitan
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area and the answer is that for
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coronavirus we don’t have a vaccine so
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hospitals that are very close to
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capacity like queens for example that
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tends to be a war zone even in
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summertime if you get a very large
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number of people who come to the
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hospital with symptoms they show up at
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the emergency room they wait to be seen
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probably they start infecting each other
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they can infect physicians they can
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infect nurses they can infect personnel
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this means that the the battle moves in
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the most unsuitable battleground
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hospitals are the worst place to to
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fight the war with covered 19 we should
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have done our best to keep people away
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from the hospital if they had covered 19
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symptoms unless they really had very
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severe symptoms and in which case of
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course they needed medical care so it is
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a serious problem no one would deny that
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but it’s clearly not the apocalyptic
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problem that we thought we would face
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early on we have data now that the
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infection fatality rate is much much
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lower compared to our original
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expectations and fears I think that
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there’s no reason to fear we have data
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we have ongoing accumulation of data we
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have eyes on the epidemic and its
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evolution we can be of we should avoid
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panic and and we can take rational steps
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to to deal with the situation and then
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hopefully even open up our society again
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with careful gradual steps Sweden was
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one of the countries that chose a less
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restrictive approach it kept a much of
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its society and of its economy open it
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allowed most schools kindergarten and
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elementary school and middle school to
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be open it kept most shops open and bars
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and restaurant although with some
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modest restrictions it also allowed
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people to get together but not exceed a
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limit of 50 people so in a way it is
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very different compared to the draconian
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measures that were implemented with very
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fierce lockdown measures in other
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countries in Europe and in many places
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in the u.s. they have done fairly well
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and of course it is very difficult to
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compare one country against another
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because you expect to see large
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diversity in infection rates and also in
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death rates maybe you can compare Sweden
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against Switzerland for example that had
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very draconian measures very early on
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and the death rate per million
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population is slightly higher a bit
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higher in Switzerland compared to to
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Sweden until now no evidence so far
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though suggests that Sweden did
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something wrong I think that they seem
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to have fared pretty well they had a
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number of deaths the number of person
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years lost was pretty small because
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almost all of these deaths were in
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people who were very frail and old and
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had very limited life expectancy they
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never came close to seeing their health
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system crash they always had plenty
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plenty of reserves at least until now
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that might change in the future and I’m
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watching that very carefully but I don’t
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think that we can blame the Swedes for
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doing what they did maybe we should
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congratulate them I think that just
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saying that measures worked is is very
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very poor statement it’s it’s an
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overgeneralization and I think that we
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need to scrutinize very carefully which
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one of these measures worked which ones
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did not work and which actually may have
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done some harm in principle I think that
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we should not blame anyone for just
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acting ferociously and aggressively and
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saying shelter-in-place immediately we
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just don’t know what’s going on it was a
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very sound approach but now we can be a
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bit more thorough a bit more exact for
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example we know that suicides go up by
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one
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percent for each 1% increase in
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unemployment and as you know as of now
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we are talking about 25 million people
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filing for unemployment in this country
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and probably almost 10 times that many
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around the world becoming unemployed and
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the number is rapidly increasing as we
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speak we know that there’s huge problems
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with other problems of common diseases
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like cancer and heart attacks they can
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go up or actually the trajectories of
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decrees that we have seen for many of
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these conditions are reversed and
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they’re not decreasing at the same slope
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or actually even increase in situations
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of meltdown but I really worry that
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unless we manage to have a viable plan
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to exit from lock down and shelter in
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place and reopen our world the
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consequences will be far worse than
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coronavirus