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Club * [3]Deadspin * [4]Gizmodo * [5]Jalopnik * [6]Jezebel * [7]Kotaku * [8]Lifehacker * [9]The Root * [10]The Takeout * * [11]The Onion * * [12]The Inventory Do everything better [13]Latest[14]Skillet[15]Two Cents[16]Vitals[17]Offspring[18]The Upgrade[19]App Directory[20]How I Work[21]Video [22]The Coronavirus Disease Has an Official Name: COVID-19 You may also like Try the 'When/Then' Trick to Get Kids to Follow Directions How to Watch Samsung's 2020 Galaxy Unpacked Event These Date Night Activities Are Better Solo Try the 'When/Then' Trick to Get Kids to Follow Directions Offspring Try the 'When/Then' Trick to Get Kids to Follow Directions Meghan Moravcik Walbert Today 2:00PM How to Watch Samsung's 2020 Galaxy Unpacked Event Lifehacker How to Watch Samsung's 2020 Galaxy Unpacked Event Emily Price Sunday 6:49PM These Date Night Activities Are Better Solo Lifehacker These Date Night Activities Are Better Solo Claire Lower Today 12:00PM Popular Deals on The Inventory Roll Straight Into Your Next Vacation With This Rockland Rolling Duffle Bag [23] Roll Straight Into Your Next Vacation With This Rockland Rolling Duffle Bag [24]Ignacia Reschedule All Your Weekend Plans Because The Friends Gold Box Is Here [25] Reschedule All Your Weekend Plans Because The Friends Gold Box Is Here [26]Ignacia More from G/O Media Read on [27] Nobody knows what to do with Timothée Chalamet’s Oscar look Read on [28] The Jeep Gladiator Is Struggling Read on [29] Car And Driver's Test Between The Porsche Taycan And Tesla Model S Proves Porsche Was Right Read on [30] I Tried Fixing My Friend's Mini Cooper S But I Screwed Up And Now The Car Is Stranded Subscribe To Our Newsletter Daily tips, tricks & shortcuts delivered to your inbox. [31](BUTTON) Subscribe [gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==] [32]Beth Skwarecki [33]Today 11:18AM • Filed to:coronavirus 1.4K 8 Save [gif;base64,R0lGODlhAQABAAAAACH5BAEKAAEALAAAAAABAAEAAAICTAEAOw==] Staff at the Pasteur Institute in Dakar researching COVID-19Photo: Seyllou / AFP (Getty Images) After weeks of mild [34]confusion and unwieldy hashtag names (love to type #2019-nCoV), the disease caused by the coronavirus from Wuhan finally has a catchy, accurate, non-[35]stigmatizing name: COVID-19. The name was [36]announced by the World Health Organization this morning. “COVID” is an abbreviation for “coronavirus disease” and the 19 refers to when it was first identified, in late 2019. Advertisement It doesn’t have “Wuhan” in the name, because nobody wants their hometown to be known for a disease. How would you feel telling people you live along the Ebola river? It’s not just “the coronavirus” because coronavirus is a family of viruses including SARS, MERS, and several viruses that cause the common cold. (The new coronavirus itself will actually be called SARS-CoV-2, because it’s so similar to the original SARS virus. COVID-19 is the disease it causes.) IFRAME: [37]/ajax/inset/iframe?id=twitter-1227248333871173632&autosize=1 The WHO put out [38]guidelines for naming new diseases a few years ago. While sensible, they eliminate a lot of the more obvious options. No naming them after places, people, or animals (like “swine flu”), because those names tend to either be stigmatizing, or they give people the wrong impression—like in the case of swine flu, assuming you can avoid the disease by avoiding pigs. Advertisement So we have COVID-19, appropriately scientific and descriptive while also being pronounceable. It’s catchy! It also sounds just a little bit like a name you’d hear in an [39]outbreak thriller movie. In any case, it’s bound to stick. Updated 2/11/2020 at 1:02pm to clarify that COVID-19 is the disease, while the virus itself has another name, SARS-CoV-2. Advertisement [40]Beth Skwarecki [41]Posts[42]Email[43]Twitter Beth is Lifehacker's Senior Health Editor. She has written about health and science for over a decade, including two books: Outbreak! and Genetics 101. Her Wilks score is 302. 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