Counter-figures of the city of Vienna «kleinezeitung.at

The city now counters federal criticism of the development of the coronavirus in Vienna with a mortality analysis. Conclusion: “Vienna has overcome the crisis very well so far.”

2.20 p.m., May 11, 2020

The fight that has intensified in recent days. between the federal government and the city of Vienna received new numbers on Monday. According to an analysis carried out by the MA 23 in Vienna, responsible for business, work and statistics, since the spread of the corona virus, no more people have died than usual in the capital.

“We have no mortality in Vienna”, says boss MA23 Klemens Himpele to the APA and counteracts the recent statements of the federal government on the development of the disease in Vienna. “The numbers in Vienna have been worrying us for some time,” said the interior minister. Karl Nehammer Finally, referring to the number of new infections across Austria.

Vienna City Councilor Peter Hacker he reacted audibly annoyed. “He is concerned about walnuts in Vienna. If you read your statistics correctly, you would see that Vienna is third in total number of infected people compared to state capitals, “Hacker said at a press conference on Friday.

Generally, hackers located one “Dubious” treatments of the federal government with numbers. Therefore, the daily review of test results will only tell you how labs put their data into the IT system. “This is the mistake in the philosophy of the federal board”hackers said. A board member suspects that the Federal Chancellery or its Future Operations Compensation Board deliberately interprets the numbers in a Vienna critical way. His head Antonella Mei-Pochtler “For example, being particularly interested in the Vienna figures compared to other federal states, so that the capital can be poorly represented,” reports “Der Standard.”

With the analysis released Monday, the city of Vienna is now trying to provide further evidence contrary to the federal government’s alleged concerns. For the head of MA23 Himpele, the question is The mortality in retrospect one of the most important key figures, “because it is possible to know if something has been overlooked”, that is, undiagnosed cases of Covid-19 that only become visible in death statistics after a delay, but also “collateral damage”, for example, due to the acceleration of week-long hospital operations.

“It can be said that this is definitely not the case in Vienna,” said Vienna’s chief statistician: “The data shows that Vienna has overcome the crisis very well so far.” In order to judge this, Himpele and his team did a mortality analysis, “which is clean,” as the boss calls it. Because simple comparison of the absolute values ​​of the calendar week of individual years is of little use due to the many potential outliers, the explanation.

As a basis for interpretation. MA 23 uses so-called prognostic intervals for unusual mortality. They are based on the assumption that the curve of the death rate in Vienna is always more or less the same year after year. As a result, a certain range of expected deaths can be calculated for each week of the year, taking into account seasonal fluctuations, for example, the fact that more people die in winter flu than in summer.

If the number of actual deaths in Vienna at certain stages is (significantly) greater than the maximum value of this forecast band, we are talking about mortality. Looking back have it with children from zero to 64 years did not exist in the last five years (2015-2019)Himpele says. With the older age group (over 65) this happens over and over again.

MA 23 has also created a forecast tape for the current year. “We take the death dates from 2015 to 2019 and calibrate them,” Himpele reported. Because the The range of expectations cannot simply be updated from year to year.because the population structure, p. B. age distribution: changes annually and therefore has an impact on expected deaths.

Up to and including calendar week 17 actual deaths in Vienna could now be entered into the respective weekly spectrum – the chart is now available online on a mortality monitor. And the values ​​were always within expectations. The corona virus did nothing to change that. For classification: The first Covid 19-related death in Vienna was reported on March 12, in calendar week 11.

Since then, the numbers for people over 65 in week 13, 15 and 16 have been close to the respective maximum value, in the end, however, again in the lower range: Between April 20 and 26, 238 people over the age of 65 died. MA 23 estimated between 214 and 296 deaths. Among those under 65, there were 53 deaths with an expected value between 39 and 77.