COVID-19

==== Estimates ====
[[File:Graph of Covid-19 Infection Fatality Ratio by age.png|thumb|The red line shows the estimate of infection fatality rate (IFR), in percentage terms, as a function of age. The shaded region depicts the 95% confidence interval for that estimate. Markers denotes specific observations used in the meta-analysis.<ref name="EJE_levinetal" />]]
[[File:Log Graph of Covid-19 Infection Fatality Ratio by age.png|thumb|The same relationship plotted on a log scale]]

A December 2020 systematic review and meta-analysis estimated that population IFR during the first wave of the pandemic was about 0.5% to 1% in many locations (including France, Netherlands, New Zealand, and Portugal), 1% to 2% in other locations (Australia, England, Lithuania, and Spain), and exceeded 2% in Italy.<ref name="EJE_levinetal">{{#invoke:cite journal || vauthors = Levin AT, Hanage WP, Owusu-Boaitey N, Cochran KB, Walsh SP, Meyerowitz-Katz G | title = Assessing the age specificity of infection fatality rates for COVID-19: systematic review, meta-analysis, and public policy implications | journal = European Journal of Epidemiology | volume = 35 | issue = 12 | pages = 1123–1138 | date = December 2020 | pmid = 33289900 | pmc = 7721859 | doi = 10.1007/s10654-020-00698-1 | doi-access = free | title-link = doi }} [[File:CC BY icon.svg|50px]] Text was copied from this source, which is available under a [https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20171016050101/https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ |date=16 October 2017 }}.</ref> That study also found that most of these differences in IFR reflected corresponding differences in the age composition of the population and age-specific infection rates; in particular, the metaregression estimate of IFR is very low for children and younger adults (e.g., 0.002% at age 10 and 0.01% at age 25) but increases progressively to 0.4% at age 55, 1.4% at age 65, 4.6% at age 75, and 15% at age 85.<ref name="EJE_levinetal" /> These results were also highlighted in a December 2020 report issued by the WHO.<ref>{{#invoke:cite journal||title=Background paper on Covid-19 disease and vaccines: prepared by the Strategic Advisory Group of Experts (SAGE) on immunization working group on COVID-19 vaccines|date=22 December 2020|url=https://apps.who.int/iris/handle/10665/338095|website=World Health Organization|hdl=10665/338095 | author =World Health Organization }}</ref>
{| class="wikitable"
|+class="nowrap"|IFR estimate per age group<br />(to December 2020)<ref name="EJE_levinetal" />
!Age group
!IFR
|-
|0–34
|0.004%
|-
|35–44
|0.068%
|-
|45–54
|0.23%
|-
|55–64
|0.75%
|-
|65–74
|2.5%
|-
|75–84
|8.5%
|-
|85 +
|28.3%
|}
An analysis of those IFR rates indicates that COVID{{nbhyph}}19 is hazardous not only for the elderly but also for middle-aged adults, for whom the infection fatality rate of COVID-19 is two orders of magnitude greater than the annualised risk of a fatal automobile accident and far more dangerous than seasonal [[influenza]].<ref name="EJE_levinetal" />