There is so much confusion surrounding COVID-19, that it’s hard to sort out fantasy from reality. In case you haven’t been hearing our national experts advise us on COVID-19, and/or you haven’t had time to talk to your doctor about it, I’ll answer some common questions:
What is COVID-19?
COVID-19 [1] is the name of the disease caused by a new, very tiny, parasite-like bug called a virus. [2]
The virus’s official name is “severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2” (SARS-CoV-2). This version of the Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) looks a lot like the other viruses in its family. The Coronaviruses have a lot ‘spikes’ on the outside. [3] “Corona” means ‘crown.’ If you want to see what it actually looks like, click on this link: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4WUJrh4BR8k
How did it get such a weird name?
The scientists who discovered it named it. Like all geniuses, they like to keep things simple and consistent. They labeled this new version of a Coronavirus the same way they did to all the previous ones. “COV” comes from his last name: Coronavirus. The “ID” comes from the fact that it is an infectious disease. Since this virus was first identified in 2019, the number “19” is tacked on to the end of the name.
What is a pandemic?
Long before it was known what a virus was, people knew that new diseases can appear and spread quickly. In the last century, scientists discovered viruses. They realized that viruses (and the diseases that they cause) could spread incredibly fast. At the same time, the world population increases geometrically, [4] people get closer literally and digitally, much closer to each other. Viruses could infect so many people, so fast that no nation or group of nations could handle on their own. This is especially the case in the fast, interconnected world in which the eight billion [5] of us live.
Every nation understood that the response to pandemics would have to be done on a global scale. Therefore, groups like the World Health Organization (WHO), [6] were created to coordinate the internal response. The WHO is vital to monitoring and containing the international response to pandemics. The WHO is not perfect, but they are damn good what they do and crucial to the management of pandemics. Up until recently, the United States was by far and away, the biggest supporter of the WHO. President Trump has decided to ‘cut ties’ and ‘defund’ the WHO. [7]
When a disease (usually a virus) starts in one place and spreads all over the world fast, it’s called a PAN-epidemic (pandemic). Epidemic means a disease that’s spreading over a big area and hurting a lot of people. The “pan” part is put there to emphasize that it’s spreading all over the world. Pandemic means that there is virtually nowhere on earth that is not affected. Pandemics are predictable. They are part of life and they happen about every four to five years.
[2] https://www.sciencealert.com/virus
[3] https://www.nfid.org/infectious-diseases/coronaviruses/
[4] https://www.un.org/en/sections/issues-depth/population/index.html
[6] https://www.who.int/
[7] https://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-52291654