A subscriber pointed out an error in the reasoning of this prior report. The crude estimate of infection prevalence, using 12% test positivity applied to the 39.5 million population of California, had come out to 4.74 million COVID positives, with only 1,227 deaths — insinuating a “California COVID IFR” of just 0.00026, or 0.026%.
But a more accurate estimate of statewide COVID prevalence may be the early April estimate of Santa Clara County:
2.8% were walking around with COVID antibodies
This lowers the estimated prevalence to 1.106 million COVID positives, which makes for an IFR estimate of 0.0011, or 0.11%, which falls in line with seasonal influenza.
Reference
[2.8% in Santa Clara County had contracted COVID by April 2020] — Bendavid E, Mulaney B, Sood N, Shah S, Bromley-Dulfano R, Lai C, Weissberg Z, Saavedra-Walker R, Tedrow J, Bogan A, Kupiec T, Eichner D, Gupta R, Ioannidis JPA, Bhattacharya J. COVID-19 antibody seroprevalence in Santa Clara County, California. Int J Epidemiol. 2021 May 17;50(2):410-419. doi: 10.1093/ije/dyab010. PMID: 33615345; PMCID: PMC7928865. https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/33615345/
Excellent