Plague Flags and Emojis

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Still in use today, a yellow naval flag indicates a ship cleared infection. A ship with infected passengers, waiting out a 40-day quarantine (quarantine derives from Italian word for forty) hoists a checked "yellow jack" flag. (Both solid and checked flags are called "yellow jack".) Its use traces back to at least the bubonic plagues in 1300s and 1600s in Europe, if not earlier. The yellow jack was also hoisted above squares to signal infections were still burning through the premises.



The red 'X' of "one foot high" on a home doorfront indicates a "locked house" or infected house in 1665 London.

A man smokes tobacco which was believed at the time to drive away plague miasmas. Elders demanded children smoke too.

When the inhabitants either died or cleared infection, a white 'X' painted atop the red 'X' served the purpose of immunity passports. (Source: Shiver documentary.)


No symbol is known to indicate a lifelong asymptomatic carrier like Typhoid Mary, who was forced by authorities to spend the remainder of her life in quarantine.


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Further Reading:

How Contact Tracing Works:   theonion.com

Typhoid Mary's tragic tale exposed the health impacts of 'super-spreaders':   nationalgeographic.com

Drunk History broadcast a humorous portrayal of Mary Mallon's asymptomatic superspread. Watch it here:   youtube.com





This work by AJ Fish is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License.

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