Coronavirus: This term refers to a family of seven known viruses that can infect people, ranging from the common cold to severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and the even deadlier Middle East respiratory syndrome (MERS). The name comes from the virus’s shape, which under a microscope looks like a blob surrounded by crown-like spikes.
Covid-19: Sometimes used interchangeably with coronavirus and the official name SARS-CoV-2, covid-19 refers to the disease the virus causes. So SARS-CoV-2 causes covid-19, just as HIV causes AIDS.
Community transmission: This happens when a disease circulates among people in a certain area who did not travel to an affected location and have no close link to other confirmed cases.
Asymptomatic transmission: Asymptomatic carriers of the virus are people who show no signs of being sick but have the virus and can spread it to others.
Outbreak: A sudden increase in the number of cases of a disease in a particular place and time.
Epidemic: A large outbreak that spreads among a population or in a region.
Pandemic: An epidemic that has become rampant in multiple countries and continents simultaneously.
“Flattening the curve”: A phrase that experts use when talking about the need to use protective measures to slow the spread of new cases. It refers to the powerful visual illustration seen on a statistical chart. A flattened curve is the difference between a viral outbreak that has the profile of Mount Everest, exploding vertically, and one that slowly unfolds over time — a long, low hill.
Containment: In the early phases of an epidemic, countries often use this strategy of trying to corral and beat back the advance of a virus in hopes of limiting its spread and possibly stamping it out. They restrict movement of people, enact travel bans and quarantine. To use a military analogy, it is treating new cases like a beachhead invasion and surrounding and beating back each new beachhead.
Mitigation: Once it’s clear you’re dealing with widespread transmission that will be difficult if not impossible to contain, authorities begin focusing instead on wider preparations like getting hospitals ready to handle influx of patients, stockpiling materials and enacting social distancing policies.
Isolation: Keeping those who are sick and infected away from those who aren’t is referred to as isolation. Hospitals have taken strict measures to isolate coronavirus patients using isolation wards, ventilators that prevent air from circulating more widely and heavy protective gear for health workers.
Quarantine: Restricting the movement of people who seem healthy but may have been exposed to the virus is known as a quarantine. Americans who were evacuated from Wuhan and cruise ships, for example, have been kept in strict quarantine on military bases for 14 days, which is what experts believe is the virus’s incubation period.
Zoonotic: The new coronavirus was transmitted from animals to people, making it zoonotic. SARS came from civets, which are like cats, and MERS came from camels, but it’s not yet known what animal caused the current coronavirus outbreak. The prime suspect so far is the pangolin.
Source: Washington Post