The seven-day incidence value is crucial when it comes to how severe the corona-related restrictions actually are.
The entire Corona traffic light is based on this value.
But for the district of Weilheim-Schongau it has not been correct for days.
County - Once you understand the basics, the incidence number is actually not difficult to calculate.
You take the number of newly reported corona infections in the last seven days, divide it by the number of residents of the district and multiply the result by 100,000. You already have the decisive comparison value, which indicates how many cases in a district per 100 000 residents occurred in seven days.
This incidence value then determines how severe the restrictions on public life are.
If it is below 35, there are hardly any restrictions other than the normal distance and hygiene rules.
From a value of 35 the traffic light jumps to yellow, from a value of 50 to red.
With far-reaching consequences: curfew, mask requirements apply in public places and in schools (see graphic).
So far, the level “red” has applied in the Weilheim-Schongau district.
The incidence value has been incorrect for several days
However, yesterday at the latest, the level “dark red” should have been declared.
If so, if the incidence value was correct.
But he doesn't.
For several days.
The problem appeared for the first time last Friday.
Because the incidence value fell completely unexpectedly from 96 on Thursday to 84.9.
More than 20 new infections were reported again.
It was only after the editorial deadline that it became clear that 14 cases were "lost" due to a technical problem when the data was transmitted to the State Office for Health and Food Safety (LGL) and the Robert Koch Institute (RKI).
What remained was the hope that the data would be synchronized over the weekend and that everything would be correct again.
But on Monday, the RKI still reported the total number of 690 cases in the Weilheim-Schongau district as on Friday, although 46 more new infections were registered over the weekend.
The same picture on Tuesday morning: 690 officially registered cases.
Since the real existing new infections have not been included in the statistics for days, the official incidence value continues to fall - in contrast to the real situation.
"There is a serious technical problem in forwarding the figures from our health department to the LGL and the RKI," said the manager of the district office, Georg Leis, yesterday when the local newspaper asked him about the obvious differences between statistics and real infection occurrences.
The transmission of the current figures has been disrupted since Friday, which is why the official incidence value has no longer been correct since Friday.
The protective measures should have been tightened long ago
This has far-reaching consequences, because the Weilheim-Schongau district has already scratched the incidence value 100 mark in the past few days, which would have meant further tightening of protective measures.
On Monday, the incidence value calculated on the correct database was 101.
In stark contrast, the RKI spat out a value of 67.9 on its site yesterday morning based on outdated data.
That caused quite a headache in the district office.
Because two weeks ago, the legal situation changed when implementing the corona protective measures.
Previously, based on the data available to them, the districts had to issue a general order in which the protective measures required according to the Corona traffic light were specified.
Then the state government changed the law and, according to Leis, introduced an “automatic”.
If a district exceeds the threshold for the next level of the Corona traffic light at RKI or LGL (the higher value always applies), the new regulations automatically apply.
Regulations do not come into force automatically
However, it is precisely this automatic system that is causing problems in this specific case in the Weilheim-Schongau district.
Because if both the RKI and LGL figures are incorrect, the regulations do not automatically come into force.
In the end, the decisive factor is which district is listed under "dark red" on the website of the Bavarian Ministry of Health.
The Weilheim-Schongau district is missing there so far because the Ministry of Health relies exclusively on the figures from the RKI and LGL.
Today at the latest, Leis promised yesterday, the data breach should be resolved.
Then from Thursday, midnight, the warning level “dark red” would apply in the district.
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