After research by WDR, NDR and SZ on the vaccination quota in old people’s and nursing homes, the Ministry of Health declared on Wednesday that it could not name an “exact quota”. One reason is that there is no obligation to register for homes and practices. As recently as Monday, the ministry announced that 63,827 home residents in the Free State had been boosted by December 3, and that “a comparable number” of booster vaccinations by doctors could be assumed. Overall, Bavaria would have a good 127,000 booster vaccinations, which corresponds pretty much to the number who, according to the ministry, live in homes – and thus a rate of 100 percent.
But that does not match the figures from some districts, such as Altötting, where, according to the district office, the vaccination rate in homes on December 1 was around 55 percent. In the statement from Wednesday, the Ministry of Health only speaks of the fact that “further booster vaccinations by resident doctors or home doctors” will be added to the reported 63 827 booster vaccinations, without naming a size.
It is the second time within a few days that the state government is confronted with questions about its corona statistics. At the weekend, the FDP parliamentary group criticized the fact that the State Office for Health and Food Safety (LGL) counts all infected people whose vaccination status is unknown as not vaccinated – which distorts the incidences of both groups to an unknown extent.
The debate in the state parliament quickly becomes polemical
After the FDP put the issue on the agenda on Tuesday evening, a partly polemical debate arose in the state parliament, in which Health Minister Klaus Holetschek (CSU) called the FDP’s criticism, which speaks of a “scandal”, a “scandal”. The members of the CSU parliamentary group accused the FDP of what the FDP had previously accused the CSU of: to unsettle people and to play into the hands of AfD, corona deniers and vaccination skeptics.
The Greens, in turn, made accusations in both directions. The LGL is playing with the “inaccuracy” of its numbers into the hands of the conspiracy believers, as is the FDP by scandalizing these statistics, said Andreas Krahl. Fabian Mehring (FW) accused the FDP of “political profiteering”, SPD parliamentary group leader Florian von Brunn, on the other hand, spoke of “questionable numbers”, Andreas Winhart (AfD) of fraud.
CSU general secretary Markus Blume admitted a “statistical fuzziness”. For political decisions, however, it does not matter whether the incidence in unvaccinated people is “eight, ten or fourteen times higher”.