Of covid and kin

摘要

IF ONE HALLMARK of the covid-19 pandemic has been social distancing, another has been enforced intimacy. More than half of humanity has been confined to their homes at one time or another since the start of the outbreak. Many children have seen more of their parents and siblings than ever before; partners have had to negotiate new ways of juggling work and household chores; older, vulnerable relatives have been cut off. An assessment of the virus's early spread in China, looking at outbreaks involving three or more cases, found that 80% of these clusters occurred in the home. If covid-19 had struck a century ago, even more people in rich countries (the focus of this article) would have been sharing lockdown. In the early part of the 20th century, quarantines forced many more people together within the walls of the family home. The number of people in an average American household stood at 4.6 in 1900 and 4 in 1930; the figure is around 2.6 now. Many fewer people lived alone, too. In 1940 single-person households accounted for more than 10% of the total in only nine American states; now no state has less than 20% of such households. Only 12.2% of Swedish households had one person in them in 1930; the majority do today.