The pandemic of SARS-CoV-2 that began in 2020 is strongly challenging this age-old process of internationalising the management of epidemic crises. The implementation by national governments of health and safety measures decided wholly or partly unilaterally demonstrates the extent to which the national framework has become the priority scale for decision-making and action in the COVID-19 crisis. These tensions between national and international levels are particularly visible when we look at maritime sanitary measures. They are not new, and there is a great deal of historiography to put them into perspective. The aim of this article is therefore to compare the maritime quarantine practices decided on/observed during the SARS-CoV-2 crisis with the wealth of historical thinking on the specific issues of maritime health safety, shedding particular light on the permanence of management in situations of uncertainty. The aim is also to examine the collective amnesia processes at work, and those that need to be overcome, in order to improve protection systems in the long term.