Why are people in some places more willing to reduce their chances of getting COVID19?
By using mobility as a proxy, and analysing data on regional news coverage in Germany, the authors investigate empirically whether the geographical heterogeneity in COVID-19-related news reporting has translated into spatial variations in social distancing. The results confirm that the frequency of and the element of fear in COVID-19 news have a significant, albeit time-varying, relationship with social distancing.