End of the data chaos – uniform figures for new infections from Tuesday

The existence of different data sources had repeatedly caused confusion, especially in the early stages of the pandemic. Until recently, three partially different values ​​for new infections and deaths were published: the figures reported by the State and Federal Crisis Management Team (SKKM), the data recorded in the Epidemiological Reporting System (EMS) and the EMS figures adjusted by AGES during the Day .

Figures will not be published until the afternoon
Going forward, the crisis management team will no longer report data and the EMS figures will only be published in the AGES corrected version. This means that the infection and death statistics are standardized, but are available on the AGES homepage a little later than before, at 2 p.m. The morning reports from SKKM and EMS will be cancelled. “This step implements the Court of Audit’s criticism of the earlier corona data management,” said a broadcast from the Ministry of Health on Monday. According to the information, the total number of infections will be about 18,000 lower than previously shown on the AGES website (5,003,286).

Infection processes are becoming less and less reliable
However, it should be noted that official statistics show the infection process less and less reliably, as the federal and state governments have significantly reduced the number of tests performed. In August 2021, nearly two million more PCR tests were performed (of which 1.5 percent were positive). This year, despite significantly higher incidences, there were only 634,000 tests (nearly ten percent positive). Complexity researcher Peter Klimek therefore warned in August that the EMS figures are unlikely to make sense and that the number of unreported cases is likely to be well above official infection rates.