Novel coronavirus 2019 disease & virus gets official names

Two official names have been made public today in relation to the on-going pandemic, yes I said it, of novel coronavirus: the disease and the virus that causes it.

As per the World Health Organization:

🚨 BREAKING 🚨

"We now have a name for the #2019nCoV disease:

COVID-19.

I’ll spell it: C-O-V-I-D hyphen one nine – COVID-19"

–@DrTedros #COVID19 pic.twitter.com/Kh0wx2qfzk

— World Health Organization (WHO) (@WHO) February 11, 2020

For the virus:

And the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses designates a name to the virus:

severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2)

Individual isolates to be named
SARS-CoV-2/Isolate/Host/Date/Location#2019nCoV #covid19 https://t.co/zKWf3w3nAw

— Muge Cevik (@mugecevik) February 11, 2020

Similar to how one should distinguish the AIDS (disease) from HIV (virus). With the official names now available, research and news reporting would be much clearer.

So let’s recap: the disease is called Coronavirus Disease-19 or COVID-19 and the virus is called severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2).