Absolutely mad to me how many people are credulously reporting the FT headline that ‘up to half of U.K. may have been infected’ when the paper plots a variety of results and to get that one you have to assume an IFR 100x smaller than consensus.
No wonder the researchers ‘weren’t keen to criticise the government’. They probably know perfectly well the IFR is likely around 1%. 
Their paper points out the path of deaths can be consistent with higher prevalence/lower severity. But people have been estimating those numbers and despite uncertainty exactly no one thinks it’s a tenth as deadly as the common flu. Which is what is needed for 50% exposure.
Rho = 0.06 is what corresponds to consensus views on IFR. It could just about plausibly be 0.03 (0.5% IFR). But even that is a stretch at this point.
