High discrepancy: data chaos in Corona vaccination certificates

Anyone who wants to visit a restaurant, a cultural event or simply the cinema at the moment cannot get around an appropriate vaccination certificate. Now it has been discovered that there are apparently 42 million more vaccination certificates in circulation than there are vaccinations distributed. How can this be?

Strikingly high number of unreported cases

Reporters from the Neue Osnabrücker Zeitung (NOZ) have discovered that around 205 million digital vaccination certificates are in circulation. What may initially sound like a gratifyingly high willingness to vaccinate has an insipid aftertaste. At least when you look at the details. To date, only just under 162 million vaccinations against Covid-19 have been administered. This problem has been known for some time, but is now picking up steam again. That’s because the newspaper goes on to report that the difference between alleged vaccination certificates and actual doses administered has now increased even further.

A big question mark for all involved

The Robert Koch Institute (RKI) and the Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians (KBV) are primarily behind the issuance of vaccination certificates. However, the two institutions do not know where the high discrepancy could have its origin. The Federal Ministry of Health also has a similar problem explaining the discrepancy. The Association of Statutory Health Insurance Physicians now comments on the problem as follows:

We assume on the basis of the contract medical billing data that an under-reporting by the digital vaccination rate monitoring (DIM) is not generally given and thus can not explain the gap presented.

In the further the federation of all legal health insurance companies in Germany shows up however a little duckmäuserisch. Finally, one passes the problem quite simply to the RKI. Thus, the Association of Statutory Health Insurance continues to say:

To explain this gap, in-depth analyses of the data on certificate issuance are necessary, which currently only the Robert Koch Institute can perform.

Multiple issuance as a cause?

A little more talkative, however, shows the Federal Ministry of Health. This seems to bring forth at least one idea as an attempt to explain. On inquiry of the NOZ the Federal Ministry expressed itself thereby that one could think theoretically of several causes, which are responsible for the gigantic difference between certificates and inoculations. In particular, the multiple issuance of certificates could be a reason for the discrepancy. In addition, there could be a problem in the general data from the early days of certificates. These were initially created automatically by the vaccination centers. From the current perspective, this could have caused the data situation to be distorted.

Pressure from the opposition

The whole thing is, of course, food for thought for the opposition parties in the Bundestag. These now urge the responsible persons to give suitable answers to this quite burning question. It is not without reason that there is talk of a “data chaos”. In view of the danger that masses of unvaccinated people could walk around with false vaccination certificates, the case is crying out for a very quick clarification.