In conclusion, adopting or failing to take protective behavior is not only related to sufficient knowledge about COVID-19. People might not have the possibility to change working or living conditions in order to better practice protective behavior. Hence, it is important to either provide sufficient opportunities for home office, or public health measures should aim at making workplace conditions more secure in accordance with distancing or hygiene measures. Another important aspect is the availability and affordability of necessary equipment like face masks or disinfectants. For instance, at the beginning of the pandemic in Germany, the government did not suggest wearing face masks simply for the reason that those masks were not available for the broader public. Furthermore, lower education is often associated with lower health literacy (36), which also affects how people are able to cope with the enormous amount of information on COVID-19 in the media, and how to separate useful and important information from misinformation. A recent study among the German population showed that 56% of the respondents were unsettled by the flood of information, and only 51% believed themselves capable of judging whether information about COVID-19 was trustworthy (37). A lack of knowledge how to properly adopt protective behavior may result in lower educated people being more susceptible to infection risks. As such, improving disease specific knowledge and health literacy and developing strategies for dealing with misinformation is essential.