Social contacts increase again despite coronavirus

At the beginning of the month, 60 percent still restricted themselves in this regard. At the same time, the proportion of people concerned about the impact of the virus on their social relationships fell to 15 percent.

It becomes clear that for many people life is returning more strongly back to the usual pattern of everyday life."

Dr Andreas Hensel, Professor and President of German Federal Institute for Risk Assessment

Nevertheless, the majority of people still consider an infection through proximity to other people to be probable. However, a clear difference can be observed between the age groups: While 78 percent of people under the age of 40 consider an infection via this pathway to be probable, this proportion is only 41 percent among those aged 60 and over.

One reason for this may be that elderly people often have fewer social contacts and thus encounter considerably fewer people in their everyday lives than younger people.

In contrast, most of the legal regulations on dealing with other people in public still find broad approval, regardless of age.

Both the mandatory use of masks and the mandatory distance are considered appropriate by around 90 percent of the respondents - and a similar number of people state that they implement these measures in their everyday lives.