The new coronavirus that’s sickened more than 42,000 people in China now has an official name: COVID-19. It stands for the coronavirus disease that was discovered in 2019.
The World Health Organization announced the name Tuesday, saying it was careful to find a name without stigma.
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“We had to find a name that did not refer to a geographical location, an animal, or an individual or group of people,” WHO’s director-general, Dr. Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, said in a call with reporters.
It’s also easy to pronounce, he added.
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