Since the outbreak of the SARS CoV-2-virus in China, a vast number of unprecedented political initiatives have been undertaken internationally to keep the pandemic under control.1 People all over the world have been exposed to increasingly unsettling news, and lately also unparalleled incursions into their lives. In Germany after a period of restraint, federal governments announced the shutdown of educational institutions on Friday, 13 March 2020. This was the first direct encroachment onto the lives of a large part of the population. German borders were partially closed on 15 March. The following day, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, among other leaders, appealed for solidarity and compliance with medical recommendations by a long awaited public speech (unprecedented television address), whereas other international leaders repeatedly also used Twitter. 2 Finally, on 22 March, the government announced a prohibition of contact, which largely bans gatherings of more than two people in public spaces. The political effects of the COVID-19-pandemic are unprecedented, as are the psychological. However, how do people cope with these changes and implementations, as well as the spread of the virus as such? We launched a survey to ask respondents about the level of threat they perceived, their trust in governmental interventions, their level of general anxiety and depression, their safety-related behavior (i.e. buying groceries), and how they evaluate virus-specific hazards. Running the survey over that acutely critical period of 2 weeks allowed us to investigate developments over time from 10 to 24 March (Fig. 1). From the first day onwards, COVID-19-related fear, as well as safety behavior, show a clear upswing with a peak 1 day after the announcement of governmental restrictions and curtailment of individual freedoms. COVID-19-related fear peaks a second time 1 day after the Chancellor’s speech. Trust in governmental interventions to reduce the spread of COVID-19 increases from the day of their implementation onwards. A rising tendency is also shown for anxiety and depression. This suggests that concern about COVID-19 could cause more disconcertion alongside psychopathological manifestations. Slight upward trends can be seen for respondents’ evaluation of the risk of catching the virus, of suffering complications and of dying from it (if diseased). In addition, the reported risk of suffering complications and the risk of dying from COVID-19 peak on the day after safety policies were announced, possibly demonstrating a top-down regulation of risk evaluation under stress.3 Besides illustrating the indubitably increasing concern regarding the spread of COVID-19, insights are three-fold: people are profoundly disconcerted by the COVID-19 outbreak, and this might even reach a critical threshold. In this case, establishing emergency infrastructure for people suffering from withdrawal and psychological disconcertion is crucial.4,5 Second, the level of trust in governmental policies is gaining ground, not only via social media but all along with public speeches. Third, the subjective perceived risk is overestimated compared to existing incidence rates,6 which might be a result of the feeling of threat. The public concern about COVID-19 needs to be acknowledged by an explicit information policy.7