The word “quarantine” has Italian roots: in an effort to protect coastal cities from the Black Death ravaging 14th-Century Europe, ships arriving in Venice from infected ports were required to sit at anchor for 40 days ( quaranta giorni) before landing, a practice that eventually became known as quarantine – derived from ‘ quarantino’, the Italian word for a 40-day period. To understand the importance of self-quarantining during this modern-day pandemic, it’s helpful to look back to the history of the word “quarantine” itself, which traces its origins to medieval Europe. As Covid-19 sweeps across the globe, we are advised to “self-quarantine” if we have recently returned from a part of the world where the virus is rapidly spreading, or if we have knowingly come into contact with an infected person. Since ancient times, societies have attempted to separate people with disease from those who remained unaffected, with references to self-isolation dating back to the Old Testament.
