Immune responses and vaccines

Calculation of infection fatality rate
The Dutch national statistics office (CBS) reports that 10,067 people died from COVID-19 until July 2020. Over a slightly longer period, until the first week of September 2020, the Dutch Health Council estimates that approximately 1.1 million people have become infected in the Netherlands. The calculated mortality is over 0.9% and possibly slightly higher due to some corrections. About 6.3% of the Netherlands has become infected (95% reliability is 5.1 to 7.9%).

Ioannidis

These percentages differ from Ioannidis' estimates (0.65-0.68%). The Community Health Services (GGD) reported on 15 March that the RIVM figures are a gross underestimation of the cause of disease. The CBS investigates physician-reported mortality causes, which is more reliable than only confirmed COVID-19 diagnosis.

Different mortality data

Mortality and fatality rates can be calculated for people on (i) the whole population (PMR), (ii) the infected population (IFR) and the cases (CFR). In all cases, the total number of COVID-19 deaths (or excess deaths from COVID-19 is used) but its number is divided by: (i) the whole population, (ii) the infected population and (iii) the sick population. Not everyone who gets infected gets sick, so the percentages increase from i to iii. SARS-2 has a pre-infection death rate (IFR) of 0.9-1.0%. The CFR is much higher. The number of cases in the Netherlands was 71,129 on 1 September, which is 8.8% according to the RIVM registration of 6,230 deaths and 14.2% when combining RIVM and CBS data.
John Jacobs
28 november 2020