Learning COVID-19 Technical Terms

A novel coronavirus (COVID-19) was spread around the world from Wuhan, China in December 2019. The COVID-19 is the acronym for Corona Virus Disease in 2019. The new widespread virus was also labelled as “Chinese Virus” or “Wuhan Virus” by some people or even politicians like President Trump. So, the question is what the COVID-19 is and how to understand the latest news.

Given the gravity of the situation, the glossary of COVID-19 is updating these days. Therefore, in this time of crisis learning and understanding, these new confusing medical terms may keep people up-to-date. Terms like epidemic vs pandemic, virus vs bacteria, contagious vs infectious, a respirator vs a ventilator, immunity, immuncompromised and immunodeficient, super spreader, community spread, and communicable, patient zero or index patient, contact tracing, containment, contaminated, incubation period, and different forms of mitigation like isolation vs quarantine and social distancing vs physical distancing.

We can put these technical terms in the context of COVID-19 to remember them better when we are answering the question of what COVID-19 is. COVID-19, a global pandemic, is an infectious respiratory disease caused by a communicable contagious virus. A Chinese shrimp seller woman was identified as coronavirus patient zero, and now more than 170 countries (with 800,000 confirmed coronavirus cases and 39000 deaths) experience community spread. The outbreak of COVID-19 was in china, but the apex of the death toll is reported in Italy. The exponential spreading of the virus made government officials do contact tracing, containment and mitigation. Medical experts are also urging people to reduce their contact with each other. They assert that as the incubation period of COVID-19 is around 1 to 14 days, keeping social and physical distancing, washing hands that may be contaminated, and using a respirator (face mask) is among the best solutions to stay safe and healthy.

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