Posted on 02/11/2020 7:25:42 PM PST by E. Pluribus Unum
The disease that has killed more than 1,000 people in China, stopped flights and disrupted trade now has a name — “COVID-19,” a moniker that combines “coronavirus,” “disease” and the year it was discovered while averting the ignominy of tying the disease to an entire place or people, like the Spanish flu a century ago.
It also sets the table for naming future coronaviruses — just add the year at the end.
What to call the new illness has been overshadowed by the human toll of the outbreak. Millions are on lockdown in China, where more than 42,000 people have been infected, and two dozen other countries have reported the illness, which can cause respiratory distress and organ failure.
Still, the World Health Organization said a name is important. A common name helps scientists compare notes and data and heads off public confusion in a climate in which online misinformation is rampant.
“Having a name matters to prevent the use of other names that can be inaccurate or stigmatizing,” WHO Director-General Tedros Ghebreyesus told reporters. “It also gives us a standard format to use for any future coronavirus.”
Many news outlets have been referring to the illness as the “new virus from China” or “Wuhan virus,” after the Chinese city in Hubei Province where the outbreak began in December.
Peter Hotez, a Baylor University professor who studies diseases, said COVID-19 is not a “descriptive or memorable” name.
“Rather than thinking of naming an infectious agent as stigmatizing, potentially there’s an upside as well,” he said. “Everyone would know what virus one is referring to, but also it’s a poignant reminder of how emerging and neglected infections not only affect health but can devastate economies and global security.”
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtontimes.com ...
Tell me who the (....) are they??!!
YES, that’s a reference to a WHO song :)
And sorry...
Oh wow - when people are dying and a virus is running rampant the topmost thing on their minds is being SJWs and not offending anyone.
Top.
Men.
Besides - Cornoavirus, afaik, didn’t point to any particular race, nationality or location... just a beer.
It's like a Near-Earth object, only different.
Just call it the Kung Flu.
Kowtow, one of the few Chinese words that made it into English unaltered.Bring Out Your Dead
Post to me or FReep mail to be on/off the Bring Out Your Dead ping list.
The purpose of the “Bring Out Your Dead” ping list (formerly the “Ebola” ping list) is very early warning of emerging pandemics, as such it has a high false positive rate.
So far the false positive rate is 100%.
At some point we may well have a high mortality pandemic, and likely as not the “Bring Out Your Dead” threads will miss the beginning entirely.
*sigh* Such is life, and death...
If a quarantine saves just one child's life, it's worth it.
Does this mean I cannot continue to refer to it as the ‘Kung Flu’?
Been more than 1000 dead, they are lying.
Chinese Coronavirus Plague.
Like this one?
Wuhan Plague...where it all began.
Covfefe-20
Then they need to DEstigmatize Spain from being associated with the Spanish Flu.
bkmk
I so despise the injection of politics and political correctness into science, this being example #679,357,950,137.
Hey, hey we dont want to hurt their feelings as they unleash their pandemic! Do t want the oittle commie assholes to feel bad!
Good grief. The Spanish Flu didn't start in Spain; it is only known as such because Spain, as a non-combatant during WWI, did not stop its press from running articles about the disease that was spreading in the neighboring, war-torn nations.
Wuhan Flu 19
(plague is caused by a bacteria)
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