• Question: How did covid get its name and how and when was it found?

    Asked by GeorgeIsCool on 10 Feb 2022. This question was also asked by Max.
    • Photo: Samuel Ellis

      Samuel Ellis answered on 10 Feb 2022:

      The accepted names came from the World Health Organisation in 2020:

      COVID-19 = COronaVIrus Disease 2019

      SARS-CoV-2 = Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome COronaVirus 2 (after SARS-1 which occurred in 2002–2004)

      Covid was identified as a new virus during an initial outbreak in Wuhan, China in late 2019

    • Photo: Valerie Vancollie

      Valerie Vancollie answered on 10 Feb 2022:

      Covid or Covid-19 is an abbreviation for Coronavirus disease 2019. This is the name of the disease and is named after the year it was discovered.

      The actual virus is called SARS-CoV-2, which is short for Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus 2. The 2 is because we have already had Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus 1 or SARS-CoV-1, this is the virus that cased what is known as the SARS outbreak a number of years ago.

      SARS-CoV-2 was first found in the Wuhan area of China in 2019, but this is only where it was first found, it likely developed somewhere else and only infected humans there.

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