Two-thirds (66 percent) of the German public believe that the health, economic, and social impacts of the pandemic were adequately managed in hindsight. This is according to a survey for the “Trendbarometer” by RTL and ntv, which was conducted by the opinion research institute Forsa from January 20 to 21, surveying 1,005 people.
Almost a third (30 percent) of the respondents hold the opposite view. The public is divided on the evaluation of the Corona policy, with 49 percent calling for a critical evaluation and an equal number considering it unnecessary. Among AfD supporters, 72 percent deem a critical evaluation of the Corona policy as urgently necessary.
Five years after the outbreak of the Corona pandemic, it has largely become a non-issue in daily life: only 13 percent of the respondents said that Corona still plays a role in their daily life, while 86 percent reported that it no longer does.
Thirty-nine percent of the public stated that they wash their hands more frequently in their daily life as a preventive measure, compared to before the pandemic. Thirty-one percent maintain a greater distance from others in public, and 25 percent wear a mask when sick in public. Twenty-two percent regularly test themselves or upon suspicion of a Corona infection, and 17 percent continue to get regularly vaccinated against Corona. About a third of the public (32 percent) no longer take any of these preventive measures.
According to the numbers of the Federal Statistical Office, a total of 183,155 deaths in connection with the coronavirus have been reported in Germany up to May 15, 2024. The frequency of long Covid, as reported by the Robert Koch Institute, cannot be reliably estimated.