2 people in a house. One starts exhibiting COVID-19 symptoms. Suggestions for home quarantining?

The Quarantine Zone
1

I couldn’t explain clearly in the title (not enough characters).

Here’s what I’m saying: assume there are 2 people living in a house. 1 person starts exhibiting COVID-19 symptoms. Is there ANY chance that immediately quarantining that person into a bedroom with attached bathroom can protect the other person from getting infected?
If so, what immediate steps should be taken?
What long term procedures should be used to prevent the other person from getting infected?
Is it at all possible that this would work?
There is unverified evidence that a person can be contagious before symptoms appear, and if that is the case, then the rest of this is pointless. But let’s assume it isn’t.

So 1 person feels sick, and immediately goes into the bedroom and closes the bedroom door and bathroom door that accesses the rest of the house. In our house, there is a 2 foot long hallway in front of the bathroom door. This can be set up as a primitive airlock: The hallway entrance can be covered in plastic, but not sealed at the floor. A large black plastic bag with it’s bottom slit open can be laid (lain?) on the floor with 1 end sticking out into the rest of the house, the other extending toward the bathroom door. Both ends would normally be folded over and weighted down. To pass something relatively safely into the quarantine area, remove the weight on the end of the bag, insert the materials into the bag, then refold and re-weight the end of the bag. The other person could then open their end of the bag, remove the materials, then reclose and re-weight the bag end, after removing most of the air from the bag back into the quarantined area.

This isn’t perfect, but might halt the spread of some of the virus.

What about the central heater in the house? Will that spread the virus throughout the house anyway? (There is no air intake in the quarantine area.) Will the heater create positive pressure and blow the virus under the doors into the rest of the house?

What about the window in the bedroom? Should it be kept closed, or is it ok to open it for fresh air?

Couple of other ideas:
Once something goes into the room, it doesn’t come out.
Use paper plates and disposable utensils and leave them in trash bags in the rooms until quarantine is over.

What other suggestions do you have?

Note that we’re just thinking about the details now in case we need to do it in the future.

J.

2

The person with symptoms was very likely contagious before either noticed. The person without symptoms should also self isolate.

You can still do some stuff. Disinfect common areas frequently. Keep away from each other. So far as we know, it’s not airborne so it’s not floating all around you so no need to worry about the heat system.

3

First a good number of studies have been done on infection rate among close household contacts and the vast majority DO NOT become infected. This one is pretty typical -

So 85% chance of NOT getting infected by a close household contact. Lower chance of infection within a household in other studies.

CDC guidance on management. Follow the guidelines as soon as symptoms are at all suspicious and you have much better odds than not of not becoming infected yourself, from that exposure at least.

4

That evidence is pretty strong at this point, but it doesn’t mean that the rest of this is pointless.

“A person can be contagious before symptoms appear” is not equivalent to “everyone who shares living space with an infected person is sure to be infected before symptoms appear”.

If the symptomatic person can confine themself to rooms that others do not use at all, that would be best. Asymptomatic person should prepare food and leave it outside the door.