Quaranteam Calculator
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Families are creating learning pods for their children and sharing the childcare efforts. Children of all ages are quaranteaming with their parents who may be high risk due to age or comorbidities (such as chronic health conditions). People who live alone are quaranteaming and socializing with specific people. This calculator was designed to help people and families assess the risk of forming a quaranteam.
A 'quaranteam' or 'pod' is when two or more household units interact frequently and exclusively and with relaxed safety measures with respect to COVID-19.
This worksheet will give an unbiased numerical estimate for potential risk while taking the personal questions and invasion of privacy out of the discussion. This result can be used as a starting point for deciding if and how to quaranteam.
For more information about how this was created, or the ideas behind it, click here. You can also find examples of how a job hazard analysis and risk matrix can be used in daily routine here (food blender) and here (car).
Instructions: Answer each question as honestly as possible by selecting the appropriate answer or inputting the number which best matches your situation. All answers should be reflective of the riskiest actions taken by anyone in the household within the past 14 days (this means your results could change daily).
Risk Tolerance
Step 1. Discuss questions with everyone who lives in your house and consider habits engaged in within the last 14 days (do not include potential quaranteam-mates)
1. I/we interact with people for more than 5 minutes, inside or outside ... (do not include current household members)
Interact: Stand with, talk to, or stand near an individual who does not currently live with you. Count interactions that occur within 10 feet.
3. I/we wash touch points, such as doorknobs and light switches and wash hands (or use hand sanitizer).
5. I/we exercise...
7. I/we socialize with people in person...
9. I/we want to get infected.
2. If I/we must be around people, I/we maintain a minimum of 6 feet distance between ourselves and others.
4. I/we shop and/or go to work...
6. With respect to people and animals who are not part of the household; I/we physically came in contact with other people or animals.
Physical Contact: touch, hug, high-five, kiss, etc...
8. I/we wear a mask when interacting with others...
10. I/we believe I/we have already been infected and I/we do not think I/we can or will get reinfected.
Step 2. Determine your household size and recall the actions taken in the past 14 days
Household Baseline
People and Pets
Indicate the number of people or uncaged animals that live in your household. (type 0 if not applicable)
Actions Taken
Indicate the number of interactions or outings you've had in the previous 14 days.
Is anyone working or going to school right now? Please select the highest number as it applies to an individual in your household
Note: An office park with multiple, but separate and unaffiliated buildings, would be counted as it's own office. However a site facility with 5 buildings that have employees interacting and working in each building would count as a campus and all employees must be accounted for. No need to estimate number of clients to walk into the facility, only how many employees are supposed to be, or can be, in the building regularly.
Quaranteam-mate(s)
Step 3. Ask your potential Quaranteam-mates or pod what their risk tolerance and baseline numbers are. Evaluate work/school factors in this section as well.
Please indicate if:
Please enter the below results from your Quaranteam-mates.
Results:
Risk Tolerance:
Please answer all questions
Baseline:
Please answer all questions
Low Risk: <12 points
Medium Risk: 12-16.5 points
High Risk: 17+ points
Quaranteam Risk:
Please answer all questions
Note: This calculator does not take phase, county-mandated precautions, density of area, comorbidities, or tourism trends/holiday factors into account.
Our score is high. What does this mean?
A high score means that there are a large number of 'points of failure'. A point of failure is any action, interaction, or choice in which a COVID-19 exposure can happen. A higher number means a higher likelihood of exposure.
What can we do to lower our number?
1. Each household should evaluate hygiene habits - how can mask wearing and hand washing be easier to do and harder to forget?
2. Each household should look at their baseline (blue) section. If a shopping list was made so fewer trips to the store occurred, would that make a difference? Perhaps the potential quaranteam-mates can have one person do the shopping for multiple houses.
3. In your own household, discuss the mindset toward the risk of COVID-19 and your answers to questions in the risk tolerance (pink) section. Can the habits change? For example, exercise can happen somewhere else or at a different hour. Perhaps a meeting space outside for visitors can be pre-established and measured to make sure social calls are always 6 ft (preferably more) apart.
4. Discuss your geographic area's phase, how many active cases there are, and what an acceptable risk is to you and your potential quaranteam-mates. Remember, if two households come together from different areas in different phases, the whole quaranteam adopts the higher-risk phase. (Example: Someone from a phase 4 - low risk - location quaranteams with someone from a phase 3 - slightly higher risk- location, the whole quaranteam is now in a phase 3 risk bracket.)
Please help me keep this page running! Suggested donations of $15 would be greatly appreciated. You can donate via Venmo (@Samantha-Lushtak) or PayPal by clicking the 'donate' button.
Many thanks to Dr. Yev Lushtak, Dr. Sam Groveman, and Dr. Jean McMahon for their support and assistance on this project.