Thread by @ashishkjha

New paper out in @TheLancet about seroprevalence of COVID antibodies in Spain.

Here's the paper:

thelancet.com/journals/lance…

It tells us some important things:

First, proportion of folks who've been infected in Spain, one of the hardest hit places in Europe, is about 5%

Thread

Here is more detailed report (in Spanish)

mscbs.gob.es/gabinetePrensa…

Second, no meaningful difference by sex (men vs women) in infection rates.

Third, there is a gradient by age -- but its not huge.

For kids (<18 yo), the seroprevalence is about 3-4%

For adults, 5-6%

2/5

Fourth, large variations based on whether you had symptoms:

Of those without symptoms -- 2.8% seroprevalence
Of those with lots of symptoms -- 12.3%
Of those with loss of smell -- 40.1%!

3/5

A few other things stand out:

Spain has 297K official cases -- so this represents about 8X that count (population 47M X 5.0%)

Spain with 28,400 deaths -- so if we assume 5% seroprevalence....

Gives us an Infection Fatality Rate of 1.2% in Spain

Final thoughts:

Large national studies like this very helpful

They tell us who has been infected, who has not

Remind us that we are VERY FAR from herd immunity

Still in early days

Key to getting through it is to protect folks until better therapies, vaccines available

Fin