Serial cross-sectional data on the public's perception on the coronavirus during the first months of the pandemic in Germany

The coronavirus pandemic poses major challenges for governments and public health authorities. In order to implement appropriate measures, it is important to understand how the population is coping with the pandemic. This dataset contains serial cross-sectional survey data from the first months of the coronavirus pandemic in Germany. Data were collected between 24 March and 26 May 2020 in ten weekly surveys (ns ranging between 500 and 515, in total N = 5,076) as part of omnibus telephone interviews. Samples were drawn at random from landline and mobile telephone numbers. The main topics of the questionnaire were (a) the expected impact of the coronavirus on one's personal life, (b) perception of infection risk, (c) protective measures and (d) information behaviour. Data were weighted to ensure sociodemographic representativeness. To account for the rapidly changing situation of the coronavirus pandemic in Germany, the questionnaire underwent several adjustments during the data collection period.