Paradise for neologisms

The current coronavirus is, to look on the cheerful side, a paradise for neologisms, just as staying at home is a paradise for the introvert, as you can see from this poster advertising the many advantages of staying at home, using the slogan "It has never been so easy to save lives."

A coronavirus is a large family of viruses of various kinds, which can cause illness in mammals and birds. The novel (new) coronavirus, causes the infectious viral illness COVID-19. This is caused by a virus called SARS-CoV-2 (named by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses) which emerged in 2019, possibly as the result of transmission from bats.

Here are some of my favourite COVID-19 neologisms, but there are many. In these articles, I have preferred the Wikipedia as a source of information, since it is quite rigorously quality-controlled. The same is unfortunately not true of other sources of information, such as the websites of national health departments or the general media.

Social distancing is one of the major terms. It refers to "a set of nonpharmaceutical infection control actions intended to stop or slow down the spread of a contagious disease. The objective of social distancing is to reduce the probability of contact between persons carrying an infection, and others who are not infected, so as to minimize disease transmission, morbidity and ultimately, mortality."

Keeping away from other people (my take on social distancing) is designed to reduce the basic reproduction number - the number of other people infected by each infected person. A better term that social distancing is physical distancing - you can still stay in touch online, just stay at home.

There are many nice lists of social distancing measures, and one may add others. Social distancing impacts the usual form of greeting such as the kiss (French) or handshake (Australian male) or hug (increasing numbers of Australians). Wikipedia shows some animated illustrations of alternative greetings, such as those using eyebrows, shrugs, nods and other gestures.

Of course, there are many many iterations of social distancing rules. In Australia, the Government recently (20 March) issued another iteration, which referred to the new 4 square metre per person rule. The Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) felt that it was best to quote the Prime Minister's exact words, also providing a video of his exact words. The ABC also comments "You should still be trying to keep 1.5 metres away from people at all times, and avoiding any handshakes or physical contact with people outside your family."

The report also notes that there is a wide variety of situations in which these social distancing rules do not apply, including health care settings, pharmacies, food shops, schools, workplaces, and public transport. Anywhere you might be likely to have fun seems to be included, however, depending on your own predelictions of course.

Social distancing is widely defined. For example, this example from the BBC has quite a different take on what it is. Dr Norman Swan, now a byword, has a partcular angle. There are many others. However, it seems pretty clear that Bondi beach last weekend was a huge social distancing fail.

Next: asymptomatic.