Somewhere between two weeks and 1 million years ago, when it first became clear that the coronavirus pandemic would require a significant lifestyle change, the inhabitants of my four-person Washington, D.C., apartment convened a meeting. We would try to wash our hands more, we agreed, and make ample use of our nice-smelling disinfectant spray. But beyond that, we struggled to reach a consensus on how our household would stay safe. Two of us don’t own desks, and there isn’t enough space to work together at the dining-room table. Three of us wanted to take the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines very seriously and begin social distancing right away. The other one didn’t. “I’m still going out this weekend,” this roommate insisted. “I’m not going to stop living!”
To stay safe in this pandemic requires being on the same page as everyone else in your household. As I have learned, this is very difficult when the adults living alongside you perceive the severity of the situation in different ways and at different speeds. In all things, but especially in effective pandemic response, communication is key. “There’s a lot of gray area there when you’re living in this roommate situation,” Elizabeth Carlton, an environmental epidemiologist at the Colorado School of Public Health, said. In a time of great uncertainty, “having plans in place can help make people feel like they have some control.” The best place for roommates to start, experts told me, is to have a conversation about three things: cleanliness, illness preparedness, and social-circle size.
Read the full article at The Atlantic.
