First, you would need age specific IFRs, otherwise everything is confounded by differences in the age structure of the population and by differences in the infection rate in different age groups (e.g. how well does a community shield its nursing homes from infections?).
Second, you need population samples in order not to miss infections with no or very mild symptoms that don’t lead to a test in a normal health care setting.
Third, with one local or regional sample you have too many random effects, too many effects specific to that region (e.g. how well it shields its nursing homes—even with age adjusted data it makes quite a difference whether you have infections of relatively healthy senior citizens living at home or of inhabitants of nursing homes in the same age group but with multimorbidity), so you should look at meta-analyses or very large population samples. But those take time so the ones I have seen are based primarily on the first corona wave.
Some possibly relevant papers:
Meta-analysis (see e.g. figure 4 for the heterogenity, table 6 for age specific IFRs)
Great point, I asked a bad question! Let me ask a clearer question: For the most at-risk age groups in the US, has the IFR increased, decreased or stayed constant over the past 6 months?
For example, the meta study you cited finds an IFR for the 75-84 age group of 5.47% (why no error bars but whatever). Since both the IFR and the sample size is larger, a change should be detectable. At least we can constrain the size of the change with a statment like “we are 95% confidence that any change in IFR is less than 1 percentage point” or something. Has anyone done that?
I would assume treatment protocols have improved but if they did I doubt PH advocates would publish that fact. PH advocates might fear reduced social distancing if people had that info. But maybe the IFR for old at-risk people has not moved at all and treatment is innefective, we would see the same Vox stories. I just want to know the truth.
Does anyone have good data on the current IFR?
I’m afraid that is quite difficult.
First, you would need age specific IFRs, otherwise everything is confounded by differences in the age structure of the population and by differences in the infection rate in different age groups (e.g. how well does a community shield its nursing homes from infections?).
Second, you need population samples in order not to miss infections with no or very mild symptoms that don’t lead to a test in a normal health care setting.
Third, with one local or regional sample you have too many random effects, too many effects specific to that region (e.g. how well it shields its nursing homes—even with age adjusted data it makes quite a difference whether you have infections of relatively healthy senior citizens living at home or of inhabitants of nursing homes in the same age group but with multimorbidity), so you should look at meta-analyses or very large population samples. But those take time so the ones I have seen are based primarily on the first corona wave.
Some possibly relevant papers:
Meta-analysis (see e.g. figure 4 for the heterogenity, table 6 for age specific IFRs)
Spanish population study (see table 1 for age specific IFRs male and female)
And since the treament protocols should have improved in the last half year I would guess that those values are upper bounds for the current IFRs.
Great point, I asked a bad question! Let me ask a clearer question: For the most at-risk age groups in the US, has the IFR increased, decreased or stayed constant over the past 6 months?
For example, the meta study you cited finds an IFR for the 75-84 age group of 5.47% (why no error bars but whatever). Since both the IFR and the sample size is larger, a change should be detectable. At least we can constrain the size of the change with a statment like “we are 95% confidence that any change in IFR is less than 1 percentage point” or something. Has anyone done that?
I would assume treatment protocols have improved but if they did I doubt PH advocates would publish that fact. PH advocates might fear reduced social distancing if people had that info. But maybe the IFR for old at-risk people has not moved at all and treatment is innefective, we would see the same Vox stories. I just want to know the truth.