Morning Brew - ☕️ Living in a bubble

Good afternoon and welcome back to The Essentials. This is Amanda Yao, the Brew’s Editorial Intern, writing to you from a quarantine bubble in Murrieta, CA, a sleepy suburb an hour north of San Diego. What is a quarantine bubble, you may be wondering? Read on to find out, and before you ask—yes, this SoCal heat wave is real.

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Eight college students share a home tucked away in picturesque foothills. By day, some work for nonprofits, energy companies, research firms, and coffee corporations media startups, while others compose music, trade stocks, and code mobile apps. By night, they play poker, binge Jeopardy! episodes, lay under the stars, and sip an alcoholic beverage (or two). This is my quarantine bubble. 

Also dubbed “pandemic pods” or “quaranteams,” quarantine bubbles are small groups of people who form their own social circles to quarantine together. When done properly, quarantine bubbles limit the risk of COVID-19 infection and transmission while providing much needed social interaction.

• The pandemic pod is a prime example of a harm reduction strategy—it acknowledges the impossibility of eliminating risk and instead focuses on reducing it. 
• Backed by social network theory, the quaranteam model was promoted in New Zealand and the U.K., and poses a promising format for pandemic interactions. 

So how do you make a quarantine bubble? 

• Trust, responsibility, and communication are key. In particular, establishing and following rules that accommodate everyone’s attitudes towards risk is essential. 
• Of course, physical distancing when venturing outside of the pod is necessary. 
• If you’re serious about DIYing your own bubble, read up here. 

Level up: The WFH revolution is upon us, whether we like it or not, and a good workspace is no less important during the WFH era than it was pre-COVID. Here’s a list of the essentials (no relation), and a guide to transform areas of your home into a home office.

Get lost in a hole: To find out what remote work means for the business world, the Brew’s Kinsey Grant spoke to Matt Mullenweg, founding developer of WordPress, on the latest episode of Business Casual. Listen here.

Stay up to date: Updated regularly, NPR’s coronavirus tracker charts the severity of the virus by state in a digestible, visual, and succinct format. 

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Listen: Those who caught my debut edition of The Essentials might be aware that I’m a BTS fan. For anyone unfamiliar, BTS is a Korean boy band that’s broken into U.S. and global culture in a major way (Vox calls them “the band that changed K-pop”). They have a new single coming out on Friday and it’ll be the group’s first all-English track, so of course I had to mention it in today’s Essentials. My favorite song of all time is a hidden gem from one of their earliest albums, and their 2019 collab with Halsey, “Boy With Luv,” might sound familiar to some of you.

Drive: COVID-19 may have upended global travel plans, but you’d be surprised what you can find in your own backyard. Check out this guide to the best road trips across the country broken down by region, and also this compilation of must-drive roads in all 50 states.

Watch: I watched 20th Century Women with some members of my quaranteam last week and highly recommend it. It was insightful, poignant, hilarious, and one of those films you need to watch a second time to really understand. The acting was also superb. 

Have you heard of Spikeball? I hadn’t until arriving in my quarantine bubble and discovering several of my pod members are Spikeball enthusiasts. A good way to describe it is a cross between volleyball and four square. It’s fast-paced, a good workout, and you only need four people to play. I’m still extremely mediocre, bordering on straight up bad, but it only gets better from here, right? 

• The rules of the game and helpful tips to up your spikeballing abilities
• Some truly wild plays and what happens when Team USA volleyball players go against elite Spikeball players

Even if Spikeball doesn’t sound like your thing, yard games in general are the perfect excuse to get outdoors. Check out our guide to lawn games for more ideas (it's not included in that list, but I’ve also heard great things about croquet from fellow Brew writer Toby Howell).

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This is Black’s Beach in La Jolla, San Diego. I was here with my quarantine pod this past weekend. We played Spikeball, picnicked, and were lucky enough to spot some seals. There’s just something about watching the sun go down while listening to the waves crash during the last days of summer. 

You made it! To any readers also braving the California heat wave, stay cool and stay hydrated. Thanks for reading along, and we’ll see you back here on Friday.