Coronavirus Risk Doesn’t Stop at Your Front Door
The jokes always start just after the crisis begins. Right now, Twitter is currently full of gallows humor about a global pandemic. Some of the jokes are funny, and many of them are not, but one common punch line is that self-quarantine will play out like a sitcom or a rom-com. This is the time to find out how strong your relationship to whomever you live with is, now that you’re going to be trapped in a small space together.
Not everyone lives with someone else, but, especially in cities where the population is densely packed and where it is economically burdensome to live alone, self-isolating often means increased proximity to other people—our kids, partners, or roommates. Bodies in close proximity—our families, chosen or biological—are our support systems, but proximity to other bodies is also how disease spreads, in particular COVID-19, the disease caused by the novel coronavirus. A disease that confines us to our homes is a crisis that happens on the level of our most intimate relationships.
