Bonne quarantaine!

"Bonne quarantaine!" piped Mommy's choir director one evening, in response to her closing "Bonne quinzaine!" at the end of a particularly lowkey rehearsal, in which both the next week's rehearsal, as well as a pair of concerts that had been under preparation for months were cancelled. All due to covid-19, a novel coronavirus unleashed on the world in late 2019 that was wreaking havoc in Europe at the time.

It was absolutely the right call, as were the words timely; they immediately begged the question: Just how much of a coincidence is it that the word 'quarantaine' - French for 40 days - is exactly the same as that used to refer to a quarantine? It turns out that 'quarantine' comes from the Italian 'quaranta giorni' or 40-day isolation period for ships wishing to dock. Only after 40 days could survivors (at the time of the Black Plague) be cleared to go ashore.

Indeed the choir director's words proved to be rather prophetic when not two days later the cantonal authorities laid down a number of social restrictions, a sort of encouraged self-quarantine, to help slow the propagation of covid-19 through the population. For the next 40 plus eight days, schools, sports, arts, music, societies, teams and clubs, especially inter-generational ones, would be banned in the canton of Vaud.

Thus begins SQS, our Swiss Quarantine Story.Read more