Estimation of the infection fatality rate and the total number of SARS-CoV-2 infections

We introduce a simple methodology to estimate the infection fatality rate (IFR) and from here the total number of infected with SARS-CoV-2. The virus has shown to be highly infectious and thus we based our method under the assumption that all members of a household with at least one confirmed case of COVID-19 should be infected, therefore we estimate the IFR using the number of secondary fatalities in households. The simplicity of the methodology allows for large sample sizes, since it requires minimal laboratory testing capabilities. We applied this methodology to a database of 3,232 confirmed cases in Mexico and arrived to an IFR estimate within the range reported in other studies.