Objective To understand the current status and influencing factors of public cognition, attitude, and behavior (KAP) for COVID-19, and to help the development of strategies for COVID-19 prevention and treatment.

Methods Snowballing-based online questionnaire was used to conduct an anonymous survey.

Results A total of 1 576 questionnaires were received, and 1 553 were effective (recovery rate 98.5%).The awareness rate for epidemiological knowledge was 87.3%, 93.1% for etiology knowledge and 85.9% for prevention and treatment knowledge.The average score for attitude towards COVID-19 fear was 15.47±3.15, agreement with relevant government regulations and policies was 11.28±1.58, and for preventive behavior was 24.47±2.61.Men′s knowledge scores in epidemiology and etiology were higher than women′s (P < 0.05).Women′s attitude towards epidemic fear and government identification were scored higher than men′s (P < 0.05).The public health prevention knowledge score was higher in subjects with urban household registration than in those with rural household registration (P < 0.05).Regression analysis showed that gender, age, occupation, level of attention on pandemic, epidemiological knowledge, and etiology knowledge were the influencing factors for the fear attitude to the epidemic (P < 0.05);the attention level and prevention knowledge were the influencing factors for prevention behavior (P < 0.05).

Conclusion The public awareness rate of COVID-19 and attitude towards government identification are relatively high.The degree of pandemic fear and preventive behavior are above average.More targeted public education on COVID-19 is highly recommended.