Robert Koch Institut appears to agree that greater natural immunity in East Germany may be partly responsible for lower BA.5 infections there

It’s the small things in life.

My observation that Omicron BA.5 seems to prefer hypervaccinated masking West Germans while avoiding the DDR, and that this regional pattern first emerged in the wake of mass vaccination, made it into BILD, before earning a state media debunking.

A tipster now points me to the latest Robert Koch Institut Corona reports from 7 and 14 July, where we find the usual colour-coded map of case incidences …

…accompanied by this new clarification:

The observed geographic differences in reported incidence may possibly be explained by regional differences in previous infection waves, in addition to differences in testing and vaccine uptake.

My emphasis.

The 23 June report had no comment on the regional incidence patterns at all. As the East/ West divide in infections became more obvious, their 30 June report pleaded vaguely that there could be “many causes” for the phenomenon, including “differences in testing,” before finally adopting this expanded excursus.

The infection-enhancing effects of the vaccines are increasingly obvious everywhere but still tabu for official discussion, so RKI have chosen the safer, secondary explanation: Less vaccine uptake means more natural immunity in the East, and therefore fewer infections today. The RKI too can get something right once in a while, and though it seems a small matter, it means a lot, coming as it does from Germany’s foremost source of official pandemic misinformation.