In times of crisis, knowing and understanding the terminology involved may help alleviate some of the fears

Coronavirus COVID 19 Vocabulary

(adjective): showing no symptoms of a particular disease - She had no idea her husband had coronavirus because he was asymptomatic.

(noun): a person or animal that transmits a disease to others, whether suffering from it themselves or not - People who are asymptomatic can still be carriers.

(noun): transmission of a disease directly within a community and not by importation from a foreign source - With this many new positive cases, the evidence suggests that we now have community spread right here .

(adjective): describing a disease that can pass from person to person, usually by direct contact; describing a person with such a disease. See infectious - Patients who are still contagious are kept in isolation.

(verb): identify an illness by examining the symptoms - Only a medical professional can properly diagnose the cause of your problem.

(noun): identification of an illness by examination of the symptoms - If you're not happy with the doctor's diagnosis you could always get a second opinion.

the spray produced when people cough or sneeze, and which can spread diseases like COVID-19 - Health care personnel wear protective clothing to guard against the disease carried in droplets when infected people sneeze

(noun): occurrence of a particular disease in a large number of people in a particular area.

(noun): the time from a person’s first exposure to a disease to the time when symptoms develop - When they know the incubation period they will know how long to keep people in quarantine.

verb): keep an infected person away from healthy people - They will isolate anyone suspected of having the disease.

(noun): separation of infected people from healthy people for serious contagious diseases like COVID-19 - Travellers arriving from the infected area were immediately put in isolation.

(noun): official restriction of movement within or access to an area in the interests of public health.

noun): a sudden occurrence of a disease (or other unpleasant thing).

(noun): occurrence of a particular disease throughout a whole country or the world

(noun): the person identified as the first to become infected with a disease in an outbreak - Authoritites usually try to determine who patient zero was in any given outbreak as can help answer important questions.

(noun): isolation and monitoring of people who seem healthy but may have been exposed to an infectious disease to see if they develop symptoms

(noun): testing of people for the presence of a disease. For COVID-19 the first step in screening is usually taking a person’s temperature - They now conduct screening for all incoming passengers.

(noun): practice of encouraging people to minimize contact and closeness, whether by banning large or even small groups/meetings (football matches, nightclubs), or by maintaining a minimum distance between people .