COVID-19

This is the coronavirus causing the outbreak of respiratory disease which originated in Wuhan in the province of Hubei in central China. The name is constructed from CO for corona, VI  for virus, D for disease, and -19  for the year 2019 in which the virus was first identified.  It was coined by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses and is intended to be a neutral name that will not stygmatise the city of Wuhan.  There have been various spellings – CoVid-19 or Covid-19 with or without the hyphen before the number – but the spelling given by the committee and mostly now adopted is COVID-19. 

However, popular names that preceded the formal name may well have already become entrenched.  Among these are Wuhan virus, Chinese disease and Wuhan flu, shortened to Wu Flu. This last name is particularly undesirable because the virus is not a flu virus. Possibly because the name is catchy, it has already quite some currency.