Does the addition of ということです in this sentence simply add formality?


This is an excerpt from the NHK article:

<https://www3.nhk.or.jp/news/html/20210406/k10012958101000.html>

>
> 研究班は、国内でワクチンの接種を受けた医療従事者のうち、およそ1万9000人について健康状態などを調べていますが、接種後に感染が確認されたのは初めてだということです。

As far as I can tell, removing ということです to yield:

>
> 研究班は、国内でワクチンの接種を受けた医療従事者のうち、およそ1万9000人について健康状態などを調べていますが、接種後に感染が確認されたのは初めてです。

Gives the same meaning. So is ということです kind of just like news/article speech?




ということです seems to be something specific to formal writing and news reporting. I
encounter it a lot in books on history or philosophy and generally in a
context when the opinion of someone, who's not necessarily been specified, is
quoted.

I've struggled myself with how to translate it when I run across it in a text,
but generally it doesn't seem to translate well. Japanese is very sensitive to
how we get the information we're passing on: did we observe it ourselves or
did we learn from someone else.

My guess would be that ということです doesn't necessarily indicate a particular
source. It could be a conclusion reached by the impression you get from
several different sources. In the article you're quoting it's perhaps
something gleaned from what the Covid Research Groups have published. I think
it's the lack of specificity of 研究班 that leads to this vague citation through
the expression ということです

