Fact check: Corona vaccination: No increase in deaths to be deduced

fact check
Corona vaccination: No increase in deaths to be deduced

The corona virus and its effects have not been conclusively researched for a long time. This makes it easy to spread misinformation and misinterpretations.

Data from the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (KBV) are said to show that from the first quarter of 2021 there were significantly more sudden deaths and those with an unclear cause of death than in previous years. When it publishes the data, the AfD parliamentary group makes a connection to the start of the corona vaccination campaign. Opponents of vaccination then made serious allegations on social media. The data doesn’t even come close to giving anything in that direction.

Claim: KBV data shows an increase in sudden deaths and deaths with unclear causes. This is related to the start of the Corona vaccination campaign.

Rating: Wrong.

Facts: The KBV collects data on how often general practitioners bill certain diagnosis codes. However, no increase in certain causes of death can be seen from the data now used.

The fact that it still seems that way at first glance is a result of the data evaluation, writes the Central Institute for Statutory Health Insurance Physician Care (ZI), which researches the data from the panel doctors. “The excitement about a possible increase in deaths in 2021 has no basis,” said the chairman of the ZI, Dominik von Stillfried.

The apparent increase is “a logical consequence of the data selection and methodologically known as the cohort effect,” says von Stillfried. The AfD member of the Bundestag Martin Sichert requested billing data from the KBV for certain groups of insured persons – according to the following selection criterion: insured persons who visited a doctor in 2021.

In previous years, these insured persons could not provide diagnosis codes for accounting for a death. For a very simple reason: you were still alive – and only just visited a doctor in 2021, who billed the health insurance company for this.

According to ZI board member von Stillfried, the fact that the KBV data contains coding for deaths in the years before 2021 can only be due to an “error in input or transmission”.

In order to actually be able to draw a meaningful comparison, the data set would have to refer to the total population of all those with statutory health insurance. The ZI has now published such a comparison itself: for the years 2012 to 2022 it shows “no abnormalities for the individual diagnostic keys highlighted by the AfD”. In other words, medical bills such as those for sudden cardiac death have not increased noticeably over the years.

KBV board member Andreas Gassen also rejects Sichert’s incorrect interpretation of the doctors’ data: there should be discussions and debates, but not by interpreting something into numbers that they would not give.

The Federal Statistical Office is currently observing increased excess mortality again. This can no longer be primarily explained by corona deaths. However, the authority does not commit itself to other causes and refers to the results of the cause of death statistics, which are only available later.

There is no evidence to support the assertion that the current increase in excess mortality could be due to vaccinations. On the contrary: Vaccination helps to prevent deaths. The responsible Paul Ehrlich Institute (PEI) has not changed the assessment of their safety. According to medical knowledge, the risk of side effects is extremely low.

Data from the panel doctors had already been used in the past to prove a supposedly unrecognized danger of the corona vaccination. This too was a matter of misinterpretation – for example because the usual harmless vaccination reactions were mixed with more debilitating side effects.

All information on the dpa fact checks Contact page for the dpa fact check team

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