No, according to the EU definition, Corona is not a “rare disease”

According to the EU definition, the coronavirus is a “rare disease”. This is not right!

This information is currently being shared on social media. This means that the government's Corona-related measures are being questioned or declared incomprehensible. – When it is only a “rare disease”.

This text is about:

“And I'll keep writing it until the last person understands it... according to the EU definition, 50 out of 100,000 people are affected by it is a "RARE DISEASE"!
And there are really sick people and not just those who tested positive. This government sets standards (35) or less that can never be met.
They could also demand that we only relax when no one dies on Wednesdays in Germany. How can it be that this government still has popular support? THAT IS SICK!!!"

Does this EU definition exist?

Yes, these exist. You can find them on the European Commission website under “Healthcare” – “Rare Diseases” / Rare Diseases .

The definition is as follows:

“Any disease that affects fewer than 5 in 10,000 people in the EU is considered rare. Although this may seem small, this translates to approximately 246,000 people. Most patients suffer from even rarer diseases, affecting 1 in 100,000 or more people. “Approximately 5,000 to 8,000 different rare diseases affect 6 to 8% of the EU population, i.e. between 27 and 36 million people.”

So we remember: If fewer than 5 out of 10,000 people are affected by a disease, it is classified as a “rare disease”.

The number 35 in the Facebook post

The number 35 refers to the staggering of the government's measures. These were recorded in the Infection Protection Act §28a . Here you will find two numbers, namely 50 and 35.

These values ​​are measured by the 7-day incidence. If this is 50 or more, “comprehensive protective measures” are taken; above 35, “broad protective measures” come into force. The lower the 7-day incidence, the more it can be relaxed.

For the sake of completeness, we would like to state again here:
The 7-day incidence describes the number of new infections with the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus per 100,000 inhabitants within seven days .

If you contrast this with the EU definition of a “rare disease”, this value refers to cases of illness per 10,000 inhabitants. With simple knowledge of mathematics, you can convert the incidence value accordingly and divide it by 10 to get the number per 10,000 inhabitants. That would be 3.5 people for “broad-based protective measures” and 5 people for “comprehensive protective measures”.

So we understand the logic from the Facebook posting.
What is missing now? The “Aaaabut?” – Here you go, follows immediately:

Apples and pears or incidence and prevalence

The 7-day incidence tells you exactly what it is about and what it is measuring. Namely the number of new infections within a certain period of time. This is linked to a certain reference value in order to be able to compare the numbers of small towns with those of cities with millions of inhabitants.

And the prevalence? It provides information about how frequently a particular disease occurs, i.e. it is the number of all old and new cases of a disease. In contrast to incidence, it describes the disease .

The exact definition can be found, for example, at the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) or at the European Patient Academy for Therapeutic Innovation (EUPATI) :

The prevalence provides information about existing cases, while the incidence provides information about new cases.

Let's fire up the calculator

Around 83.7 million people currently live in Germany. For example, if 1 million people in Germany contract a disease, this results in a prevalence of around 1,200 per 100,000 inhabitants.

To get to this result, we first calculate the proportion of sick people from the total population: 83,700,000 / 1,000,000 = 83.7
We then convert this result to the value of 100,000, which is used to indicate the prevalence: 100,000 / 83.7 = 1,194.74…

Now we calculate the Corona numbers. Since the beginning of the corona pandemic, around 2.4 million cases of illness have been reported in Germany. (As of March 3, 2021, 1:00 p.m.)
The calculation method is the same: 83,700,000 / 2,400,000 = 34.875
For the prevalence value, convert to 100,000 inhabitants: 100,000 / 34.875 = 2,867.38...

Accordingly, the prevalence is around 2,870 per 100,000 inhabitants .
However, the EU definition in question refers to a number per 10,000 inhabitants. That's why we divide by 10 again to get this number: 2,870 / 10 = 287

Hopefully we no longer have to explain that 287 is a long way from 5.

Conclusion

Here incidence and prevalence are mixed.
In the Sharepic the numbers of *new* illnesses are taken, but the EU definition is about the *total* illnesses.

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Source: afp.com