All the news and other outlets have been calling it the coronavirus which seems not right since the coronavirus is just a descriptor of the virus.
Why don’t we have a cute name for it like the “Wuhan Flu” which I saw initially, or something like SARS which actually describes the effects?
I haven’t seen anyone calling it THE coronavirus.
“Flu” is short for influenza, which is caused by an influenza virus. The novel coronavirus is not in that family.
There is also the issue that using names to link the virus to China may help create a racist backlash. Calling it by the technical name is more neutral.
“Fear of coronavirus fuels racist sentiment targetting Asians”
We could call it the Snake Sniffle.
When I first became aware if this I called it the Windmill virus after our dear leader. However absolutely no one got it, so I stopped.
I nominate the Wu Tang Flu.
Its name is ‘2019 Novel Coronavirus’ or nCoV 19 in short form. So Coronavirus works for a catchy form.
It’s not the flu.
I also wouldn’t be surprised if China was exerting some pressure to block something like that, and I wouldn’t blame them.
I also don’t get it.
You don’t get it because it only works in my head.
Trump thinks global warming and other facts are “Chinese hoaxes”.
Trump thinks windmills call cancer.
Ergo “Windmill virus”
In my defense I was pretty sick at the time.
Yes, the windmills in Trump world stand on hills, calling “Cancer! Here Cancer! C’mon, boy!”
Dammit!
I’ve seen it a lot. Plenty of examples similar to this:
^ In that example they are distinguishing “the coronavirus” from SARS.
The term ‘coronavirus’ is a common name for a virus in the family coronaviridae. Typically viruses from this family are rather innocuous, perhaps causing cold like symptoms in reasonably healthy humans if any symptoms at all. The notable exceptions are the SARS and MERS outbreaks which were also coronaviridae family viruses.
This had led to the mistaken belief that certain products like Dettol might be effective against this novel virus as they are effective against most typical coronaviridae family viruses.
IMHO a rebranding of the virus responsible for the current outbreak is warranted. ChiRS - Chinese Respiratory Syndrome? ChARS - Chinese Acute Respiratory Syndrome? EARS - East Asian Respiratory Syndrome? Whatever would be catchy and get some traction in the media.
Ncov19 is probably good enough to catch on as a name. Using the year in the name is much more useful than tying it to a country or region. H1N1 was nearly catchy enough in its time. Being able to pronounce the name as a word always helps. Spelling out letters is boring.
Somewhere recently I saw nCovfefe19 suggested.
More generally: I’ve always wondered why some diseases seem to get actual “names” of some sort, whereas others just get technical (if abbreviated) descriptions or acronyms or other strange names.
Some actual names were like “mumps” or “measles” or “tetanus”. Some were derived from technical descriptions, like “poliomyelitis” (commonly shortened to “polio”) or “multiple sclerosis” (commonly shortened to “multiple sclerosis”).
Some just got acronyms from longer phrases, like “AIDS” or “SARS” or “MERS”.
Then there was “Legionnaires disease” (also, “legionellosis” which looks like a back-formation from Legionnaire), or “Alzheimer’s disease”. Why do they need names that include the word “disease”?
Who decides which diseases should get actual names of their own or just acronyms or names “[Some person]'s disease”?
My girlfriend is from Hong Kong and is over there right now. She tells me that the name WARS (Wuhan Acute Respiratory Syndrome) is gaining traction.
Great. Now we are going to have SARS WARS.