When we are born, we are given names that stay with us for our whole lives. Some names include good wishes and hopes from parents, 1 others may be unique and easy to remember. But do you know 2 the new coronavirus (冠状病毒) got its name?
According to International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses, an organization responsible for naming new viruses, the task of naming a virus is no less important than naming a person.
When a disease 3, people focus on the public health response and the official naming of a new virus is often delayed ( 延迟). But that may lead to many problems.
The most obvious one is that different media organizations may use different names for the 4 virus in their reports. As we enter the Internet era, information and news can spread to every household in 5. This means different names can take hold quickly and be hard to take back, which may confuse (使……感到困惑) those who know 6 about the virus.
In fact, naming a virus is 7 easy. Over the past decade, some improper names have caused problems. In 2009, the “swine flu (猪流感)” was widely used before the official name, HINI virus, was announced. This led Egypt to kill all of its pigs even though it appeared and spread among people who hadn't been near pigs. In
2015, MERS (中东呼吸综合征) caused a backlash (强烈抵制) 8 the nations and people of this region.
So in 2015, the World Health Organization (WHO) announced that the names of viruses should be easy to remember but 9 being named after geographic locations, people, species or classes of animals and foods.
10 these principles, the new coronavirus we are suffering from was named “COVID-19” by the WHO on Feb. 11th. In this name, “CO” means "corona", "VI" stands for "virus" and "D" means "disease". Next time you read about a virus you don't know, you may get some clues about it from its name.
