Research by NDR and “Welt”
Incidence for unvaccinated people in several federal states reported massively too high
Vaccinated or Unvaccinated? The situation is not always that clear.
© Torsten Sukrow / SULUPRESS.DE // Picture Alliance
In the current corona wave, the differences in the incidence of vaccinated and unvaccinated people were repeatedly reported. In some federal states, this data was not correctly recorded and reproduced, research by NDR and “Welt” show. The RKI figures are not affected, however.
In the past few weeks there has been great interest in the corona incidence broken down by vaccination status. There are basically good reasons for this presentation: The breakdown of the incidence makes it easier to understand the effect and success of the vaccinations. At the political level, measures to combat the corona pandemic can also be finely tuned – for example, by giving people who have been vaccinated earlier or more freedom. Research shows, however, that several federal states recorded the incidences for unvaccinated people in a misleading manner and thus reported them clearly too high.
RKI correctly recorded incidences according to vaccination status
The background: In order to record the incidences according to vaccination status, an authority must know whether the sick person has been vaccinated or not. This is relatively easy to determine in the case of a vaccinated person – after all, there is clear evidence of vaccination. The situation is more difficult with the status of the unvaccinated: a lack of vaccination certificate does not necessarily mean that the person is really unvaccinated. The RKI, whose numbers are not affected, recorded the numbers as follows: “Cases were considered unvaccinated if they were told that they were not vaccinated. Cases for which information on the vaccination status was incomplete or for which an incomplete vaccination was given were excluded.“
Incidence according to vaccination status: In Hamburg, unknown cases are generally considered unvaccinated
This was not the case with the local authorities in Hamburg and Bavaria. Infected people were considered unvaccinated there until they provided evidence of vaccination. In plain language: If the vaccination status could not be determined, they were automatically considered unvaccinated – and that affected a large proportion of those infected. As the NDR reports, in almost 70 percent of the corona cases in Hamburg it was not clear whether the infected person was vaccinated or unvaccinated. However, the social welfare authorities counted the cases as unvaccinated – and thus massively increased the recorded incidence among the unvaccinated.
Bavaria: FDP criticizes wrong allocation of the numbers sharply
The State Office for Health and Food Safety (LGL) in Bavaria proceeded in exactly the same way. Like the Hamburg social authority, the LGL also assigned an unknown vaccination status to the unvaccinated. The incidence among the unvaccinated was accordingly significantly higher than in other federal states.
The LGL had stated this procedure on its own website. Nevertheless, the question arises why Bavaria and Hamburg do not transparently mark the numbers as unknown, unlike in other federal states. The Bavarian FDP parliamentary group leader Martin Hagen spoke of a “scandal” and “manipulation”. He told the “Süddeutsche Zeitung”: “Only through honesty and transparency can we, lateral thinkers and other conspiracy theorists, take the wind out of the sails.” Finally, the unadulterated figures would also impressively show that vaccination significantly reduces the risk of infection.
Sources: NDR, “Southgerman newspaper”, “World”