A systematic review and meta-analysis of published research data on COVID-19 infection-fatality rates

2020 saw the emergence of a global pandemic, COVID-19, caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which began in China and has since spread across the world. One of the most challenging questions to answer during the COVID-19 pandemic has been regarding the true infection-fatality rate (IFR) of the disease. While case-fatality rates (CFR) are eminently calculable from various published data sources (1) – CFR being the number of deaths divided by the number of confirmed cases - it is far more difficult to extrapolate to the proportion of all infected individuals who have died due to the infection because those who have very mild, atypical or asymptomatic disease are frequently left undetected and therefore omitted from fatality-rate calculations (2).
Source: International Journal of Infectious Diseases - Category: Infectious Diseases Authors: Source Type: research