On March 18, 2020, Merriam-Webster made an unscheduled update to its dictionary in response to the pandemic and those new words and phrases are listed below.
Community spread: the spread of a contagious disease in a geographic area in which there is no knowledge of how someone contracted the disease. In other words, no known contact can be traced to other infected individuals.
Contact tracing: identifying and monitoring people who may have come into contact with an infectious person. In the case of COVID-19, monitoring usually involves self-quarantine as an effort to control the spread of disease.
Coronavirus: a family of viruses that include SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) and MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome) as well as other respiratory illnesses. A coronaviruses, also known as a CoV, is typically spread between animals and humans—an event known as zoonotic transfer—and they are named for the term “corona”—Latin for crown—which refers to the shape of the virus when observed microscopically.
SARS-CoV2: the virus fully defined as “severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2” causes the disease COVID-19.
Novel coronavirus: a new strain of coronavirus, or nCoV, that has never been detected in humans.
COVID-19:COVID-19 stands for novel coronavirus disease 2019, which refers to the year of its initial detection. COVID-19 is the illness related to the current pandemic; the illness is caused by the virus SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2).
Index case: the first documented case of an infectious disease.
Patient zero: the first individual infected with a disease during an epidemic.
Index patient: the first person infected with a disease in an epidemic. Interchangeable with the term “patient zero.”
Self-quarantine: the act of refraining from any contact with other individuals for a period of time—in the case of COVID-19, two weeks—to observe whether any symptoms of the disease will arise after potential exposure.
Super-spreader: a highly contagious individual who can spread an infectious disease to a large number of uninfected people through a network of contacts.
Absolutely. :) I think a good majority of us like to keep up with the times and like to communicate on a level we can understand. It's when the conversations turn vile and rude, I tune out. These are important words and definitions we all need to adopt. So True bookworm! :):)
This post was edited by Merlin at April 4, 2020 3:41 AM MDT
inky 