On Saturday 2023-01-14 our 6yo tested positive for covid. Three weeks later we're all fine, but five of us ended up getting it despite relatively strong efforts to isolate. In retrospect I think this wasn't worth it, and even though I didn't get sick I would rather have gotten covid than isolate from the rest of the family for two weeks.

Here's the timeline:

• Saturday 2023-01-14: The 6yo is unusually sleepy in the morning, cranky in the afternoon, and tests positive in the evening. I'm away with her and the 8yo. We start masking around each other, though we're in a hotel room. I open the windows overnight, put the 6yo on the far side of the room from me and the 8yo, and we sleep unmasked.

• Sunday 2023-01-15: We travel home together, masking consistently. When we arrive home the 6yo isolates in her room with an air purifier, and everyone wears masks around each other and in common areas, except for the 1.5yo. One of our housemates is away, and I start sleeping in their room downstairs. We stop doing house dinners and plan to test everyone each morning. I plan to work from home until this is over: while my work doesn't require that it seemed considerate. I'm mostly the one bringing things, since I was already exposed.

• Tuesday 2023-01-17: The 8yo tests positive. She isolates in her room. We do let her out masked for about 3min to visit the 1.5yo, where she stood masked in front of a window with a fan blowing out and the 1.5yo was on the other side of the room:

  

  Our nanny decides to keep coming in, watching only the 1.5yo and keeping on a different floor from the 6yo and 8yo.

• Friday 2023-01-20: Julia and the 1.5yo test positive in the morning. They start isolating upstairs and we tell our nanny not to come in. At this point all four of them are testing positive and I stay off that floor except to drop things outside people's doors. The older two are excited that they can now play with their baby sister again.

• Saturday 2023-01-21: The 6yo tests negative in the morning and is released from isolation.

• Sunday 2023-01-22: Our nanny texts us that she tested positive.

• Monday 2023-01-23: The 6yo is back in school, masked until day ten. Lily tests negative in the evening.

• Tuesday 2023-01-24: The 8yo is back in school, masked until day ten.

• Saturday 2023-01-28: Our nanny tests negative.

• Tuesday 2023-01-31: Julia and the 1.5yo are still testing positive on day eleven. We talk and decide that I'll stop isolating from them in the evening.

• Thursday 2023-02-02: Julia tests negative.

This was a lot of isolation, which mostly didn't work: while two of us probably didn't get it (me and our housemate) the other four plus and our nanny did. The isolation was hard on everyone: people isolating by themselves were lonely, Julia isolating with the 1.5yo had too much baby time. Given how low our risk from covid was and how we would likely be able to prevent onward infection outside the family I think isolating from our housemate made sense but probably not from each other.

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