Cohousing-L Mailing List: Re: Cohousing-L Digest, Vol 227, Issue 3

[Philip Dowds (rphilipdowds]

John —

Good and important question.  Before answering, I’ll provide some context:

   - Overall, the Massachusetts response to the pandemic has been very
   good.  As a state, MA is relatively amenable to education, expertise,
   science and our public authorities — so the pandemic rules or guidelines
   promulgated at the federal, state and local level tend to get widespread
   respect
   - Cornerstone is a mix of two apartment buildings, each with important
   common spaces, plus a number of stand-alone row houses.  Our design
   intentionally went for diversity of dwelling unit types, and this has
   worked out well for us.  And ...
   - Like most cohousing, a few resident members have chronic health
   challenges.  In general, these individuals are candid about their condition
   and needs, and the community is thoughtfully attentive to accommodating
   them.

With that as background, I’ll report briefly about the specifics of our
COVID response:

   1. *Disclosure.*  We say we care about each other’s health and welfare,
   and by and large, this is true.  COVID-19 is a dangerous and sneaky
   communicable disease — so you might guess that a communal understanding of
   when and where it’s on our premises would be valuable for individual
   self-protection choices.  However, Cornerstone went more the direction of
   personal privacy:  Like household income and individual sexual activity,
   health status of residents tends to be regarded as personal and deeply
   private.  Our Cornerstone view ended up as, No obligation or suggestion for
   disclosing if you’ve come down with COVID.  But, no prohibition on
   disclosure, either.  So some of our members have disclosed their occasional
   COVID infections — and I am guessing that a number of others have not.
   2. *Precaution Regime.*  In the early phase of the pandemic, Cornerstone
   did adopt some special evasive actions, including discontinuance of
   community meals and of common space housekeeping services; and we also went
   toward a general discouragement of “strangers” in the commons.  Following
   the release of successful vaccinations in Feb 2021, we rescinded most such
   community-invented guidelines, and confirmed our agreement to do as
   recommended by our federal, state and local authorities.  Right now, our
   normalized policies are: Strangers on campus OK; community meals and other
   events OK; and masks optional.
      1. One of our upgraded practices is to make sure that all members
      know the details of events happening in the commons, so that they can (if
      they so desire) shun those spaces while an event is in progress.
There is
      no expectation that our community life must be dialed down to assuage the
      concerns of our most cautious residents — and to be fair all around, our
      health-compromised residents tend to understand and agree that their
      personal needs and preferences cannot set the bar for what everyone else
      does.
      2. Another upgraded practice for events is to enhance indoor
      ventilation by cracking open windows and turning on more fans.  Now that
      it’s December, we warn people to bring their sweaters.

Hope this is useful.

------------------
Thanks, RPD
617.460.4549

On December 4, 2022 at 6:16:22 AM, cohousing-l-request [at] cohousing.org (
cohousing-l-request [at] cohousing.org) wrote:

Message: 2 Date: Sat, 3 Dec 2022 22:26:04 +0000 From: John Richmond To: "
Cohousing-l [at] cohousing.org" Subject: [C-L]_ COVID Risk Tolerance Message-ID:
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1" How are communities handling
differences between members in risk tolerance around COVID, where some
people are not concerned about COVID and others are still very concerned or
trying to protect vulnerable family members inside or outside the
community? We live in a single building as opposed to separate houses. John
Richmond Richmond Cohousing Not named after me Richmond VA