Did Bremen do everything right? At least the vaccination campaign was making good progress. Now the vaccination quota has even cracked the 100 percent mark. But can that be true?
The latest reports from the smallest federal state in Germany are irritating – at least at first glance. After the holidays, the number of cases rose daily. Germany’s vaccination master Bremen now has an incidence of 799 and is by far ahead of second-placed Berlin (as of January 7, 2022: 511.5). Bremen, with its brisk vaccination rate, has long been a role model. There are three good reasons why the incidence is now skyrocketing.
That is why the incidence in Bremen is increasing so rapidly
Studies, including from Israel, already suggested in autumn that vaccination protection decreases at different speeds and levels, depending on the manufacturer. The epidemiologist Hajo Zeeb from the Leibniz Institute for Prevention Research and Epidemiology in Bremen attributes the increasing number of cases to precisely this, among other things. “With the vaccination campaign that started early in Bremen, vaccination protection is now decreasing,” he said last on ZDF.
Lukas Fuhrmann, spokesperson for the Senator for Health, Women and Consumer Protection in Bremen, primarily blames the omicron variant. Bremen and Hamburg are currently considered to be the federal states in which the mutant already dominates. “We assume that Omikron now accounts for almost 100 percent of all corona cases,” said Fuhrmann stern-Inquiry.
According to Zeeb, the mutant is about 2.5 to 3.5 times more infectious than Delta. The epidemiologist is referring to data from Denmark, South Korea and Great Britain, where Omikron also dominates. According to a study from Denmark that has just been published in the preprint, Omikron was significantly more transferable in households in which only those who were twice vaccinated or who were only boosted lived. However, the study also shows that those who were boosted had the lowest risk of transmission, those who were not vaccinated the highest.
Omikron destroys the progress made in vaccination in Bremen
In an interview with the editorial network Germany (RND), however, the epidemiologist warned against wrong conclusions. “It is by no means the case that, as a boosted person, you can feel absolutely safe and thus dispense with all measures or advice on how to fight a pandemic.” Even as a boosted person you are not immune to the corona virus. In the Hanseatic city, according to the regional broadcaster “Buten un binnen”, which relies on data from the health authorities, 44 percent have been vaccinated three times (as of January 6, 2022). Bremen is thus slightly above the national average. According to current figures from the vaccination dashboard, almost 42 percent nationwide have received a refresher.
In addition to the declining vaccination protection and the new virus variant, Senate spokesman Fuhrmann named a third reason for the high incidence: “Over the holidays, we have doubled the staff capacities in the test centers and at the health department.” In Bremen, the number of cases is reliable. There is no delay in reporting, as in other countries. In some cases, figures from the holidays were reported there, said Fuhrmann, citing a nationwide overview of the health authorities. He therefore assumes that the incidence will rise in the coming days and weeks in other federal states in a similar way to that shown in Bremen.
How realistic is the vaccination quota?
Much more irritating than the high incidence is the high vaccination rate. According to the RKI, 100.2 percent of all adults between the ages of 18 and 59 in Bremen are double vaccinated (as of January 7, 2021). However, not only Bremen recorded a distorted vaccination quota, assured spokesman Fuhrmann. The problem exists nationwide and is due to the reporting system of the RKI and the health authorities. What has been known for two months now becomes particularly clear using the example of Bremen. Statistically, in vaccination centers, in addition to the vaccine administered, numerous details such as age, gender and place of residence are recorded and pseudonymized in an online database, where they are taken over by the RKI. Because of the additional bureaucratic effort, the general practitioners do without parts of the demographic information – such as the place of residence.
It was agreed on a reduced reporting requirement. The RKI writes: “Only the location of the vaccinating bodies is included in all data sources.” In other words: only the vaccination location is sent to the institute. “That is why people in all federal states who do not live there are included in the vaccination quota,” explains Fuhrman – thereby distorting the actual quota.
According to him, people from Lower Saxony in particular can be vaccinated in Bremen. “This has the greatest impact here because we already have the highest vaccination quota nationwide.” How much the data will be skewed is unclear. What is certain, however, is that there are still no reliable vaccination quotas for cities and districts nationwide because citizens are too often vaccinated in a region beyond their actual place of residence.
However, they are trying to get closer to the real vaccination quota, said Fuhrmann. For this purpose, Bremen compares its vaccination data with those from Lower Saxony. That was already done in the summer. At that time, however, there were hardly any differences, according to Fuhrmann. He expects it to be the same now too. “I am not assuming that we will have to subtract ten percent from the current vaccination quota.” Is that correct? The local broadcaster, “with reference to the health department, has a vaccination quota of almost 84 percent. According to this, over 16 percent of those vaccinated would have to come from Lower Saxony. How the vaccination quota really turns out remains unclear.
Sources: with material from DPA, RKI vaccination rate monitoring, vaccination dashboard, butene and inside
Source From: Stern
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