Coronavirus: 10% of the world population infected?

Per Worldometer, there are nearly 40 million cases in the world. Yet that might just be a serious under-counting of infections.

The WHO believes that 10% of the world population may be infected by the virus. The Associated Press via the LA Times (Oct 5) reports:

“Our current best estimates tell us that about 10% of the global population may have been infected by this virus,” [WHO's head of emergencies Dr. Michael Ryan] said.

The estimate — which would amount to more than 760 million people based on a current world population of about 7.6 billion — is more than 20 times greater than the number of confirmed cases tallied by both the WHO and Johns Hopkins University. That tally is more than 35 million.

CNN (Oct 6) added:

Over the summer, the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention said cases in the US had likely been undercounted by at least 90%.

. . . The WHO's Europe director Hans Kluge warned Tuesday of "fatigue" surrounding the virus, noting that survey data from the region showed that apathy has reached high levels in some nations. "Although fatigue is measured in different ways, and levels vary per country, it is now estimated to have reached over 60% in some cases," Kluge said in a statement.

Based on Worldometer, the United States is at 8 million plus cases. By 90%, do they mean we're at 80 million cases or 24% of the population?

As per Europe, I'm not exactly sure what 60% fatigue means. What would 100% fatigue mean? I might have to do a little digging on that.

NPR (Oct 5) states:

The WHO is also working to develop new tools to combat COVID-19.

It's helping to test several vaccine candidates and developing plans for how to distribute a vaccine equitably once one is finally approved. It's working on new drugs to treat the disease and new tests to detect it.

In his presentation to the executive board, [WHO's head of emergencies Dr. Michael Ryan] noted that those efforts are currently woefully underfunded. He said the WHO needs $14 billion immediately and more down the road to fund what it calls its ACT Accelerator program (Access to COVID-19 Tools or ACT) to develop new pharmaceutics to fight against COVID-19.

Does the WHO really need $14 billion to help develop new treatments, new tests and test/distribute vaccines? I could see WHO needing money to distribute vaccines across the globe, but why do they need money to develop new treatments, develop the vaccine and create new tests? For example, countries across the globe are developing vaccines. Why does the WHO need to get involved in that? And there are studies coming out all the time around new treatments. Why does the WHO need to get involved? Seems like a money grab to me especially considering how the continent that many (including me) thought would get overwhelmed by the virus just hasn't been hit that hard -- yet.

Here is the one point that the articles don't discuss: if 760 million people across the globe are infected and if Worldometer 1.1 million estimate is close to correct, then we have an IFR % of just 0.14%. That would actually be significantly lower than the CDC estimate of an IFR % of 0.3%. Of course, that CDC estimate was for the United States (I believe) and as has been argued the IFR % in Africa is probably lower due to a young population.           

It should be noted that according to this article, the flu IFR % is 0.025%. So COVID-19 is still nearly 6x deadly than the flu.