Page 12 - White Paper on Experimental Vaccines for Covid-19*

II. COVID-19 Medical Myths: Low Infection Fatality Ratio (IFR)

The most enduring myth regarding COVID-19 is that this is a highly lethal infection. It is
not. The data is unequivocal:
• COVID-19 kills very rarely and is mostly limited to the medically fragile
• COVID-19 is less deadly than influenza in children
• COVID-19 is similar lethality in the middle adult years and treatable

When talking about the risk/benefit ratio of any treatment we must consider the Infection
Fatality Ratio or IFR. The IFR for COVID-19 varies dramatically by age, from a low of
0.003% for Americans under age 19 to as high as 5.4% for those 70 years of age and
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above. That is an 1800x risk difference based upon age! It is quite clear that young people
are at a statistically insignificant risk of death from COVID-19. Nearly 80% of all
coronavirus-related deaths in the US through November 28, 2020 have occurred in adults
65 years of age and older and only 6% of the deaths had COVID-19 as the only cause
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mentioned. On average, there were 2.6 additional conditions or causes per death.

For most people under the age of 65, the study found, the risk of dying from COVID-19
isn’t much higher than from getting in a car accident driving to work. In California and
Florida, the fatality risk for the under-65 crowd is about equal to driving 16 to 17 miles per
day. While higher in hot spots like New York (668 miles) and New Jersey (572 miles), the
death risk is still lower than the public perceives. The risk climbs especially for those over
age 80. According to the Foundation for Research on Equal Opportunity, Americans over
85 are about 2.75 times more likely to die from COVID-19 than those 75 to 84, seven times
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more likely than those 65 to 74 and 16.8 times more than those 55 to 64.

For children COVID-19 is much less lethal than influenza. During the 2018-19 flu season,
the CDC reported approximately 480 flu deaths among children ages 0-17. Comparably, 90
youths have died from coronavirus complications from the beginning of the pandemic

19 https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scenarios.html
20 https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/nvss/vsrr/COVID_weekly/index.htm#Comorbidities
21
https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-COVID-age-penalty-11592003287
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