Quarantine
A quarantine is a restriction on the movement of people, animals and goods which is intended to prevent the spread of disease or pests. It is often used in connection to disease and illness, preventing the movement of those who may have been exposed to a communicable disease, yet do not have a confirmed medical diagnosis. It is distinct from medical isolation, in which those confirmed to be infected with a communicable disease are isolated from the healthy population. Quarantine considerations are often one aspect of border control.
For other uses, see Quarantine (disambiguation).
The concept of quarantine has been known since biblical times, and is known to have been practised through history in various places. Notable quarantines in modern history include the village of Eyam in 1665 during the bubonic plague outbreak in England; East Samoa during the 1918 flu pandemic; the Diphtheria outbreak during the 1925 serum run to Nome, the 1972 Yugoslav smallpox outbreak, the SARS pandemic, the Ebola pandemic and extensive quarantines applied throughout the world during the COVID-19 pandemic since 2020.
Ethical and practical considerations need to be considered when applying quarantine to people. Practice differs from country to country; in some countries, quarantine is just one of many measures governed by legislation relating to the broader concept of biosecurity; for example, Australian biosecurity is governed by the single overarching Biosecurity Act 2015.
Etymology and terminology[edit]
The word quarantine comes from quarantena or quarantaine, meaning "forty days", used in the Venetian language in the 14th and 15th centuries and also in France. The word is designated in the period during which all ships were required to be isolated before passengers and crew could go ashore during the Black Death plague.[1] The quarantena followed the trentino, or "thirty-day isolation" period, first imposed in 1347 in the Republic of Ragusa, Dalmatia (modern Dubrovnik in Croatia).[2][3][4][5]
Merriam-Webster gives various meanings to the noun form, including "a period of 40 days", several relating to ships, "a state of enforced isolation", and as "a restriction on the movement of people and goods which is intended to prevent the spread of disease or pests". The word is also used as a verb.[6]
Quarantine is distinct from medical isolation, in which those confirmed to be infected with a communicable disease are isolated from the healthy population.[7]
Quarantine may be used interchangeably with cordon sanitaire, and although the terms are related, cordon sanitaire refers to the restriction of movement of people into or out of a defined geographic area, such as a community, in order to prevent an infection from spreading.[8]
History[edit]
Ancient[edit]
An early mention of isolation occurs in the Biblical book of Leviticus, written in the 7th century BC or perhaps earlier, which describes the procedure for separating out people infected with the skin disease Tzaraath. The medical nature of this isolation is, however, disputed. As traditional exegesis (dated 700 CE) sees it as a punishment for trespassing one of several negative commandment, most notably Evil Speech.[9] A more recent hypothesis postulates that the infected are required to isolate themselves in order to prevent spread of disease (although the Bible does not imply contagiousness of Tzaraath):
Quarantine Act 1710
An Act to oblige Ships, coming from Places infected, more effectually to perform their Quarentine.
9 Ann. c. 2
23 December 1710
Notable quarantines[edit]
Eyam village, 1665 (plague)[edit]
Eyam was a village in Britain that imposed a cordon sanitaire on itself to stop the spread of the bubonic plague to other communities in 1665. The plague ran its course over 14 months and one account states that it killed at least 260 villagers.[96] The church in Eyam has a record of 273 individuals who were victims of the plague.[97]
Other uses[edit]
U.S. President John F. Kennedy euphemistically referred to the U.S. Navy's interdiction of shipping en route to Cuba during the Cuban Missile Crisis as a "quarantine" rather than a blockade, because a quarantine is a legal act in peacetime, whereas a blockade is defined as an act of aggression under the U.N. Charter.[133]
In computer science, "quarantining" describes putting files infected by computer viruses into a special directory, so as to eliminate the threat they pose, without irreversibly deleting them.[134]
The Spanish term for quarantine, (la) cuarentena, refers also to the period of postpartum confinement in which a new mother and her baby are sheltered from the outside world.[135]
Sources[edit]
This article incorporates text from a publication now in the public domain: Chisholm H, ed. (1911). "Quarantine". Encyclopædia Britannica (11th ed.). Cambridge University Press.