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Germany- Berlin:
How did Alice Weidel discover that there were more vaccinated people in intensive care units than unvaccinated people? Because official figures show the opposite.
Alice Weidel got caught up in a turbulent battle of words in a TV interview. The AfD parliamentary group leader came under the crossfire of criticism with her statement about supposedly more vaccinated than unvaccinated people in German intensive care units. After her conversation with the television station Phoenix, the hashtag #WeidelLuegt recently trended on Twitter. Why is?
Claim: In the interview about the corona pandemic, among other things, Weidel said on Wednesday in response to the journalist’s statement that mostly unvaccinated people had to be treated in intensive care in the hospitals: “That’s not true.” She cites alleged data from the Federal Statistical Office as the source.
Evaluation: This is wrong with regard to Covid patients in intensive care units.
Facts: The Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) reacted quickly to Weidel’s claim – and rejected it: “We have no data on the vaccination status of intensive care patients,” it said on Twitter in the direction of the AfD politician. So she couldn’t get her alleged numbers from the authorities.
The AfD politician left a specific request from the German Press Agency as to which Destatis data she was referring to. Rather, her office wrote by email: “The fact is that valid official figures are nowhere available.” At the same time, however, the press spokesman referred to the regularly published data of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI).
And the RKI information on vaccinated and unvaccinated corona cases in intensive care units clearly shows: According to RKI information, fewer vaccinated than unvaccinated Covid cases had to be treated there in November (November 1 to 28) in all age groups examined.
According to this, 94 of 598 corona patients among the 18 to 59 year olds were fully vaccinated. In people aged 60 and over, there were 498 out of 1119 cases. All the others were not vaccinated. The RKI only collects this data in cases in which the information provided shows that the patients were either fully vaccinated or unvaccinated.
With regard to the percentage of vaccination breakthroughs in the older age groups, it has recently been claimed that vaccination is of no use. But this has firstly been scientifically refuted and, secondly, statistically incorrect. This is because the vaccination rate is higher in the elderly in particular than in the general population. From a statistical point of view, this means: the more people are vaccinated, the more vaccination breakthroughs can be observed.
RKI data prove vaccination protection
With regard to the RKI data, this means: While 44.5 percent of corona patients aged 60 and over were vaccinated in intensive care units in November, a total of 87.9 percent in this age group had complete vaccination protection. Among the 18 to 59 year olds in the total population, 75.5 percent were fully vaccinated, and 15.7 percent in intensive care units.
[Also read: A normal hospital day in the corona madness (T +)]
On the basis of precisely this information, the RKI has methodically estimated that more than 85 percent of patients 60 plus are vaccinated against having to be treated in intensive care. In the 18 to 59 year olds, this vaccination protection was more than 90 percent.
And this trend is not only valid specifically for intensive care units, but also for hospital admissions and symptomatic corona cases in general. For example, according to a methodical RKI estimate, a vaccination in adults protected around 66 percent from contracting Covid-19 and developing symptoms. For adolescents, this value was around 90 percent in November.
Alice Weidel’s press spokesman puts the statement into perspective
Although the Phoenix interview was clearly about the corona pandemic and Covid patients, Weidel’s press spokesman later argued to the German Press Agency with the total number of people in intensive care units: “In any case, they are not Covid patients, regardless of whether they have been vaccinated or not vaccinated, which occupy the majority of the beds in the intensive care units. ”
It is clear that people who have had heart attacks or serious car accidents also need intensive care. According to the “Intensive Care Register” of the German Interdisciplinary Association for Intensive and Emergency Medicine (Divi), almost 5000 of the almost 20,000 intensive care beds across Germany were occupied by Covid patients on Thursday. (dpa)
Source: Der Tagesspiegel.
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