Quarantine: “A form of living hell during Covid-19 where we have to stay home and live a very shitty life style and our mental health is affected. We also can’t see our friends or anyone for a long time. We are also out of school and everything.” Also known as a “Cornteen,” the American spelling of quarantine (Urban Dictionary).
We’re in Year 3 of the pandemic and most of us have probably quarantined at least once. It’s a strategy designed to prevent transmission of coronavirus by having those who had close contact with an infected person stay apart from others and having their movements restricted to see if they get sick. Many governments imposed quarantines on people who traveled abroad or even across state lines. Typically the quarantine period was 14 days though this has changed as more people are vaccinated.
The UVA Health website has a glossary of pandemic terms, and for quarantine it says it “is sometimes called ‘isolation.’ Quarantines keep people away from each other to prevent the spread of disease. Stay-at-home orders are a type of quarantine” (Glossary of Terms).
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, if you were exposed to someone with Covid-19 you should remain home and quarantine for 5 days while wearing a mask around others in the home. You are advised not to travel. After five days you should get tested and watch for symptoms for 10 days from the day you last had contact with someone diagnosed with Covid-19. You do not need to quarantine if you have been fully vaccinated or you previously tested positive for Covid-19 within the last 90 days (Quarantine and Isolation).
Alessi Ayvaz, staff writer for The Californiam recently wrote an article on how the pandemic has changed our lexicon: “If I asked each one of you reading this article the exact difference between quarantine and isolation before and after the pandemic, I am almost certain that you would have had to look up the definitions before (and hopefully not research as much now, whether or not you’ve had your own experiences in the La Loma dorms in Foothill). The CDC defines quarantine as “separating” and “restricting” people possibly exposed to an infection to see if they do become sick, whereas isolation is separating those who are confirmed to be sick from those who are not.“
So what did people do when stuck in quarantine? LoveThyNerd website published a “Nerdy Quarantine Resource Mega List” for nerds which had information on quarantine info, groups to play games with on Facebook, exercising for nerds, coloring pages and online conventions for those in quarantine.
On March 26, 2020 veteran U.S. Army Ranger Mat Best and country artist Tim Montana wrote the song “Quarantine.” As of May 2, 2022 the song has received over 4.5 million views.
“Quarantine, quarantine, Drinking whiskey like vaccine, Waving at the neighbors, Social distancing.”
Social Media Trends as of May 1, 2022
Facebook #quarantine: 3.9 million people are posting about this
Instagram #quarantine: 29,963,299 posts
TikTok #quarantine: 78.7 billion views
YouTube #quarantine: 304,000 videos and 138,000 channels
Google Trends: quarantine achieved peak popularity during the week of October 25, 2020.
Sources
Ayvaz, Alessi. “From herd immunity to ‘maskne’: How the COVID-19 pandemic has changed our English lexicon.” The Daily Californian. April 14, 2022. URL: https://www.dailycal.org/2022/04/14/from-herd-immunity-to-maskne-how-the-covid-19-pandemic-has-changed-our-english-lexicon/.
Brovarky. “Quarantine.” Adobe.com. File no: 324143620.
Caouette, April-Lyn. “Nerdy Resource Quarantine Mega List.” Love Thy Nerd. April 10, 2020. URL: https://lovethynerd.com/nerdy-quarantine-resource-mega-list/.
“Coronavirus & COVID-19: Glossary of Terms.” University of Virginia. URL: https://uvahealth.com/services/covid19-glossary.
Goth Doll. “Cornteen.” Urban Dictionary. October 19, 2020. URL: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Cornteen.
“Quarantine” a song by Mat Best and Tim Montana. YouTube. March 26, 2020. URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=I3xpRZITi2w.
“Quarantine and Isolation.” Centers for Disease and Control and Prevention. March 30, 2022. URL: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/your-health/quarantine-isolation.html#quarantine.
Thesavageofall. “Quarantine.” The Urban Dictionary. March 29, 2020. URL: https://www.urbandictionary.com/define.php?term=Quarantine.