In which countries have the most people been vaccinated against the coronavirus? Bremen used to be at the top of the rankings, but that has changed. Why?
Berlin – The corona vaccination rates of the federal states differ significantly from the previously known values if the place of residence of the vaccinated person is used instead of the place of vaccination. This emerges from a report by the Robert Koch Institute (RKI), which “Spiegel Online” picked up on Thursday evening.
The city states and the surrounding federal states are particularly affected. The vaccination rate in Bremen – the proportion of those vaccinated at least once – as of December 31, 2021 – was 88.3 percent according to the previous calculation, but only 77.4 percent according to the new one.
Different methods of acquisition
The difference is explained by the fact that in the city-states many people who lived elsewhere were vaccinated. According to the RKI report, this applied to 17 percent of vaccinations in Bremen and 13 percent in Hamburg. In Berlin, 7 percent of the vaccinations were given to people who lived outside the capital, and a further 6 percent could not be assigned their place of residence there.
The different methods of recording also have an effect on the federal state ranking of vaccination progress. While Bremen was previously considered the nationwide leader, the federal state was only in seventh place based on the new data at the turn of the year. Schleswig-Holstein was the leader, followed by Lower Saxony, Saarland and North Rhine-Westphalia.
The background to the new vaccination rates is a changed database: where information from the reporting portal of the National Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (KBV) was previously used, the new calculation was based on accounting data from the Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (KV). These also contain the place of residence and postal code of the vaccinated person, but are only available after a delay of several months. dpa
