It's on the news every single hour and some people have changed their habits in their every day lives.
I wash my hands far more frequently and always when I get back from the shops or doctors surgery. Moreover,
I try and not put my bare hands on door handles.
COVID-19 is a name for the disease, not for the virus that causes it, which until now had a temporary moniker, 2019-nCoV, signifying it was a novel coronavirus that emerged last year. But the pathogen also got a new designation, which arrived before Tedros had even finished his press conference, by way of a preprint posted on bioRxiv by the body charged with classifying and naming viruses. The Coronavirus Study Group (CSG) of the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses, the paper noted, had decided that the virus is a variant of the coronavirus that caused an outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2002–03. So, it named the new pathogen severe acute respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus 2, or SARS-CoV-2.
I wash my hands far more frequently and always when I get back from the shops or doctors surgery. Moreover,
I try and not put my bare hands on door handles.
- Probability of infection for the EU/EEA and UK population is considered very low. While there have been both
- imported and locally acquired cases reported from seven EU/EEA countries and from the UK, the overall number of cases reported
- in the area remains low, and containment measures are in place. There are, however, uncertainties regarding transmissibility and under-detection,
- particularly among mild or asymptomatic cases.
COVID-19 is a name for the disease, not for the virus that causes it, which until now had a temporary moniker, 2019-nCoV, signifying it was a novel coronavirus that emerged last year. But the pathogen also got a new designation, which arrived before Tedros had even finished his press conference, by way of a preprint posted on bioRxiv by the body charged with classifying and naming viruses. The Coronavirus Study Group (CSG) of the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses, the paper noted, had decided that the virus is a variant of the coronavirus that caused an outbreak of severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) in 2002–03. So, it named the new pathogen severe acute respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus 2, or SARS-CoV-2.
Update: ‘A bit chaotic.’ Christening of new coronavirus and its disease name create confusion
Apparent reference to earlier severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak in virus name may meet resistance in China
www.sciencemag.org
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