The problem with using CDC’s number of deaths is that many of the reporting jurisdictions take weeks or months for their data to trickle out to CDC. They tell you this in the footnotes. Your calculation is fine, but the numbers going into it are an up-to-date estimate of infections with a very out-of-date number of deaths. That’s why I went to WoM’s numbers. When CDC’s data catches up, they tend to match up pretty closely. The difference is that CDC waits for the reporting jurisdiction to report them to CDC and WoM is getting them directly from the states themselves.
The CDC publishes IFR numbers in their pandemic planning scenarios (e.g. https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scenarios.html). The problem is that after July last year, they stopped providing an overall number and began providing a breakdown of IFR by age group. Worse, the age groups changed multiple times. The last overall IFR I have is from the July 2020 update of the pandemic planning scenario document and it lists 0.65%. (https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scenarios-archive/planning-scenarios-2020-09-10.pdf)
If you take the age-based IFRs and combine them with US census data, you could probably tease out an overall IFR by weighting the numbers based on population group sizes, but that’s ugly and potentially has some error built in. Back in April/May/June I was seeing IFR published in various scientific journals as well. Nearly everything ranged within 0.02% (nominal) of the CDC IFR (e.g. range of 0.63% to 0.67%).
CFR is useful at a hospital level to understand how the hospital is doing with their patients versus others in the same region, but it becomes problematic to compare them too directly as there are major differences in testing and case diagnosis between different countries. That leads to wild swings in the underlying data and therefore - the output. If I’m looking to compare countries, I look at trends in the deaths per 1 million population. It has some more reliable inputs to it. The reason I say trends rather than the absolute value is that different countries may be in different stages of the pandemic. For example, COVID-19 hit India much later than the US and they’re just now hitting their second wave. So their deaths per 1 million population is currently low. But boy is that changing fast as their second wave is rising exponentially. The US has had four waves - the third being particularly bad - so we’re further down the line. But our trends in the past couple months have been great.
If we want a trend to look forward to, look no further than Israel. They’re about 1-2 months ahead of us in terms of population vaccination. They had 1 death yesterday. 1 death the day before. In the whole country. That’s down from almost 100 deaths a day at their peak. COVID-19 cases? 74 yesterday. Down from nearly 10,000 a day at their peak. I’d say they’re onto something.
That's encouraging!
"but the numbers going into it are an up-to-date estimate of infections with a very out-of-date number of deaths. That’s why I went to WoM’s numbers. When CDC’s data catches up, they tend to match up pretty closely. "
I used WoM for my figures on the CFR at the time, for it is not providing estimated total infections, but is providing case fatality data.
"The last overall IFR I have is from the July 2020 update of the pandemic planning scenario document and it lists 0.65%. (https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/hcp/planning-scenarios-archive/planning-scenarios-2020-09-10.pdf)... Back in April/May/June I was seeing IFR published in various scientific journals as well. Nearly everything ranged within 0.02% (nominal) of the CDC IFR (e.g. range of 0.63% to 0.67%)."
July 2020? Maybe they though that was too low and did not help promote the panic pandemic.
"If I’m looking to compare countries, I look at trends in the deaths per 1 million population. "
I do also, though factors such as pop. density, tests per 1 million, average age and health, location/travel, mobility, culture and even climate play a part in this.
"If we want a trend to look forward to, look no further than Israel. They’re about 1-2 months ahead of us in terms of population vaccination. They had 1 death yesterday. 1 death the day before. In the whole country. That’s down from almost 100 deaths a day at their peak."
However there is a vast vast difference btwn the two countries. Israel is a far smaller country and due to attacks it has far more scrupulous border control and its people are conditioned for rapid response to issues, and has a mature universal healthcare system wherein each person has a digitised health record. Thus it made a deal with Pfizer for accelerated access to the Pfizer/BioNTech vaccine in return for providing the anonymised age, sex and demographic data of vaccinated people. And as early of Jan. 26 Israel led the pack as it administered a first dose to 48% of its population of 9 million in five weeks. (https://theconversation.com/israels-vaccine-rollout-has-been-fast-so-why-is-it-controversial-and-what-can-other-countries-learn-153687)
Presently i read that 59% in Israel are fully vaccinated compared with 30% for the US, but which along with the UK leads among major powers and is without peer among countries near its size, with all the leaders being far far smaller entities. Yet MA reports 56% have been shot at least once. Those like 69 year old quite active me who has no intention of getting vaccinated (I am quite sure I already had it - or should have - and recovered, and glory and thanks be to God) are the anomaly.
"They had 1 death yesterday. 1 death the day before. In the whole country. That’s down from almost 100 deaths a day at their peak. Down from nearly 10,000 a day at their peak. I’d say they’re onto something."
However, after a year Israel is 162 among 222 countries in death per 1M. and #20 in test per 1M, and the latter must be considered in such stats, as entities that may look like there are effectively dealing with Covid can have dismal testing.
Thanks for your input.