COVID safe

This is a term that first appeared in government communications, in particular as the name of the app that was supposed to track all our contacts, but also in the messaging which instructed us to draw up COVID-safe plans.  It was quickly adopted in all sorts of contexts. We tried to achieve COVID-safe restaurants, and arrive at plans for COVID-safe school graduations.  COVID safety was constantly on our minds.

 It is a term that acquired various parts of speech but, as always, the leap to verb use is the big one.  It is now clear that we are trying to COVID-safe everything we do.  When COVID-safing at home, don’t forget to clean the door handles.   Have you COVID-safed your workplace? is still perhaps a stretch but it won’t take long to seem completely natural.