Say there is a 1 in 10 chance of death from a virus. My partner suggested that between the two of us, we would have a higher chance of one of us dying. I don’t agree and think that it is still a 1 in 10 chance. But I’m a bit thick when it comes to math…
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Independent people who don’t live together tend to have independent results from the virus. But that’s not true for people living together.
By living closely with someone, you are increasing the likelihood that one person being exposed leads to more than one person getting exposed, and increasing the average viral load they are exposed to.
So, you are more likely to get infected if they are infected, you are more likely to get reinfected after recovery if they are still infected, and you are more likely to develop severe symptoms or illness with another infected person living in the same place as you.
For more details beyond an ELI5:
Risk from contagious diseases increases at least in proportion with _population density_ when all other things are equal.
So, if we double the number of people per square mile in your area, and change nothing else…. then you have at least doubled the number of times you run into someone in an average day (so doubling your exposure).
If you live in a closed apartment building with 1000 other people, you are much more likely to catch a virus and develop a severe illness from it than someone who lives with 10 other people in the middle of nowhere. All other things being equal.
If the apartment building consists of people who are compulsive about masks and the folks in the middle of nowhere hate masks, you are generally better off in the apartment building, though. Running into someone with a mask has a much lower risk than running into someone without. Like 20-100x lower. This is why rural regions with low population density and low mask usage have just been ravaged by covid at rates very disproportionate to their population density.
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