Saturday, March 14, 2020

Minor Pedantry

Because I am a professional pedant:

  • COVID-19 is the short version of "coronavirus disease 2019." It's the illness you get from a particular virus.
  • SARS-CoV-2 is the virus itself.

3 comments:

David Bratman said...

One think I haven't seen explained is, what does "novel" mean as in the often-used phrase "novel coronavirus"? I'd guess it means new, as opposed to older strains of coronavirus, but that's just a guess.

Lisa Hirsch said...

I believe you're correct, but I'll try to remember to check with my in-house public health researcher.

Lisa Hirsch said...

She assumes it's "novel" as in "new" but doesn't know for sure.