A Pandemic Moment

While I was self-quaratining [ I hope that's a real phrase]  I wondered what the actual name meant. And low and behold I was reading The New Yorker today, an article called "The Spread," by Elizabeth Kolbert and read that the  ". . . word "quarantine" comes from the Italian quaranta, meaning "forty."

The article went on to say that the quarantine scenario has specific attributes that started long before people knew that they were practicing it. Most of Merriam-Webster's definition of quarantine has to do with ships coming into port; that irony was not lost on me.

But Webster further states: a restraint upon the activities or communication of persons or the transport of goods designed to prevent the spread of disease or pests.

Kolbert states that the period of 40 days was required to stay safe. plus the number forty is constantly mentioned in the Bible, both in the Old and New Testaments. Items such as the numnber forty being days for purification, the forty days and forty nights of the Genesis flood, the forty years of the Israelites wandering in the desert, and finally the forty days of Lent.

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The New Yorker, April 6, 2020, The Spread, Elizabeth Kolbert, page 58-61