It seems intuitive enough: Red means stop, amber means caution, green means go.
As Covid-19 levels fluctuate around the world, health officials are devising ways to quickly alert their constituents about the virus’s threat level. Predictably, most have turned to color and many have adopted the hues of traffic lights. After all, the three-color schema developed in Detroit in the 1920s based on a British system for railroad traffic, has been universally used for over a century.
This is where the problem arises. The thing is, our understanding of color is richer and more nuanced beyond its application in traffic management.
The differences between color-coded Covid-19 warnings globally Quartz 5 hrs ago
It seems intuitive enough: Red means stop, amber means caution, green means go.
As Covid-19 levels fluctuate around the world, health officials are devising ways to quickly alert their constituents about the virus’s threat level. Predictably, most have turned to color and many have adopted the hues of traffic lights. After all, the three-color schema developed in Detroit in the 1920s based on a British system for railroad traffic, has been universally used for over a century.
This is where the problem arises. The thing is, our understanding of color is richer and more nuanced beyond its application in traffic management.
Many states use color-coded tiers to signal coronavirus restrictions. Why are they all wildly different?
Credit.Richard Mia
April 2, 2021
In California, the color of suffering is the juicy purple of seedless grapes. In Alabama and Alaska, itâs blood-colored. Blue signifies safety in many states, unless the blue is navy and youâre in Utah, in which case it communicates total catastrophe â the worst conditions possible. In New Mexico, nothing is better than green except for a color the governorâs office used to call âgreen-plus,â before it was changed to turquoise.
The paradox of the many different colors of the nationâs many different coronavirus alert tiers is that they matter both so little and so much.