[Ads-l] origin of the term "coronavirus"

[MULLINS, WILLIAM D (Bill) CIV USARMY CCDC AVMC (USA)]

> >

> > Apropos, I haven't seen a source for 'covid' that sounded plausible

> > so far...  Have I missed something on the list discussion?

> >

>



>From the document I previously linked to:



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Some definitions



• COVID-19 refers to the disease, which in practice is used to refer to having a positive

2019 coronavirus laboratory test regardless of disease signs or symptoms

– WHO introduced the disease name COVID-19 with great fanfare (after weeks of

discussions) at a time when there was no virus name, so it got picked up by the

press as the virus name, incorrectly.

– An example of a mis-use is “COVID-19 can survive on surfaces”



(https://abcnews.go.com/Health/covid19-days-surfaces-experiment-

findings/story?id=69569397), which is a nonsensical statement.



– In addition, COVID-19 is a terrible name for a disease, because you can’t append

the word “virus” to describe the pathogen, as ”COVID-19 virus” would mean

“coronavirus disease 2019 virus”, which sounds silly and indeed reveals the

disease name to lack any informational value whatsoever.

– Previously we named diseases by some sort of description of signs/symptoms,

e.g. severe acute respiratory syndrome = SARS. WHO could have named the

disease simply “SARS2” and it would have been both accurate and descriptive.



• 2019-nCOV was the initial name given by some infectious disease organization for

the virus, where nCOV stands for novel coronavirus. But this name is hard to

remember because it starts with a generic term (the year). It is also inconsistent with

coronavirus naming conventions. It is also misleading, because it gives the

misimpression that the virus is especially novel. It’s not. In fact it’s the least novel of

the respiratory disease-causing viruses isolated in the molecular age. It’s defining

feature is it’s NON-novelty...



• SARS-CoV-2 is the Genbank name for the virus, because it is 96% identical in

nucleotide sequence to SARS-CoV, the cause of SARS in 2003.

– We will use this name because it is accurate and informative, revealing the high similarity

between these two pathogens. This name thus reminds us that we can infer a lot about

SARS-CoV-2 from existing data on SARS-CoV.

– Ironically, the WHO decided not to name the virus SARS-CoV-2 for precisely this reason –

to obscure the relationship between the two viruses

(www.vox.com/2020/2/14/21135208/coronavirus-wuhan-china-covid-19-name-sars-

cov-2). However we are scientists, we want clarity not obfuscation.



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