While the corona situation continues to worsen, researchers are investigating the drivers of the pandemic.
The result is surprising: the AfD also plays a role.
Jena - The corona infection situation in Germany has worsened drastically in the past few weeks.
While politicians are struggling to find effective countermeasures, scientists want to identify the drivers of the pandemic.
In doing so, they recognized a surprising phenomenon: wherever the AfD is strong, the incidences are also high.
Corona incidence and AfD election results: Researchers see a connection
The seven-day incidences during the second corona wave last year stained particularly Saxony and Thuringia red on the maps of Germany.
In the 2017 federal election, however, Saxony and Thuringia were the federal states that had the most AfD blue.
Is it just a coincidence or is there a connection?
Employees of the Research Institute for Social Cohesion (FGZ) examined this question together with a Munich epidemiologist.
According to a press release, the six-person research team has been making calculations over the past few months about the connection between the election results in the 2017 federal election and the spread of Sars-Cov-2.
The result: the higher the AfD second vote result in the 2017 election, the faster the coronavirus spread in the corresponding region in 2020.
Corona: AfD vote as an amplifier of the pandemic?
In addition to the influence of the election results, the researchers also examined other factors such as population density and level of education.
This explains the comparatively low incidence in Saxony and Thuringia during the first wave.
But no correlation was as strong as that with the AfD's share of second votes.
According to the scientists, this relationship is "highly significant".
In doing so, they also weakened the assumption that the border traffic to the Czech Republic was a pandemic driver in the east.
Matthias Quent, co-author of the study and director of the Institute for Democracy and Civil Society at the Magdeburg-Stendal University of Applied Sciences, draws clear conclusions for the current situation from these results: “The regional political culture is a decisive factor for the incidence.
Our study examines the first two waves, but based on these results the assumption is obvious that right-wing attitudes could also act as amplifiers of the pandemic in the current fourth wave and with the lack of willingness to vaccinate. "
AfD Corona Correlation also in West Germany - Scientists demand: "Promote more vaccinations"
The AfD correlation is not just an East German phenomenon: the incidence was also high in West German AfD strongholds last year. Co-author Axel Salheiser from the Institute for Democracy and Civil Society therefore demanded in a press release that "existing civil society structures should be promoted, expanded and secured in the long term and that trust and vaccinations should be increasingly promoted."
Nevertheless, one cannot lump all AfD voters together.
The sociologist Christoph Richter told
Focus Online
: "Our results do not show that every AfD voter is a critic of the Corona protective measures, and not every vaccine opponent is also an AfD sympathizer." But there seem to be connections: Loud According to a Forsa poll, around 50 percent of the unvaccinated voters voted for the AfD in the federal election in September.
Also recently, the party in the Bundestag is again in the mood against the vaccinations.
(sf)
