Social Distancing: Social distancing, also called “physical distancing,” means keeping space between yourself and other people outside of your home. To practice social or physical distancing.
In addition to everyday steps to prevent COVID-19, keeping space between you and others is one of the best tools we have to avoid being exposed to this virus and slowing its spread locally and across the country and world.
| Isolation | Quarantine |
|---|---|
| Isolation ultimately comes from the same root as insulation: the Latin insulātus, “made into an island,” based on the insula, “island.” Isolated is recorded around 1755–65. In general when someone or something is set apart or separated from other persons or things or the whole society. In medical contexts, isolation specifically means “the complete separation from others of a person suffering from contagious or infectious disease.” | Quarantine comes from the Italian quarantina, a period of forty days, derived from Quaranta, the Italian for “forty.” Quarantine means a strict isolation imposed to prevent the spread of disease. |
| Voluntary isolation is sometimes called self-isolation, although everyday people using the latter term may not mean they are actually infected. | Voluntary quarantine (when someone isn’t ordered to go into quarantine but chooses to do so just out of caution) is often called self-quarantine. |