1917: coronavirus (and other names) Mar 15, 2020

With cases of a recent coronavirus strain occurring worldwide in a short time, there are a lot of terms thrown around. You may see coronavirus, covid-19, SARS-CoV-2, or even just SARS 2, but these are all the same. 'Coronavirus' refers to a group of viruses that—among other attributes—have protein-spikes which resemble a solar corona under a microscope. Covid-19 is simply an abbreviation of this the year 2019 when this strain appeared in humans, while SARS-CoV-2 is a further abbreviation on this with SARS as an acronym for "severe acute respiratory syndrome", which is itself a type of coronavirus.

Support Word Facts on patreon.com/wordfacts