Prolonged isolation under lockdown can cause depression especially if you’re a teenage, live alone or are elderly. After being without human contact for considerable lengths of time, some people decided to form their own small bubble of people they could socialize with that didn’t interact with other “bubbles” outside their group. Quaranteams can consist of friends, family or Covid free neighbors that spend quality time together.
Quaranteam soon became a pandemic era word and appears in a few online dictionaries. Cambridge Dictionary lists quaranteam under their “New Words” blog post for 7 September 2020 to mean “a group of people who go into quarantine together.
Quaranteams, therefore, are not simply a convenient idea because they let people see their friends and family. Isolation poses serious health risks – both physically and mentally – that social bubbles can help alleviate while improving social well-being and quality of life. [theconversation.com, 17 June 2020]”
The Urban Dictionary’s entry for quaranteam is: “The people you choose to live with during a coronavirus quarantine. My girlfriend lives by herself, so my roommates and I have included her in our quaranteam.“
The online magazine Inverse gives 5 tips to consider when forming your quaranteam:
1. Quaranteaming is not risk-free.
2. Your group must make rules and adhere to them. This can only be done with extremely high levels of trust.
3. This situation is probably going to last longer than you think.
4. Smaller groups are better.
5. The urge to “quaranteam” is natural.
Betuel
Perhaps the most important piece of advice from the above quoted article is this: “Quaranteaming is not a way to get around social distancing, nor is it even a version of normality, experts say. You are signing up to live in a strictly governed social experiment that will require a huge amount of responsibility and trust.“
On March 11, 2021 Twitter user Pharmbills published a humorous tweet about quaranteaming.
Social Media Trends as of May 17, 2022
Facebook #quaranteam: 82,000 people are posting about this
Instagram #quaranteam: 176,045 posts
TikTok #quaranteam: 41.3 million views
YouTube #quaranteam: 960 videos and 425 channels
Google Trends: quaranteam first appeared during the week of March 15, 2020 coinciding with the time that lockdown mandates were beginning to be put in place. The term which its peak of interest during April 2020 and faded away by March of the following year.
Sources:
Betuel, Emma. “Quarantine with friends? 5 tips experts say to consider.” Inverse. May 8, 2020. URL: https://www.inverse.com/mind-body/quaranteam.
Faquat. “Quaranteam”. The Urban Dictionary. March 21, 2020. URL: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Quaranteam.
Musjaka. “Quaranteam social logo and text to stay at home. Coronavirus quarantine, virus in quarantine to prevent infection.” Shutterstock.com. Standard License. Royalty-free stock vector ID: 1703917987.
Pharmbills. “New 2021 Dictionary: Quaranteam — a group of people who create a social circle during the COVID-19 pandemic, prohibiting interaction with others.” Twitter.com. March 11, 2021. URL: https://twitter.com/pharmbills/status/1369954986868809728.
“Quaranteam”. Cambridge Dictionary. 7 September 2020. URL: https://dictionaryblog.cambridge.org/2020/09/07/new-words-7-september-2020/.