What is a corona virus?
Coronaviruses belong to a family known as Corona viridae, and under an electron microscope they look like spiked rings. They're named for these spikes, which form a halo or "crown" (corona is Latin for crown) around their viral envelope.
Corona viruses contain a single strand of RNA (as opposed to DNA, which is double-stranded) within the envelope and, as a virus, can't reproduce without getting inside living cells and hijacking their machinery. The spikes on the viral envelope help corona viruses bind to cells, which gives them a way in, like blasting a door open with C4. Once inside, they turn the cell into a virus factory -- the RNA and some enzymes use the cell's molecular machinery to produce more viruses, which are then shipped out of the cell to infect other cells. Thus, the cycle starts anew.
Typically, these types of viruses are found in animals ranging from livestock and household pets to wildlife such as bats. Some are responsible for disease, like the common cold. When they make the jump to humans, they can cause fever, respiratory illness and inflammation in the lungs. In immunocompromised individuals, such as the elderly or those with HIV-AIDS, such viruses can cause severe respiratory illness, resulting in pneumonia and even death.
Extremely pathogenic corona viruses were behind the diseases SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome) and MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome) in the last two decades. These viruses were easily transmitted from human to human but were suspected to have passed through different animal intermediaries: SARS was traced to civet cats and MERS to dromedary camels. SARS, which showed up in the early 2000s, infected more than 8,000 people and resulted in nearly 800 deaths. MERS, which appeared in the early 2010s, infected almost 2,500 people and led to more than 850 deaths.
You're going to be inundated with new terms and phrases you may never have heard before during this pandemic -- if you're finding yourself confused, head to CNET's guide on the most commonly used phrases.
What is COVID-19?
In the early days of the outbreak, the media, medical experts and health professionals were referring to "the corona virus" as a catch-all term to discuss the outbreak of illness. But a corona virus is a type of virus as we explain in the section above, rather than a disease itself.
To alleviate the confusion and streamline reporting, WHO has named the new disease COVID-19 (for coronavirus disease 2019). "Having a name matters to prevent the use of other names that can be inaccurate or stigmatizing," said Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus, director-general of the WHO. "It also gives us a standard format to use for any future coronavirus outbreaks."
The Coronavirus Study Group, part of the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses, was responsible for naming the novel coronavirus itself. The novel corona virus -- the one that causes the disease -- is known as SARS-CoV-2. The group "formally recognizes this virus as a sister to severe acute respiratory syndrome corona viruses (SARS-CoVs)," the species responsible for the SARS outbreak in 2002-2003.
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