ABSTRACT
Government actions were guided by scientific expertise, predominantly from virology and epidemiology, and accompanied by intensive communication. Along with questions of reopening after a comparatively short and mild lockdown, conflicts and inconsistencies between the federal government and the 16 state governments emerged. The political logic of competition for party leadership in the ruling Christian-Democratic party fuelled these conflicts and resulted in a patchwork of various different regulations in the 16 federal states. The analysis of government communication is further enriched by a study of the most-shared URLs in Tweets about COVID-19, showing almost two-thirds of the most-shared URLs link to traditional mass media coverage. However, the second most popular source originated from German hyperpartisan right-wing media sites, among them notorious spreaders of disinformation and conspiracy theories which may have fuelled protests against the restrictions. Like other countries, Germany too was affected by the ‘infodemic,’ and comparatively large protests against the anti-corona measures. However, public support for the regulations was very high and the popularity of the government, particularly the Christian-Democratic Union, increased massively during the pandemic.
