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Closed business during the pandemic
Photo: Ralph Peters / imago images / Ralph Peters
The federal government continues to urge caution before the new federal-state consultations on the corona pandemic.
"The second wave of the pandemic has broken, but of course it is not over yet," said government spokesman Steffen Seibert on Monday in Berlin.
According to participants, Chancellor Angela Merkel emphasized in an online conference of the CDU Presidium that one would have to try for another two weeks to "push down" the number of infections.
But after the week-long shutdown, politics is under pressure: The easing discussion has long been in full swing, especially around schools and daycare centers.
There is a certain tiredness among the population in the fight against the pandemic.
This is also shown by the SPIEGEL survey by the opinion research institute Civey.
Accordingly, given the recent drop in the number of cases, many Germans assume that the worst is already over - at least more than 40 percent.
Less than 40 percent expect the situation to deteriorate further.
The threat posed by the virus mutants also apparently does not reach many people.
According to the survey, a relative majority of Germans are more concerned about the pandemic because of the mutations.
But at least more than 40 percent believe there is no great danger.
The virologist Melanie Brinkmann had just sketched a gloomy scenario in the SPIEGEL interview: "We never get enough people vaccinated before the mutants strike." This race was long lost.
Everything else comes from wishful thinking, fed by false promises made by some politicians.
But the warnings are not getting through, the government has lost a lot of confidence with the slow start of vaccinations.
Now resentment is growing, the support in the population is waning.
According to the SPIEGEL survey, a majority is still in favor of extending or even tightening the shutdown.
However, more than 40 percent of Germans also expect the Prime Ministers and Chancellor to decide to relax after February 15 at their meeting on Wednesday.
In Thuringia and other countries, step models for such openings are already being discussed.
Various local incidence values should serve as a guide.
Economics Minister Peter Altmaier warned in the face of such debates in an interview with “Bild am Sonntag”: “We must not publicly outdo ourselves with easing schedules.”
From the point of view of Federal Health Minister Jens Spahn, the situation in the clinics speaks against a rapid loosening of the lockdown.
Despite falling numbers, there are more Covid-19 cases there than in the first wave in spring at the then high.
Accordingly, comprehensive easing of the requirements is likely to be a long time coming.
But: As soon as there could be easing, "the opening of daycare centers and primary schools have priority over many other things," said government spokesman Steffen Seibert.
The Federal Government is thus in line with the expectations of the population.
In the survey, more than 70 percent stated that daycare centers and schools should be given top priority when it comes to openings.
In second place is retail, which has also been hit hard by the corona pandemic.
At the bottom of the priority list are pubs and bars.
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How does the Civey methodology work? Up arrow Down arrow
The polling institute Civey works with a multi-stage fully automated process.
All representative real-time surveys are played in a Germany-wide network of more than 20,000 websites ("river sampling"), so not only users of SPIEGEL are surveyed.
Anyone can take part in the surveys online and their answers will be included in the representative result, provided they have registered.
From these users, Civey draws a quoted sample that ensures that it corresponds to the population in terms of age, gender and population density, for example.
In a third step, the results are then weighted according to other socio-demographic factors and values of the voters in order to correct distortions and prevent manipulation.
Further information can also be found in the Civey FAQ.
Why is registration necessary? Up arrow Down arrow
The registration helps to weight the answers and thus enables a result for the polls that is representative of the electoral population in Germany.
Each participant is asked about their gender, year of birth and place of residence.
Then everyone can give their opinion in further surveys on different topics.
How are the results representative? Up arrow Down arrow
The answer of each participant is weighted so that the result of a survey is representative of the population.
For the Sunday question and the government monitor, this population includes the eligible population in Germany.
The weighting is fully automated on the basis of the personal information provided during registration and the history of previous responses by a user.
Further details on the methodology can be found in the Civey white paper.
Can you even reach enough participants online? Up arrow Down arrow
Opinion polls are usually conducted over the phone or online.
For the meaningfulness of the results it is crucial how many people can be reached and how many actually take part in a survey when they are spoken to.
Internet connections and landline connections are currently about equally widespread in Germany - in around 90 percent of households each, and cell phones in as much as 95 percent.
The willingness to participate is in the single-digit percentage range for all methods, and experts estimate them to be particularly low for telephone surveys.
With both methods there is a group of people who cannot be reached because they either have no connection to the respective network or do not want to take part in the survey.
That is why a large number of people must always be addressed to obtain a meaningful result.
In addition to SPIEGEL, Civey surveys are currently integrated into more than 20,000 other websites, including various media.
This ensures that as many population groups as possible can be easily reached.
How do I know the quality of a result? Up arrow Down arrow
A sufficient number of different people have to take part before the result of a survey becomes representative.
Civey makes it clear whether this has already been achieved by specifying a statistical error probability for each survey result.
The number of participants and the survey time are also published for each survey.
What does it mean when the colored areas in the graphics overlap? Up arrow Down arrow
In our graphics, the statistical error is shown as a colored interval.
This interval shows the uncertainty associated with a survey value.
For example, with the Sunday question you cannot say exactly what percentage a party would get in an election, but you can specify an interval in which the result will most likely be.
If the intervals of two survey values overlap, then, strictly speaking, no statements can be made about the difference.
For the Sunday question, this means: If the polls of two parties are so close that their error intervals overlap, it cannot be deduced which of the two would currently do better in the election.
What happens to my data? Up arrow Down arrow
The personal data of the users are encrypted and stored on German servers and remain secret.
Civey employees only work with user IDs for the evaluations and cannot connect users to their voting.
The users' personal information is primarily used to weight the answers and to ensure that the surveys are not manipulated.
To prevent this, Civey uses statistical as well as technical methods.
In addition, Civey works with external partners who create target groups for advertisers.
Your answers may only be used by the partner to model these target groups if users have accepted the data protection declaration both from Civey and from an external partner.
However, a partner does not receive any information about your political and religious attitudes or those with which you can be identified.
Civey users are also not presented with advertising based on their answers.
As a logged-in user, you can object to this being passed on to partners at any time.
You can find more information on data protection at Civey here.
Who is behind Civey polls? Up arrow Down arrow
At this point, readers in the app and on the mobile / stationary website have the opportunity to take part in a representative Civey survey.
Civey is an online opinion research institute based in Berlin.
In order to collect its representative surveys, the software of the company, founded in 2015, connects websites to form a Germany-wide survey network.
In addition to SPIEGEL, it also includes the »Tagesspiegel«, »Welt«, »Wirtschaftswoche« and »Rheinische Post«.
Civey was financed by the ProFit funding program of the Investitionsbank Berlin and the European Fund for Regional Development.
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