Dataset for: The relation between the Public Attitude towards COVID-19 and its Applied Policies - A Binational and Temporal Comparison

While countries applied different strategies in order to prevent a further spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, the measures found a varying degree of support within their countries populations. The goal of this study is to explore the relationship between people’s attitudes on the COVID-19 measures and the policies strictness. This questionnaire was distributed in Switzerland and Germany, and provides a binational comparison regarding the relation between COVID-19 policies and their respective public opinion. In detail, the following research questions are explored: 1. How do public attitudes differ between the Swiss and German population on respective, national COVID-19 policies? 2. Is there a change over time in the attitude of the two populations towards non-compliance? To answer the research questions we ran an online survey in July 2020 and May 2021 after the first and second wave of COVID-19 incidences. A total of 127 participants were asked to answer a total of 40 questions using a visual analog scale to identify the attitude towards COVID-19 policies. Further data on the participants’ information sources, health status and demographics were collected. In the analysis, the participants attitudes were compared with the COVID-19 policies that were in force at the time in the respective country. A series of independent one-tailed t-tests with a significance level of α= 0.05 were used to identify significant differences within a binational comparison. Bonferroni-correction was used to control for the bias due to multiple comparisons. Furthermore, the temporal development of the collected attitudes for both countries were explored by computing a Wilcoxon-Mann-Whitney-Test.