The Oxford-like dictionary of Coronavirus Terms

I was talking to my son the other day about how big world events often have some lasting legacy and change peoples lives in small insignificant ways and sometimes more substantially. As time moves by and one generation becomes the next these changes become ingrained in the day to day world. They become the ‘new normal’. 

My son was born after the attack on the Twin Towers in New York, on that day as I along with millions across the globe watched the shocking scenes of these man-made Goliath's falling to the ground people could feel in their bones that this event would change the world. And so it did. To my son’s generation this is just how the world is. 

Trying to explain to my kids how the world was before one of the most influential inventions, the internet, is a futile. How can they even imagine how normal life could carry on when the internet and all its magic is so ingrained in their lives. 

As we are all painfully aware we are living through one of those moments in human history where there will be a shift. The shift may be helpful, unhelpful or a bit of both, only time will tell us. 

The way we shop, the way we travel, the way we holiday, the way we work, the way we exercise, the way we eat, the way we communicate, all of these things and more will change. For our children and grandchildren to come this will be the ‘new normal.’  The face-mask may become the new essential accessory and will remain essential when travelling on public transport or shopping in the high street. 

Since lockdown one of the small changes that is already evident relates to the popularised words and terms associated with the virus. There was a time near the beginning of this back in March 2020 when the frequency of the use of the word unprecedented was, well unprecedented. 

 

I have listed some of the words and terms that I have collected in no particular order below;

Unprecedented  - an event or events that are out of the ordinary.

Social distancing - where the population are not allowed to come in contact with each other and when out of the home have to stay 2m apart. Or is it 1m with extra precautions?

Lockdown - where people are asked to stay at home and not go out unless they are shopping for essentials, having to go to work or exercising. This can be also be on a smaller scale described as a local lockdown. 

Home schooling - with the enforced closure of schools all students in the country do their learning at home.  Some parents discovered how difficult teaching actually is. 

Key worker - a person who has to work during the lockdown. Especially health workers, delivery drivers, food shop workers and teachers. 

Exercise - an activity that helps everyone to maintain their physical and mental health.

Stay at home - a directive given by the government to prevent the transmission of the virus.

Contact tracing - when a person tests positive for Covid-19 it is possible to identify the people they have recently been in contact with who are potentially at risk. The contact tracing app is still under testing. 

Self isolation - a requirement to stay away from others when exhibiting the symptoms of Covid-19.

Respirator - a sophisticated piece of medical equipment that supports the breathing of patients who are suffering badly from Covid-19. These are now being produced by the likes of Dyson and McClaren. 

PPE - Personal Protection Equipment - masks, gowns, gloves, overalls and goggles used by NHS staff and others caring for the sick to prevent transmission of the virus. 

Super spreader - A person identified to have inadvertently caused the infection of many other people. 

Contagious - how easily the virus is passed from person to person. The more easily it is transmitted the more contagious it is. 

Lag time - the time it takes for the effect of measures such as social distancing to have an effect on the number of infected people.

Infection Rate - the number of new people infected with the virus per day. 

R-factor - a more complicated number than it should be that helps describe how quickly the virus is reproducing. Any number of 1 suggests the virus is spreading. The government aims to keep it below 1. 

Quarantine - to isolate infected people from the wider population. Fourteen day isolation appears now to be the norm. 

Furloughed - where a person is given temporary leave of absence from their job but is still paid. 

Pandemic - when an infectious disease has infected a number of people in many different countries across the world. 

Flatten the curve - a term used by scientific advisers and politicians to describe the effect of social distancing and lockdown measures where the infection rate is slowed and prevented from increasing. 

Exit strategy - a political term used to describe the measures that need to be taken to safely remove the lockdown measures without causing an increase in infections. 

Zooming - to Zoom is to call on line. Zooming seems to have replaced the term FaceTiming. 

U-turn - a term often coined by the media when describing the governments handling of certain political decisions. 

Algorithm - a word associated with a statistical modelling process that results in utter chaos and U-turns. 

The dictionary needs updating where is Samuel Johnson when you need him?