Perceptions and opinions on the COVID-19 pandemic in Flanders, Belgium: Data from a five-wave longitudinal study

News media play a vital role as they are the main sources from which people gather information regarding the disease and the public health measures. The present longitudinal data reflect a bird’s eye view of people’s fears towards getting ill, their news media consumption, their attitudes regarding the (Belgian) government’s handling of the COVID-19 crisis, informal care burden, and changes in physical activities.

Data were collected at five key moments in the pandemic among adults in Flanders, Belgium: in the middle of March 2020 (W1; when the first restrictive measures went into effect; N = 1,000), early April 2020 (W2; as hospital admissions and death toll peaked; N = 870), at the end of May and beginning of June 2020 (W3; as several measures were lifted or relaxed; N = 768), in late August 2020 (W4; as infection rates increased again; N = 505), and in the middle of March 2021, exactly one year after the first data collection (W5; N = 408).