The four weeks before lockdown during the COVID-19 pandemic in Germany: a weekly serial cross-sectional survey on risk perceptions, knowledge, public trust and behaviour, 3 to 25 March 2020.

BackgroundDuring the COVID-19 pandemic, public perceptions and behaviours have had to adapt rapidly to new risk scenarios and radical behavioural restrictions.AimTo identify major drivers of acceptance of protective behaviours during the 4-week transition from virtually no COVID-19 cases to the nationwide lockdown in Germany (3-25 March 2020).MethodsA serial cross-sectional online survey was administered weekly to ca 1,000 unique individuals for four data collection rounds in March 2020 using non-probability quota samples, representative of the German adult population between 18 and 74 years in terms of age × sex and federal state (n = 3,910).

[Challenges for science journalism in the Corona pandemic-some observations about a mediated world event].

The mass media has made the SARS-CoV‑2 virus a so-called global event. The volume and congruence of the journalistic selection of topics in Germany exceeds that of the already high level of the H1N1 pandemic 2009 many times over. In this discussion article, challenges for journalism that have arisen in reporting on the scientific aspects of the COVID-19 pandemic are described.