Situational awareness: Ensuring your safety during COVID-19

Employers are asking many of their employees to work from home during the COVID-19 pandemic. In addition, many states have enacted “Safer at Home” orders which require nonessential businesses to close, which in turn increases the number of people that must stay at home and practice social distancing.

Situational awareness

While you may have to stay at home during this pandemic, there are times you’re going to have to leave for reasons like:

• Getting medicine or seeing a doctor.
• Getting food and supplies necessary for yourself, family members, and pets.
• Caring for a family member at their residence.
• Caring for minors, disabled persons, and others that are vulnerable.

When leaving your home and traveling to these places, it’s important to be aware of your surroundings. The term for this is situational awareness. Situational awareness consists of paying attention to the environment around you, processing the details, using them to identify threats, and creating plans of action to avoid or handle the threats.

Do these three things anytime you leave your residence:

1. Eliminate distraction such as talking or texting on your cell phone or listening to music through earbuds. Doing so will allow you to focus your full attention on the environment you are in or passing through.
2. Be aware of your surrounding and be alert to where you are right now. Keep alert for hazards and potential dangers.
3. Observe people around you (without staring at them, which can be considered threatening). This will allow you to determine who could possibly be, or become, a danger to you. Watch out for behavior that is unusual or outside the norm. This includes distress or agitation which could include yelling, crying, or physical violence.

Colors of situational awareness

The concept of situational awareness is often represented by four colors (and sometime five). This basic concept of situational awareness was developed by John Dean “Jeff” Cooper. It uses colors to illustrate the potential danger that a person could encounter. However, the concept has evolved over time to mean the following.

White

In condition White you are oblivious to your surroundings and totally unprepared to react to a potentially dangerous situation. A person is often in condition White when they are completely relaxed — like when they’re in the safety of their home and the doors are locked. A person can also be in White when they’re outside their home, but they’re distracted, tired, or stressed out and not paying attention to their surroundings.

Yellow

Anytime you leave the safety of your home the color changes to Yellow. You’re aware of your surroundings, calm, and alert. You understand that the world can be a potentially dangerous place and use all your senses to provide information to keep you safe. This is especially true when you’re in unfamiliar surroundings or in a crowd of people you don’t know. In Yellow you’re relaxed and situationally aware.

Orange

Condition Orange is when you become aware of something that isn’t right or normal. This can be due to something you see, hear, or simply sense through your intuition. Your attention is focused on this potential threat to your safety. This is when you make the decision to either move away and out of the area or get ready to deal with the threat. The first choice is always to move away.

Red

Condition Red means danger, time to immediately fight or flee. Action required now!

Black

In addition to these four colors, another color is sometimes added — Black. Condition Black is characterized by severe panic and disbelief. Persons in Black are often paralyzed with fear and indecision.

Take-aways

During the COVID-19 pandemic we all must take extra steps to ensure our safety. The information presented here is not meant to scare you, but instead, to make you more aware of your surroundings. Even after the pandemic passes situational awareness is something everyone should continue to practice.