The Bundesministerium für Gesundheit (BMG, the German ministry of health) has lost heavily in the Covid war, and is now concentrating its forces in Sixtyplus Valley. A new weapon, the Fakten-Booster, is being deployed. My local newspaper already had to take a hit (and considerable reparations were paid, I presume):
What do you do if you want to scare people? Show BIG numbers. Please focus on the central tile:
Translation:
Of people admitted to hospital because of Covid, 83% are 60 or older.
Among these, there are 5 times more unvaccinated than at-least-triple-vaccinated.
Now, consider a Covid ward with 100 patients. How many of these, on average, are 60 or older? No, the answer is not 83. Look at the actual proportions of patients 60 or older since the beginning of the pandemic, according to RKI data:
The proportion never went above 80%, and currently stands at 71% (calendar week 33 of 2022: 1452 patients under 60; 3566 patients 60 or older). What the BMG seems to have done, in order to give those meagre 71% a little boost, is to apply certain population weights. For example, around 30% of Germans are 60 or older. If we make the younger and older populations equal by applying a 3/7 weight to the number of younger patients, we get an 85% proportion of older patients – reasonably close to 83%. For details about the actual procedure, call 116 117.
And what about vaccination status? Are there five unvaccinated patients for each triple-vaccinated patient? Again, no. The RKI lists, for calendar weeks 24-27 of 2022, 318 unvaccinated, 89 twice-vaccinated, and 631 triple-vaccinated hospitalizations (note that this is but a subsample, hand-picked by the RKI, but it will have to do). Only by weighting with vaccination rates can we retrieve the factor of five. Of those 60 or older, around 8% are unvaccinated, and around 86% are triple-vaccinated: 318 * 86 / 8 / 631 = 5.4
I am not saying that the weighting does not make sense. But I am saying that hiding it, and conjuring up misleading images before the eyes of the peer group, is just propaganda.
If the unvaccinated population was comparable in everything but vaccination status to the triple-vaccinated population (which it surely is not), and if everybody could instantly be boosted into triple-vaccination paradise (which is surely impossible), what would be the best-case result?
Of the 318 unvaccinated cases, 318 / 5.4 = 59 cases would remain.
Of the 89 twice-vaccinated cases, corresponding to around 6% of the 60+ population, 631 * 6 / 86 = 44 cases would remain.
Nothing would change for the 631 triple-vaccinated cases.
The total number of hospitalizations would clock in at 734 instead of 1038. The 60+ population is standing at 25 million. The number-needed-to-vaccinate (NNTV) in order to prevent a single Covid hospitalization (per four-week period) would amount to:
( 8% + 6% ) * 25 million / ( 1038 – 734 ) = 11513
The total number of jabs required would be:
( 3 * 8% + 1 * 6% ) * 25 million = 7.5 million
This might result in around 120,000 consultations due to adverse reactions, and God knows how many non-Covid hospitalizations. On the other hand, I am quite fond of the city of Mainz, having spent there some years, and would love to see golden sidewalks on my next visit.