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One of the houses in a Northern California town that Jane Dinh plans to use for her escape community. Pandemic Spawns Escape Communities Promising Self-Isolation—in a Group
A luxury villa in Los Angeles. A former ghost town in the foothills of the Sierra Nevada. Entrepreneurs are planning ‘virus-free’ retreats, even as health experts raise questions about how safe they are.
After the coronavirus forced Jay Jideliov to send all the employees of his company, Callision, home to work, he began pondering how he would cope with a period of indefinite isolation in his Los Angeles home.
Jideliov’s answer was to create what he describes as a “virus-free retreat” called Harbor, which will house around 33 guests—paying several thousand dollars a month—in a luxury villa away from Los Angeles so that they can wait out the pandemic as a group. Guests will be screened for Covid-19 before being admitted so that they can freely participate in open mics, fireside chats, daily yoga and parties without worry of infection. “No masks required,” a website for Harbor promises.