CORONAVIRUS

Asymptomatic means “showing no evidence of disease.”
Just because a person is asymptomatic doesn’t mean they aren’t infected with COVID-19.

Community spread is spread of a disease where the infection source is unknown.
According to the CDC, many sources of COVID-19 are due to exposure to a returned traveler who was infected.

Coronavirus refers to any of various RNA-containing spherical viruses of the family Coronaviridae, including several that cause acute respiratory illnesses.
Notable types of coronavirus are SARS, MERS, and COVID-19. COVID-19 is popularly referred to as (the) coronavirus or corona for short. COVID-19 is referred to as the novel coronavirus because it is a new (novel) virus (i.e., it hasn’t been detected before). Novel coronavirus can be abbreviated as nCoV.
When looked at under a microscope, coronaviruses appear to be surrounded by a spiky array thought to look like a corona, or a crown-like shape, hence the name coronavirus.

COVID-19 is a highly infectious respiratory disease caused by a new coronavirus. The disease was discovered in China in December 2019 and has since spread around the world.
COVID is short for coronavirus disease. The number 19 refers to the fact that the disease was first detected in 2019.
The technical name of the virus that causes COVID-19 is severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, abbreviated as SARS-CoV-2.

An epidemic is a temporary prevalence of a disease spreading from person to person in a locality where that disease is not permanently prevalent.

Flatten the curve means slowing the spread of an epidemic disease so that the capacity of the healthcare system doesn’t become overwhelmed. The curve represents the number of cases over time, and flattening that curve means preventing a huge surge of new cases in a very short period of time.

Isolation is the complete separation from others of a person suffering from contagious or infectious disease.
In public health, isolation happens when a person is infected with a communicable disease, and is separated from people who are healthy. This helps stop the spread of disease.

A pandemic is a disease prevalent throughout an entire country, continent, or the whole world. A pandemic is an epidemic that has spread over a large area.
The World Health Organization (WHO) specifically uses pandemic to refer to new diseases people do not have immunity for and that have spread worldwide. The WHO has declared the coronavirus outbreak a pandemic.
Pandemic can be both a noun and an adjective (e.g., a pandemic disease).

Patient zero refers to the person who is identified as the first person infected with a communicable disease during an outbreak.
Related terms are index case and index patient. An index case is the first known case of an infectious or genetic disease in a group of cases; the affected person is the index patient.

Physical distancing is an alternative term for social distancing. Its use is being increasingly encouraged by some health professionals because the term emphasizes the importance of maintaining physical distance between people to help stop the spread of the disease. The term also emphasizes that people should still socialize using digital technology and social media while they are separated physically.