The name 2019 nCoV, which stands for 2019 novel coronavirus, has been assigned to the virus behind the outbreak of flu-like illnesses that started in China late last year.
NEW YORK -- West Nile virus, Lyme disease, Ebola virus."Just rolls off the tongue, doesn't it?" said Trevor Hoppe, a researcher at the University of North Carolina at Greensboro, who has studied the history of disease names.
Since the outbreak is centred in the central Chinese city of Wuhan, others have been using Wuhan virus or Wuhan coronavirus or even Wuhan flu -- even though flu is an entirely different virus. "Now we have a much different sensibility and tolerance about how we refer to things," said Dr. Howard Markel, a medical historian at the University of Michigan.
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