How socially isolated was your new housemate in their previous living arrangement? And how hard are you trying not to catch it? I'm thinking about how to minimize risk while swapping housemates in the Boston area myself, and I notice I interpret your example pretty differently if (e.g.) I imagine 'the housemate was super isolated vs. the housemate was living with an essential worker' or 'we're living with a diabetic and are trying to be ultra-cautious, vs. we're all low-risk and aren't personally worried about long-term complications if we get sick'.
The housemate and previous household were being careful, but not as careful as we are. We're not going in any buildings, sanitizing groceries, always masking off our property, not coming within 6ft of anyone we don't live with. Their house was grocery shopping in person and I think generally being slightly less cautious about most of these?
One of our housemates has had respiratory issues and is especially worried about catching it. I think if not for that I might have been ok with just having the new housemate move in? Though we did (by chance) happen to have a floor plan that's very well suited to this kind of thing, so the cost wasn't as high as if the only way to isolate would have involved someone staying in a single room for a week with no going out.
In mid-March when we decided to isolate, one of our housemates was interested in having her partner move in for the duration. The house talked about it and was ok with that, but he ended up deciding to stay where he was. Two months later, with this lasting longer than we were expecting at the time, he decided he did want to switch houses. Here's how we decided to handle it:
Before moving in, he made an appointment for a test. Starting in late April it's been possible to get a test here even if you don't have symptoms.
We divided the unit in two with plastic sheeting. They would have two rooms, one bathroom, and the back exit.
They had a microwave, cooler, and shelf stable food.
We would bring them a hot meal at dinner time, and other things as needed. Things that came back out either sat in the basement for three days or got washed with soap and water.
If the test came back negative, and no one in his former house had started having symptoms, we would end the isolation. If not, we'd deal with it then.
He moved in on Saturday, had his testing appointment on Monday, and the test came back negative this morning. We had a celebratory removal of the sheeting:
Since there can be false negatives the risk isn't zero, but it's a level we feel comfortable with, and that we think is responsible.
It will be nice having another housemate!
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