In den vergangenen Tagen hatte es immer wieder Appelle für mehr Einheitlichkeit bei den Corona-Auflagen bundesweit gegeben, etwa von Bayerns Ministerpräsident Markus Söder. Der saarländische Ministerpräsident Tobias Hans (CDU) sagte der Rheinischen Post: „Wir brauchen einen einheitlichen Maßnahmenkatalog. Die Bürger wollen Transparenz, sie wollen wissen, was passiert, wenn ihr Landkreis rot, gelb oder grün eingestuft ist.“
I’ve been seeing SF Gate and Los Angeles Times articles for some time referring to the color categories various California counties are in, and feeling pretty far removed from California I’ve not given it too much thought. UK press has headlines about various „tiers“, but I don’t live in the UK. What does it do to people to begin seeing their city/county/Land as characterized by one of three colors, corresponding to an official perception of the rate of virus infection? I remember years ago a supermarket cashier noting I obviously wasn’t a local because in response to the question „How’s it goin‘?“ I’d responded „I’m doing well, thanks“ rather than „I’m good.“ Grammar aside the vapidity of characterizing one’s state as „good“ is certainly manifest. When Berlin is now „red“, this no longer means the SPD/Die Linke are in office, „green“ no longer references Robert Habeck. Humans feel most comfortable within a limited range of ambiguity, and it may very well be that the German government will increasingly rely on a narrow set of category choices both to characterize Covid conditions and to determine responses. What will this do to the ways in which we tend to view the world in general terms, unrelated to Covid?