A Preliminary Study on Seroprevalence Results in 11 Countries/Regions to Estimate Infection Fatality Rates (IFR) and to Consider the Variation in IFR Due to Population Density and BCG Vaccine Programs – 09 May 2020

Abstract

Experts on COVID19 have been suspecting that due to the large cohort of mild symptomatic and asymptomatic cases, a large body of infected people are not being counted in the official stats. The Case Fatality Rate defined as Deaths over reported cases can show significant variation between countries and regions for a wide variety of reasons including the availability of testing capacity as well the under-ascertainment of mild/asymptomatic cases. As of 09 May 2020, seroprevalence data on testing for the SARS-Coronvirus-2 has become available in a number of regions and countries. Using these studies and other studies, we take a preliminary stab at estimating the IFR (Infection Fatality Rate) for these regions. We also show that countries with and without BCG vaccination programs seem to cluster in terms of IFR.