Alright, I’ve had enough…I have to say something.
As a science journalist and writer, I’ve been keeping an eye on the coronavirus with a mix of fascination and grim satisfaction. Fascination, because such viruses are rare, and grim satisfaction because the blind panic taking hold is what happens when qualified science journalists are cut from the news equation.
Let’s get the science stuff out the way: Firstly, this coronavirus is so new there’s still confusion over what it’s called. The virus itself is called SARS-CoV-2 because it’s related to the SARS coronavirus we saw in 2002-2003. It’s sometimes referred to as the ‘novel coronavirus’, meaning ‘new’, because it was only identified at the end of last year. The World Health Organisation refers to ‘COVID-19’. That’s not the virus, but the disease that develops from the virus - an acute respiratory illness akin to a nasty bout of flu.
Tag: Covid-19
