Confused about the language that health and government officials are using during the COVID-19 outbreak? Read on for a few explanations.
Confused about the language that health and government officials are using during this COVID-19 pandemic?
Below is our glossary for terms currently in circulation as officials strive to keep people informed.
Community transmission
When referring to how a disease is spread, one of the methods is community transmission.
In the case of COVID-19, it means that an infected person has not come into known contact with anyone who is infected and that the source of infection is unknown.
Contact tracing
Contact tracing is what doctors use to track a virus’s spread. It involves three steps.
First, is contact identification. Once a person is infected and symptomatic with a disease, the person is asked about their activities and their interactions with others.
That’s followed by contact listing. Once contacts with the infected person are identified, they’re informed of their status and advised to get early care if they begin to develop symptoms. If they are considered high risk, they may also be advised to isolate themselves.
Finally, there is contact follow-up, where doctors get in touch with people who came into contact with the infected person to see if they begin to develop symptoms.
Coronavirus, COVID-19 and SARS-CoV-2
Coronaviruses are a common cause of colds and other upper respiratory infections, but this pandemic involves a strain of coronavirus that is new to the world’s human population.
Coronavirus is used as a kind of shorthand these days in some media reports, and the new strain is more accurately called the novel coronavirus. The illness caused by the virus is called COVID-19, also referred to by the World Health Organization (WHO) as coronavirus disease 2019.
Some articles in medical journals use a lesser-known term for the virus: SARS-CoV-2 (severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2).
The WHO says it’s avoiding that term, since it could be confused with the SARS outbreak in 2003.
Endemic, epidemic and pandemic
A disease that is endemic is one that re-emerges on a seasonal basis, occurring at a predictable rate in a certain area or among a set population, such as malaria.
Epidemic is used when the number of infections rises above what is normally expected in a certain population or region. An outbreak is basically the same thing as an epidemic, although the term is often used to c