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Comment by deorder | Hacker News Reader

Shouldn't it be "as SARS-Cov-2 spreads" or "as more people get COVID-19"?

I see a lot of headlines using COVID-19 as if it is the virus and not the disease caused by it. Probably just semantics, but something I noticed.

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The authorities have completely fucked up the naming. No news outlet can call it SARS-CoV-2 as it will create panic as SARS has a higher death rate. So you are left with the hypercorrect use of COVID-19 over the actually correct use of "coronavirus".

The disease spreads together with the virus, doesn’t it?

Edit: I mean that it is standard usage to talk about diseases like gastroenteritis, tuberculosis and malaria spreading. One does not need to use “spread” only for the virus/bacteria/parasite.

Naming a virus after a disease is rather more monstrous than naming a disease after a virus, but nonetheless the virus is exclusively responsible for the causing and the spreading of the disease. In this particular epidemic, the risk of asymptomatic transmission makes the distinction more salient than it usually is.

Do you have examples of diseases named after a virus? I cannot think if any. (Edit: I found Ebola virus disease, Maburg virus disease and Nipah virus disease.)

Sorry not to catch this question. COVID-19, "Coronavirus disease 2019," is a disease named after a virus. The virus itself is now named "severe acute respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus 2," or SARS-CoV-2, and hence is a virus named after a disease.

Also MERS.

Middle East respiratory syndrome is the disease. The virus is named after the disease: Middle East respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus (MERS-CoV).

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