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 separated, or isolated, from the healthy population. The concept of quarantine is known to have been practiced around the world throughout history. 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 2002–2004 SARS outbreak, the 2013–2016 Western African Ebola epidemic, and extensive quarantines applied throughout the world during the COVID-19 pandemic. Ethical and practical considerations must be considered in the application of quarantine to people. Practice differs from country to country, as different countries vest the authority to quarantine their citizens and other persons under a variety of scenarios at different levels of government, with wide variation in quarantine enforcement mechanisms. 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 mostly governed by the single overarching Biosecurity Act 2015. However, that is not the only Australian law touching on quarantine; Section 107 of the Constitution preserves states' broad residual legislative powers, including public health powers, and Section 51(ix) gives the Commonwealth power to legislate with respect to quarantine—that power is generally concurrent rather than exclusive. As a result, both the Commonwealth and the states can enact quarantine laws, with Commonwealth law prevailing in cases of inconsistency.
Etymology and terminology 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. The quarantena followed the trentino, or "thirty-day isolation" period, first imposed in 1377 in the Republic of Ragusa, Dalmatia (modern Dubrovnik in Croatia). 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. Quarantine is distinct from medical isolation, in which those confirmed to be infected with a communicable disease are isolated from the healthy population. 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.
History
Medieval The mandatory quarantine of special groups of patients, including those with leprosy, started early in Islamic history. A hadith going back to the Islamic prophet Muhammad advised individuals present in a region with a plague outbreak to remain in place, and advised healthy individuals to avoid traveling there.
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