Staying at home with severe Covid-19: risks to family and carers

Abstract

It’s one thing to imagine myself dying – or recovering – from severe Covid-19 in the comfort of my own home, surrounded by my family; and quite another to contemplate how this could affect them. How can we assess the risk to their own health? What precautions can be taken? And how could I begin to convince them that they should feel not the slightest sense of obligation to stay at my side, nor the slightest guilt should they choose not to jeopardise their own health and to withdraw from contact with me?