I have a touched thought for all these people who have been quarantined by the health authorities or confined to their homes by their company, on the pretext that they had stayed in a risk zone. These people, at some point, find their way back to work and it doesn’t always happen as it should. As they say, they smell like pâté.
Testimonies on this subject abound. We no longer count these employees freed from the obligations of confinement who return to work and have the impression that their colleagues are avoiding them. They are suddenly the heads of suspects, they are treated differently, sometimes as plague victims. What is ridiculous since if the confinement period is over, is that the risk has subsided.
However, human stupidity is so made that it draws from our fears and our share of irrationality. Result: we stigmatize and worsen the situation of those for whom quarantine is already an ordeal in itself. Because we may have a rich interior life, a good internet connection and a well-stocked library, quarantine is a deprivation of liberty, and after a while it’s a bit of a strain. It has been scientifically demonstrated.
Quarantine leaves traces
Besides, there is not ONE but several studies to which we can refer. They were carried out during epidemics of SARS, H1N1 flu or the Ebola virus, epidemics which gave rise to quarantine among hospital staff members.
At the end of the confinement period, the researchers carried out psychological tests. The results obtained by the quarantined people showed signs of exhaustion, cases insomnia, a decrease in concentration not found among personnel who had not been placed in solitary confinement. Or in any case, not in the same proportions.
It is therefore, for researchers, proof that quarantine is not trivial and that it leaves traces. The persons concerned are identified by lower returns when they return to work. The risk of developing psychological disorders threatens them a little more than the others. They are more prone to stress, in a bad mood, irritability, with all that that can involve in their relational, personal and professional universe.
So I say to everyone who sees a colleague who has disappeared due to quarantine: “Be understanding and intelligent”. And I say to all those who have been quarantined: “If you feel bad after this period, don’t be ashamed to let people know and, if necessary, to consult.”
You talk about quarantine but in reality, it’s about fourteen. Yes. Because 14 days is, until further information, the incubation time for the coronavirus that is currently circulating. And if we’re talking about quarantine, it’s for convenience: it refers to what was happening in the 17th century when people who were infected were isolated for 40 days to prevent the spread of epidemics, especially plague.
