Quarantine
Quarantine is where animals, people or an area of land are isolated to prevent the spread of disease or pests. Countries often stop animals and plants from being brought in from elsewhere, unless they are known not to carry a disease.
Background
The word "quarantine" comes from quarantena, the Venetian language meaning "forty days". This is because of the 40-day isolation of ships and people practiced as a measure of disease prevention related to the plague.[1][2]
It is different from medical isolation, which is for people who have been infected with the disease.
The quarantining of people often raises questions of civil rights. Quarantine can have bad psychological effects on the quarantined. These include post-traumatic stress disorder, confusion and anger.[3]
COVID-19
Self quarantine (or self-isolation) is a term that became popular during the COVID-19 pandemic, which spread to most countries in 2020. Citizens were either encouraged or forced by law to stay home to lower the spread of the disease. Some countries went into lockdowns as a form of quarantine.
On 1 April 2020, more than 280 million people, or about 86% of the population, were under some form of lockdown in the United States,[4] 59 million people were in lockdown in South Africa,[5] and 1.3 billion people were in lockdown in India.[6][7]
Quarantine Media
US President Richard Nixon greeting the Apollo 11 astronauts in NASA's mobile quarantine facility
The quarantine ship Rhin, at large in Sheerness. Source: National Maritime Museum of Greenwich, London
Isolating a village in Romania whose inhabitants believe that doctors poison those suspected of cholera (1911)
The signal flag "Quebec", also called the "Yellow Jack", is a simple yellow flag that was historically used to signal quarantine (it stands for Q), but in modern use indicates the opposite, as a signal of a ship free of disease that requests boarding and inspection.
High tech communication brings cheer and encouragement
The quarantine hospital building (lazaretto) at the historic Columbia River Quarantine Station near Knappton, Washington
Public Health Service Quarantine Station, New Orleans, Louisiana, 1957
Quarantine of the convict ship Surry on the North Shore of Sydney Harbour in 1814, the first quarantine in Australia
A road sign at an exit on Interstate 91 in Vermont, photographed in November 2020.
Slovakia closed borders to non-residents because of the coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic.
Related pages
References
- ↑ Sehdev, Paul S. (2002). "The Origin of Quarantine". Clinical Infectious Diseases. 35 (9): 1071–1072. doi:10.1086/344062. PMID 12398064.
- ↑ Press, The Associated (24 March 2020). "Croatia's Dubrovnik, Home to Ancient Quarantine Facilities". The New York Times. Retrieved 1 April 2020.
- ↑ Brooks, Samantha K.; Webster, Rebecca K.; Smith, Louise E.; Woodland, Lisa; Wessely, Simon; Greenberg, Neil; Rubin, Gideon James (2020). "The psychological impact of quarantine and how to reduce it: Rapid review of the evidence". The Lancet. 395 (10227): 912–920. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30460-8. PMC 7158942. PMID 32112714.
- ↑ "More than 85% of all Americans have been ordered to stay at home. This map shows which cities and states are under lockdown". Business Insider. 1 April 2020. https://www.businessinsider.com/us-map-stay-at-home-orders-lockdowns-2020-3.
- ↑ Chutel, Lynsey; Dahir, Abdi Latif (27 March 2020). "With Most Coronavirus Cases in Africa, South Africa Locks Down". The New York Times. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/27/world/africa/south-africa-coronavirus.html.
- ↑ Nair, Supriya (29 March 2020). "For a billion Indians, lockdown has not prevented tragedy". The Guardian. https://www.theguardian.com/world/commentisfree/2020/mar/29/india-lockdown-tragedy-healthcare-coronavirus-starvation-mumbai.
- ↑ "Chaos and hunger amid India coronavirus lockdown". Al-Jazeera. 27 March 2020. https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/chaos-hunger-india-coronavirus-lockdown-200327094522268.html.
Other websites
- Ayliffe, Graham A. J.; Mary P. English (2003). Hospital infection, From Miasmas to MRSA (PDF). Cambridge University Press. – Hardback ISBN 0 521 81935 0; paperback ISBN 0 521 53178 0
- Emerging Infectious Diseases – Contents, Volume 11, Number 2 Archived 2020-02-01 at the Wayback Machine, February 2005
- Quarantine for SARS, Taiwan Archived 2020-02-01 at the Wayback Machine, February 2005, wwwnc.cdc.gov
- History of quarantine (from PBS NOVA)
- Cole, Jared P. (9 October 2014). "Federal and State Quarantine and Isolation Authority" (PDF). Congressional Research Service.