After months of attacking the unvaccinated for refusing to get the COVID vaccine, Health Minister of Germany Karl Lauterbach said that the "pandemic of the unvaccinated" was actually due to a software error.
Back in November 2021, news outlets reported on the fast increasing number of COVID cases in Germany's second largest city, Hamburg. The figures grew from an initial 111.6 infected people per 100,000 to 160 per 100,000 in a span of few of days, and at the end of November showed 209.2 per 100,000 to as high as 232.3 per 100,000
According to the National Pulse, the drastic increases in new COVID cases pushed authorities to implement COVID measures. Authorities said that only vaccinated or recovered, called 2G status, may enter shops, restaurants, or clubs. Authorities also ordered the unvaccinated to limit social contact. Following the new set of rules, Mayor Peter Tschentscher said they observed an increase in COVID vaccine acceptance, which they believed was the only way to end the pandemic.
Meanwhile, an investigation by the Süddeutscher Zeitung and Welt newspapers revealed that the COVID numbers in Hamburg's Social Services departments were inaccurate. Furthermore, they found that "in most cases, they didn't even know who was vaccinated and who was not," the report said. But authorities continued to classify those with unknown status as unvaccinated, resulting in 70% of positive cases having unknown status.
By the end of December, the mayor said that the misclassifications were due to the deployment of "different IT Systems" that used varying classifiers.
On January 17, Health Minister Karl Lauterbach explained, "With the situation in Hamburg... I can claim without a doubt, that the problem was in the automatic classifier of the software. The problem is solved now...and it was a mistake and was not done on purpose in order to largely blame the unvaccinated for the pandemic."
On Monday, however, Germany announced that it will extend its COVID pandemic measures in response to the spread of the Omicron variant, Reuters reported. Chancellor Olaf Scholz said that following a discussion with the heads of the federal states, they agreed to extend restrictions such as limiting private gatherings to 10 people and requiring vaccine passports or negative COVID test results to enter restaurants.
Germany reported 63,393 new COVID cases on Monday, up to 86% higher than what was reported a week ago, as per the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) for infectious diseases. Lauterbach said that the spike in COVID cases is expected to peak by mid-February.
According to the Helsinki Times, the ifo Institute has found that in Germany, nearly two-thirds of the "excess mortality" attributable to COVID was among patients aged 80 and above. Moreover, 30% of COVID deaths were among people aged 60 to 79. Deaths among the younger groups accounted for only 7%, based on data from 2020 and 2021.
"By the end of 2021, 96,200 more people had died since the outbreak of the pandemic than would have been expected under normal circumstances. That means the number of additional deaths attributable to the pandemic is lower than previous estimates suggest," Joachim Ragnitz from the ifo Institute's Dresden Branch remarked.
