COVID-19
- 1A contagious respiratory illness caused by the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, with symptoms ranging from mild to severe.
He developed a high fever and lost his sense of taste after contracting COVID-19.
Local hospitals filled with patients suffering from severe COVID-19.
Note
A name built to point at nothing but the illness. The World Health Organization coined it on February 11, 2020, from coronavirus disease plus 19 for 2019, the year the virus was discovered. It deliberately avoids naming a place, animal or group of people, and labels like Wuhan pneumonia and Wuhan flu are exactly what it was designed to replace. Clinically it takes degree words, as in mild to moderate or severe COVID-19, and patients are diagnosed with it.
- 2The global pandemic of coronavirus disease that began in early 2020 and ended sometime in the mid-2020s.
Remote work became widespread during COVID-19 and reshaped how offices operate.
Travel restrictions imposed throughout COVID-19 disrupted supply chains around the world.
Note
Here the disease's name becomes a stretch of time, and it behaves like the name of an era: people worked from home and died during COVID-19, and stresses began at the start of COVID-19. Prepositions of time such as during, throughout and at the start of signal that the pandemic is meant, not the illness itself. Writers move freely between it and simply "the pandemic" in the same passage.
- 3The coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, which infects human cells and causes the disease COVID-19.
COVID-19 enters the body through the nose, mouth, or eyes.
Researchers tracked how COVID-19 mutates into new variants over time.
Note
Strictly, the virus has its own name, SARS-CoV-2. Calling it COVID-19 borrows the disease's name for its cause. The World Health Organization itself writes "the COVID-19 virus" and speaks of its variants, and that phrase is the usual bridge in public-health writing. In virology the formal name stays SARS-CoV-2. Labels like China virus and kung flu revive exactly what the disease's name was built to avoid.
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Origin
An abbreviation of "coronavirus disease" plus 19, from 2019, the year the virus was discovered. It was coined by the World Health Organization on February 11, 2020, and was intended to avoid stigma by not referring to a place, animal, career, or group of people.