The following article was written by Dr. John P.A. Ioannidis and was accepted for publication by the European Journal of Clinical Investigation on March 14, 2021.

In this review article, Dr. Ioannidis utilized six systematic evaluations to compute the updated fatality rate of COVID-19. He concludes the following: “Acknowledging residual uncertainties, the available evidence suggests average global IFR [infection fatality rate] at ~0.15% and ~1.5 – 2.0 billion infections by February 2021 with substantial differences in IFR and in infection spread across continents, countries, and locations.

Each of the systematic evaluations included in the study had 10 to 338 individual studies from 9 to 50 countries around the world. Dr. Ioannidis further clarifies their selection criteria for systematic reviews, as well as some limitations of the evaluations included in their analysis.

Dr. Ioannidis estimates that as of November 2020, there were already 600 million infected with COVID in the world, excluding Asia and Africa where seroprevalence studies are rare. Adjusting for estimates from these two continents, Dr. Ioannidis says that about 1 billion people have already been infected.¹This is so much larger than the official estimates which are based only on testing. As of July 25, 2021, the record from Worldometers shows that there 195 million confirmed COVID cases in the world, see https://worldometers.info/coronavirus/.

He says that the estimated IFR of 0.15% can still be adjusted for any over- or under-counting of COVID-19 deaths [based on a recent talk conducted by Dr. Ioannidis, however, it was more likely for deaths to have been overcounted, see Stanford’s Dr. John Ioannidis destroys the Covid lockdown narrative].

Editor’s Note: We will remember that in earlier studies done by Dr. Ioannidis, he estimated COVID IFR at 0.23%. This new update has brought down IFR even lower, but only a few points higher than the IFR of influenza which is currently at 0.1%.

This makes COVID one of those bad flu seasons with a slightly elevated death toll [such bad flu seasons have happened before, see A tale of two Januarys and The truth about COVID-19: What data and science tells us]. Knowing this, do you still feel right that our governments are destroying our economies, endangering the lives of people who have real health ailments, and sacrificing the future of our children for a disease that is like the flu?

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  This is so much larger than the official estimates which are based only on testing. As of July 25, 2021, the record from Worldometers shows that there 195 million confirmed COVID cases in the world, see https://worldometers.info/coronavirus/.