Balaji Srinivasan said he thought trusted communities would start to emerge in which members have high trust that others are taking hygienic measures.

Judged at end-2021. TRUE: there is documented, widespread emergence of groups whose members chose to mix in person on the basis of mutual trust that others follow hygiene or health precautions (e.g. 'pandemic pods', 'social bubbles', learning pods, or vaccinated- or tested-only communities), reported across multiple countries or at significant scale. MOSTLY TRUE: such groups emerged and were reported widely, but mostly as officially defined household bubbles rather than self-organised trusted communities. MIXED: such groups existed but were limited to certain niches or regions. MOSTLY FALSE: only isolated anecdotes. FALSE: no such groups emerged.

Set before the research began.

1. E1 Shadow education, pandemic style: Social class, race, and supplemental education during Covid-19 PMC (NCBI) · 21 December 2022

   “By August 2020, the “Pandemic Pods” Facebook group had nearly 40,000 members (Horn, 2021).”

2. E2 Shadow education, pandemic style: Social class, race, and supplemental education during Covid-19 PMC (NCBI) · 21 December 2022

   “As shown in Table 1, 19% of families in our sample participated in a pod for at least part of the 2020–2021 school year.”

3. E3 PART 2 (School Disrupted: The durability and persistence of COVID-19-driven shifts in the K-12 ecosystem) Tyton Partners · July 2021

   “Their size – typically fewer than 20 students in the entire learning pod or microschool – also facilitates delivering in-person learning”

4. E4 Living in Bubbles during the Coronavirus Pandemic: Insights from New Zealand London School of Economics (Research Online) · 13 May 2020

   “It began as a small exclusive bubble, typically centred on a single household.”

The evidence shows a 'Pandemic Pods' Facebook group with nearly 40,000 members (E1), pods used by 19% of one study's sample (E2), small learning pods (E3) and household-centred bubbles in New Zealand (E4). It does not show where the pods formed, how widespread they were overall, or whether they were self-organised or officially defined, so it does not settle which level of the criteria applies.