ArticleGlobal epidemiology2021
Estimates of global SARS-CoV-2 infection exposure, infection morbidity, and infection mortality rates in 2020.
Article in Global epidemiology, 2021. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 27 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
27 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 54 citations in OpenAlex.
- Age-stratified infection fatality rate of COVID-19 in the non-elderly population.Environmental research · 2023Pooled it
- Assessing the burden of COVID-19 in developing countries: systematic review, meta-analysis and public policy implications.BMJ global health · 2022Pooled it
- Global Estimates of COVID-19 Morbidity and Mortality: A Cohort Study and Mathematical Model Analysis.Influenza and other respiratory viruses · 2025Article
- SARS-CoV-2 Serosurveillance Reveals Pre-pandemic Cross-Reactivity and Pandemic Seroprevalence Trends in Senegal.medRxiv : the preprint server for health sciences · 2025Article
- Need for awareness and surveillance of long-term post-COVID neurodegenerative disorders. A position paper from the neuroCOVID-19 task force of the European Academy of Neurology.Journal of neurology · 2025Review
- Effect of heterologous intranasal iNCOVACCCommunications medicine · 2025Article
- Evaluating Hospital Admission Data as Indicators of COVID-19 Severity: A National Assessment in Qatar.Open forum infectious diseases · 2025Article
- Quantifying the magnitude of the general contextual effect in a multilevel study of SARS-CoV-2 infection in Ontario, Canada: application of the median rate ratio in population health research.Population health metrics · 2024Observational
- COVID-19 in patients with thymic epithelial tumors with or without Good's syndrome: a single-center retrospective study.BMC cancer · 2024Article
- Estimating protection afforded by prior infection in preventing reinfection: applying the test-negative study design.American journal of epidemiology · 2024Article
- Modelling disease mitigation at mass gatherings: A case study of COVID-19 at the 2022 FIFA World Cup.PLoS computational biology · 2024Article
- COVID-19 vaccination strategies in settings with limited rollout capacity: a mathematical modelling case study in Sierra Leone.BMC public health · 2023Article
- Using Regional Sero-Epidemiology SARS-CoV-2 Anti-S Antibodies in the Dominican Republic to Inform Targeted Public Health Response.Tropical medicine and infectious disease · 2023Article
- SARS-CoV-2 infection and effects of age, sex, comorbidity, and vaccination among older individuals: A national cohort study.Influenza and other respiratory viruses · 2023Article
- Turning point in COVID-19 severity and fatality during the pandemic: a national cohort study in Qatar.BMJ public health · 2023Article
- Immunological Responses of Arsenicum album 30CH to Combat COVID-19: Protocol for a Double-Blind, Randomized, Placebo-Controlled Clinical Trial in the Pathanamthitta District of Kerala.JMIR research protocols · 2023Article
- History of primary-series and booster vaccination and protection against Omicron reinfection.Science advances · 2023Article
- Saliva microbiome in relation to SARS-CoV-2 infection in a prospective cohort of healthy US adults.EBioMedicine · 2023Article
- Dynamics of SARS-CoV-2 seroprevalence during the first year of the COVID-19 pandemic in the Northeast region of Brazil.Pathogens and global health · 2023Article
- Lidocaine reinforces the anti-inflammatory action of dexamethasone on myeloid and epithelial cells activated by inflammatory cytokines or SARS-CoV-2 infection.Biomedical journal · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors at 4 institutions in 3 countries.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
We aimed to estimate, albeit crudely and provisionally, national, regional, and global proportions of respective populations that have been infected with SARS-CoV-2 in the first year after the introduction of this virus into human circulation, and to assess infection morbidity and mortality rates, factoring both documented and undocumented infections. The estimates were generated by applying mathematical models to 159 countries and territories. The percentage of the world's population that has been infected as of 31 December 2020 was estimated at 12.56% (95% CI: 11.17-14.05%). It was lowest in the Western Pacific Region at 0.66% (95% CI: 0.59-0.75%) and highest in the Americas at 41.92% (95% CI: 37.95-46.09%). The global infection fatality rate was 10.73 (95% CI: 10.21-11.29) per 10,000 infections. Globally per 1000 infections, the infection acute-care bed hospitalization rate was 19.22 (95% CI: 18.73-19.51), the infection ICU bed hospitalization rate was 4.14 (95% CI: 4.10-4.18). If left unchecked with no vaccination and no other public health interventions, and assuming circulation of only wild-type variants and no variants of concern, the pandemic would eventually cause 8.18 million deaths (95% CI: 7.30-9.18), 163.67 million acute-care hospitalizations (95% CI: 148.12-179.51), and 33.01 million ICU hospitalizations (95% CI: 30.52-35.70), by the time the herd immunity threshold is reached at 60-70% infection exposure. The global population remained far below the herd immunity threshold by end of 2020. Global epidemiology reveals immense regional variation in infection exposure and morbidity and mortality rates.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.