Table 3.

Perceptions of the necessity of public health measures

On a scale of 1 to 10 (ranging from 1 ‘Completely unnecessary’ to 10 ‘Absolutely essential’) please indicate how necessary you think the following lockdown restrictions were to contain the Covid-19?
Lockdown March/April			Lockdown November/December
	Completely unnecessarya	Absolutely essentiala		Completely unnecessarya	Absolutely essentiala
Commuting to and from work only when absolutely necessary	8%	48%	Restrictions on leaving private living space	16%	31%
Walks only with people living in the same household	15%	32%	Distance of one meter in public space for people from different households	6%	71%
Closure of all non-essential shops and business premises	15%	37%	Closure of all non-essential shops and business premises	13%	38%
Only necessary purchases e.g. groceries, medication	11%	47%	School closings and distance learning	26%	22%
No physical contact with family members outside the same household	20%	27%	Physical contact only with closest relatives or individual important caregivers	14%	40%
Mouth and nose protection in open business premises and public transport	20%	41%	Mouth and nose protection in open business premises and on public transport	5%	80%
			Visits in nursing homes and hospitals once a week	12%	34%
			Switch to home office wherever possible	5%	63%

Note: The most essential measures as indicated by respondents are in bold, the least essential are in italics.

^aAnswers related to the necessity of the introduced public health measures reported by the study participants on the 1-10 scale were re-coded to a 5-point scale: 1 – Completely unnecessary (answers 1, 2), 2 – Unnecessary (answers 3, 4), 3 – Neutral (answers 5, 6), 4 – Necessary (answers 7, 8), 5 – Absolutely essential (answers 9, 10)