COVID in Your Home? How To Keep Everyone Else (and Yourself) From Getting Sick

If someone in your home has symptoms of COVID-19, you may feel torn between providing the care he or she needs and protecting everyone else from getting sick. It’s important to think about, since a high number of cases originate in our own homes, when a person who is ill infects others.  And, as we now know, many people with COVID-19 have no symptoms at all, which means it makes sense to be careful even if everyone in your house seems healthy.  

Fortunately, there are simple, effective measures you can take to protect yourself and other family members from becoming infected. These include separating the person who is infected with COVID-19 from others in the household, designating specific household items that will be used only by that person (and frequently disinfecting those items), and wearing face coverings.  

This video, created by Yale School of Medicine PhD student Clara Liao, explains why these and other key steps will dramatically reduce the likelihood of home transmission, which, according to a recent Centers for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report (MMWR), is both common and occurs quickly.