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Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) is a disease caused by SARS-CoV—the "SARS CoronaVirus".

We now have a second disease caused by a second coronavirus, which we call SARS-CoV-2.

So why is the disease named COVID-19 now, instead of SARS-2 (or SARS-19 if you wanted the year)?

user541686
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    related: https://medicalsciences.stackexchange.com/questions/21201/who-came-up-with-the-sars-cov-2-name – the gods from engineering Aug 13 '20 at 21:31
  • @Fizz Sorry, I somehow haven't come across your answer. I think this is a duplicate question then, because the answers are the same (whilst yours is a lot more detailed? – Narusan Aug 14 '20 at 13:37
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    "I think this is a duplicate question then, because the answers are the same"... that's fascinating. So "are mushrooms fungi?" is a duplicate of "is SARS-Cov-2 a virus?" because both answers are "yes"? I know I really didn't care who came up with the virus name; I cared about the rationale behind it. – user541686 Aug 14 '20 at 16:26
  • Duplicates are just StackExchanges way of handling the many questions. I know that your question was different, but everything I‘ve stated is also covered in the other answer. StackExchange has a policy on this. Also, closure of the question just redirects future answers to the other question (where an answer regarding the rationale is also valid and on-topic), so knowledge is bundled. // This does not mean your question was unwarranted, or has been asked before. – Narusan Aug 14 '20 at 18:17
  • [cont‘d] It‘s just that the answer has been posted before and now the two questions are linked and this question redirects to the old (and IMHO better) answer as well. – Narusan Aug 14 '20 at 18:18
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    @Narusan: "This does not mean your question was unwarranted, or has been asked before." I realize it might not have been your intended message, but on my end, there is a link right there in red encouraging me to delete my question, right next to the other link telling me to edit it. The fact that it's called "duplicate question" doesn't help either. Literally every aspect of it explicitly conveys the message that the question shouldn't exist in its current form any longer, which comes across as a giant slap in the face. I've been on SE for a long time and I just don't do this to people. – user541686 Aug 14 '20 at 18:28
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    @Narusan: Anyway, not blaming you specifically, just saying this is about as unwelcoming as anybody could be to a decent question, especially for a question that's popular enough to gain 4k views over the span of just a ~day on a beta SE site. It pretty much guarantees I will try not to post here again in the future. If you guys are active on this site, it might not be a bad idea to try a different approach in the future to avoid turning others off inadvertently. – user541686 Aug 14 '20 at 18:32
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    @Narusan: I didn't actually think this q is an exact duplicate, as framed, although in my answer to the other one, I quoted the WHO giving their reason(s) back then why they were not exactly thrilled with the SARS-CoV-2 name. I do wonder, reading that again, if they don't regret being so sheepish about it... a more scary name might have convinced some nations' leadership to take it more seriously, perhaps... – the gods from engineering Aug 15 '20 at 08:37
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    @user541686 Many others have left Health SE because it is too often unpleasant to participate here, so you're definitely not the only one to feel that way. – Franck Dernoncourt Aug 16 '20 at 03:19
  • @FranckDernoncourt: Good to know I'm not the first canary!! Though honestly I've seen this kind of treatment in lots of places around SE, so I guess the veterans can take solace(?) that this isn't specific to this site.... – user541686 Aug 16 '20 at 03:33

1 Answers1

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Disease are officially named by the WHO, while viruses are by the International Committee on Taxonomy of Viruses (ICTV).

The WHO has stated

From a risk communications perspective, using the name SARS can have unintended consequences in terms of creating unnecessary fear for some populations, especially in Asia which was worst affected by the SARS outbreak in 2003.

For that reason and others, WHO has begun referring to the virus as “the virus responsible for COVID-19” or “the COVID-19 virus” when communicating with the public. Neither of these designations are intended as replacements for the official name of the virus as agreed by the ICTV.

WHO

Both the disease and the virus have been officially named February 11th 2020, while it has been declared a pandemic by the WHO only March 11th 2020. In hindsight, it is debatable whether „using the name SARS[-2] can have unintended consequences in terms of creating unnecessary fear for some populations“ is true and whether this fear would have been „unnecessary“. But this is the reason we ended up with a different nomenclature of the disease and the virus.

It might also be worth pointing out that many viruses are not named similar to their respective diseases: HIV <-> AIDS; HPV <-> Cervical Cancer / Genital warts

Narusan
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