A corona graphic that was shown on the talk show Markus Lanz on ZDF causes trouble. Now the broadcaster has spoken out.
Hamburg – Once again the fuss about Markus Lanz. A corona graphic was presented in his ZDF broadcast. Their interpretation now causes displeasure. In the social media it has been criticized several times that the graphics were not classified correctly and could therefore be misinterpreted. The editorial team of the show spoke up after just under a week: “The editorial team regrets the misleading interpretation of these statistics.”
Last Wednesday (November 10th, 2021) a graphic was shown on the talk show by and with Markus Lanz (ZDF) with the heading “The vaccination effect” based on the age group 60+. It showed a bar chart with multiple categories with no visible source. The percentage of unvaccinated and vaccinated persons in the 60+ age group was highlighted in color: What was shown was the percentage ratio of vaccinated and unvaccinated persons per se, the respective proportion among the infections, the infections with hospitalization, the infections with intensive care medicine Treatment as well as the respective proportion of those infected who died. The numbers related to several weeks in October.
Corona graphics are not correctly classified by Markus Lanz on ZDF
So far so good. But in the show Markus Lanz the graphic was not classified correctly, the impression could be created that the graphic shows that a corona vaccination does not have the desired effect – but that is wrong. The ZDF said: “This resulted in a misleading interpretation of this statistical representation. The resulting impression that the vaccination is less effective in the age group mentioned than previously assumed is incorrect. “
Moderator Markus Lanz addressed the vaccinated shares in the graphic on the talk show and asked virologist Melanie Brinkmann, who was a guest that evening, for an assessment. After the broadcast on ZDF, Brinkmann criticized the course of the discussion in the Braunschweiger Zeitung. She emphasized that the graphic clearly states: “The vaccination is not only effective, it is even very effective!” Brinkmann is quoted as saying that it is a very difficult situation to have to spontaneously comment on this rather misleading graphic.
Markus Lanz (ZDF): A simple arithmetic game would have explained Corona graphics correctly
Moderator Markus Lanz could have cleared up all misunderstandings with a simple arithmetic game, as Twitter user “RogerRyf” explains. Because according to the graphic, 91 percent of people over 60 in Germany are vaccinated against the coronavirus, only nine percent are not. Means: out of 1000 people 910 are vaccinated, 90 are not.
Of these 1000 people, 100 become infected with the coronavirus, 60 vaccinated and 40 unvaccinated. In absolute terms, only around one in 15 people who are vaccinated becomes infected with the virus, while almost every second person in the group of those who are not vaccinated becomes infected. Significantly more unvaccinated people become infected than vaccinated people. An explanation like this was missing from Markus Lanz on ZDF, which is why the graphic has been criticized many times. (msb)
