11 July 2022 - The outbreak of the Covid-19 pandemic once again significantly increased the relevance of up-to-date data and statistics. Against this background, the Federal Statistical Office (Destatis) publishes the collection of Covid-19 data for Germany to extend its range of information by up-to-date data broken down in great regional detail on infection rates, the hospital situation and the measures taken by the governments to contain the pandemic.
The "Covid-19 data for Germany" collection is based on a project initiated by the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK). As part of the project, an interdisciplinary consortium was commissioned to collect data associated with the Covid-19 crisis. This consortium comprises the infas Institute for Applied Social Sciences, the infas 360 GmbH and the IHPH Institute for Hygiene and Public Health of Bonn University Hospital. The team was supported by a scientific advisory board.
Click here to get directly to the Covid-19 data for Germany.
Data basis: official and non-official sources
The data collection encompasses various subject areas. On the basis of a detailed regional breakdown, this includes the measures that have been taken since March 2020 to contain the Covid-19 pandemic at the level of administrative districts and towns not attached to an administrative district. As regards the legal ordinances examined by the BMWK project, a coding scheme was developed, comprising 21 categories and 449 subcategories, according to which the ordinances at federal, Land and administrative district level were captured. So far, this is the only data collection that provides detailed and structured information on measures to contain the pandemic.
In addition, the data collection contains daily information on infection rates and vaccinations, also at the level of administrative districts and towns not attached to an administrative district. The primary data sources are the websites of the Robert Koch Institute (RKI) and of the DIVI intensive care register. Furthermore, data on the economic situation and the regional structure have been included from freely accessible sources (for instance, federal and Land authorities, the ifo Institute, the Federal Employment Agency, the Trade Register, Germany's National Meteorological Service (DWD)). Additionally available are health data from outside the range of Covid-19 information.
In its EXSTAT section, Destatis offers this data collection for the first time to the interested public at large. The information provided on the "Covid-19 data for Germany" webpages comes from official and non-official sources and therefore does not always meet the quality criteria of official statistics (Code of Practice). At present, the following descriptive information is available for each set of data:
- variables
- source
- level (usually "administrative district"; in some cases "Land")
- periodicity (day, month, quarter, year)
- data status
- data type (numerical, text)
The data collection Covid-19 data for Germany is not complete yet. The aim is to enable comparisons of previously decentralised data across the Länder.