Deltacron was identified in January 2022 by a lab in Cyprus and is a portmanteau of Delta and Omicron and contains genetic material from both Covid-19 variants making this new variant a recombinant one but some medical experts doubt Deltacron exists.
The new variant has an entry in Dictionary.com describing it as “the name given to a supposed combination of the Delta and Omicronvariants of the COVID-19 virus; however, many scientific experts have concluded that it does not exist. A number of virologists have said that the appearance of a combined strain was simply the result of contamination of the samples in which it was thought to have been detected. Deltacron is, in fact, not a variant, but a broad nickname describing variants that contain a mixture of mutations found in Delta and Omicron.”
An article titled “What Is Deltacron? A New Coronavirus Variant Or Lab Error?” reports that the lab responsible for discovering the new variant said “on 7 January [that the] team had discovered Deltacron in 25 patients [and the] variant appeared to be a mix of the delta and omicron variants” (Majumder).
Because there are so few cases the World Health Organization has not classified it as a variant of concern. Epidemiologist William Hanage of the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health said “It’s only a variant if it produces a large number of cases…if it’s not causing lots of cases, people don’t need to be concerned” (Ellis).
Social Media Trends as of May 20, 2022
Facebook #deltacron: 11,000 people are posting about this Instagram #deltacron: 6,960 posts TikTok #deltacron: 24.9 million views YouTube #deltacron: 1,100 videos and 525 channels
Google Trends: deltacron appeared on January 8, 2022 and peaked during the second week of that month before fading into obscurity by the beginning of April 2022.
Juan. “Lexicon images. “Researcher with blood sample of New Variant of the Covid-19 DELTACRON and generic data of covid-19 Coronavirus Mutations. Doctor in analysis lab holding sample of new strain of covid DELTACRON” image. Adobe.com. File no: 479256877.
Coronavirus testing sites began to appear in March 2020. The major pharmacies such as CVS and Walgreens adapted their existing prescription pickup drive thru so that customers could get tested for Covid-19. Appointments had to be made online and testing could not be performed inside the pharmacy. Their were specific instructions for this kind of test: “In drive-through testing, the person undergoing testing remains in a vehicle while a healthcare professional approaches the vehicle and obtains a sample, all while taking appropriate precautions such as wearing personal protective equipment (PPE)” (Wikipedia).
drive thru testing at a CVS Pharmacy
On March 20, 2020 the first coronavirus drive thru testing site opened in New Jersey attracting long lines of vehicles. An NBC News article describes the scene: “Hundreds of cars, some with a single passenger and others packed with four, were lined up Friday morning at Bergen Community College in Paramus, located about 20 miles from Manhattan, to get tested for coronavirus, according to NorthJersey.com. The National Guard was brought in to assist state police with monitoring the testing site” (Burke).
When Covid testing was at its peak it was virtually impossible to find a location anywhere that had an opening. I remember trying to find a spot at CVS, Walgreens and Quest Diagnostics only to find they had no availability.
Google Trends: drive thru testing appeared during the week of March 8, 2020 when Covid testing centers started to pop up across the nation. During the peak of various Covid waves, the search term spiked as people tried to find testing locations where there was still availability. The term peaked in Christmas 2021 when the Omicron variant was rapidly spreading everywhere.
“How to self-swab in your car at a Regional Test Site or Mobile Test Unit.” Department of Health and Social Care. UK Government. June 16, 2020. URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QawyKwIIfKQ.
A retronym describes a new word created from an existing word that is similar to the original form but has a slightly different meaning. In this case, Covalgia is a retronym of nostalgia which is an affection for some parts of the pandemic such as empty roads (if you had to commute), remote working (if you didn’t have to go back to the office) and not having to be around your coworkers.
Chris Rodgers quotes Jay Martel’s definition of Covalgia in this tweet:
Covalgia – nostalgia for certain aspects of the pandemic – e.g., reduced traffic, more birds, fewer mass shootings, no office birthday parties.
Omicron is the name of a highly transmissible variant of the Covid-19 virus and was first detected in South Africa in November 2021. Two months later it had spread around the world faster than previous variants. It arrived in the United States in the same month it was detected in South Africa. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention reported on December 1, 2021 that “the California and San Francisco Departments of Public Health have confirmed that a recent case of COVID-19 among an individual in California was caused by the Omicron variant (B.1.1.529). The individual was a traveler who returned from South Africa on November 22, 2021. The individual had mild symptoms that are improving, is self-quarantining and has been since testing positive.” By Christmas 2021, Omicron was the world’s most dominant variant.
So where did the variant gets its name from? Omicron is one of the Greek letters of the alphabet. An article published for the South China Morning Post on 17 December 2021 explains why: “Alpha, beta, gamma, delta…[The] World Health Organization determined in May 2021 that its nomenclature for important strains in the Sars-CoV-2 variant classification would adopt Greek-letter names (as opposed to place-of-origin names, such as “Wuhan virus” or “South African variant”, the practice criticised for contributing to xenophobia and racism)” (Lim).
The new variant dashed hopes of a return to normal during the Christmas holidays and delayed return to office plans. Cases rose exponentially and schools deliberated whether to return to virtual learning. An article published on December 20, 2021 for NBC News on December 16, 2021 reports that “The omicron variant is spreading rapidly across the United States, shattering hopes of a return to relative normalcy in the final days of the year and harkening back to the anxiety of the early months of the Covid-19 crisis. Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s leading infectious disease expert, told NBC’s ‘Meet the Press’ on Sunday that the variant is “just raging through the world” (Arkin).
Omicron sounds more like the name you would give to a transformer than a Covid variant. Ironically, an anagram of the word spells “Moronic.”
Omicron is the name you might give to a transformer (Wikipedia)
The Covid-19 variant started popping up in memes and YouTube videos. Here’s a Star Trek parody of how to pronounce the word “Omicron.”
Here’s a tweet showing a parody photo of the UK gameshow Countdown with the words Omicron and its anagram Moronic.
Facebook #omicron: 300,000 people are posting about this Instagram #omicron: 594,110 posts TikTok #omicron: 3.2 billion views YouTube #omicron: 130,000 videos and 30,000 channels
Google Trends: omicron as a search term became popular during the week of November 21, 2021 and peaked around Christmas Day around the time it became the world’s most highly transmissible variant.
During lockdown when people worked remotely and used Zoom to stay in touch with their coworkers a new issue arose – Zoom bombing. This is where an uninvited person joins your video call over Zoom without permission.
An article published on the website How to Geek in April 2020 described the main cause of this: “The problem is how people handle public Zoom meeting links. These links are shared thousands of times between clients, friends, colleagues, classmates, and so on. Careless handling of them can result in a Zoom meeting being open to public access. Then, anyone who finds the link can join an in-progress meeting” (Gunnell).
Unauthorized persons who hijack Zoom meetings have been known to make offensive comments, throw racial slurs and bully people. There are many ways to prevent this from happening. If you must use links without a password don’t post them where they can be easily accessible or found by Google. In the Zoom settings menu you can disable the “Embed Password in Meeting Link for One-Click Join” setting and make it a requirement to have a password to join the meeting. Screen sharing can be disabled except for the host so inappropriate content is not shown. The “Remote Control” feature should be disabled if you don’t want other participants to control your computer. If you don’t want files to be shared you can disable the “File Transfer” option. For a full list of ways to prevent Zoom Bombing read the here.
Zoom bombing can also refer to the unexpected appearance of individual(s) in a video who weren’t supposed to be there. Prior to Zoom calls, the old term was video bombing. One humorous example of Zoom Bombing happened during lockdown during a live interview with the BBC. On May 15, 2021 The Indy100 website published an article titled “Jon Ashworth’s daughter is the latest kid to Zoom-bomb a TV interview.” The shadow health secretary was giving a live interview when his daughter made a cameo appearance. The interview went viral and appeared on Twitter.
A new victim of child Zoom-crashing tonight: shadow health secretary Jon Ashworth pic.twitter.com/ugieTUKWVW
Many of us working remotely are using Zoom for business, meetings, interviews and classes. One mom from New Hampshire zoom bombed her kids’ classes while wearing embarrassing costumes, such as a bear suit and an old man, and posted selfies on her local New Hampshire Facebook page.
Lexicon images: zoom bombing
Social Media Trends as of May 9, 2022
Facebook #zoombombing: 3,100 people are posting about this Instagram #zoombombing: 2,685 posts TikTok #zoombombing: 76.3 million views
Google Trends: zoombombing didn’t register until March 2020 when the pandemic arrived in the United States. The popularity of the term reached its peak during the week of March 29, 2020 which coincided with lockdown.
Lexicon images. “zoombombing concept represented by wooden letter tiles on a wooden table with glasses and a book” image. Adobe.com. File no: 344298530.
Happy Blursday to all my readers! This term entered the lexicon soon after lockdown began. My office was closed in March 2020 and everyone was told to work from home for two weeks till the pandemic had run its course. Well two weeks turned into two months and then two years. Everyday was the same and like many other people who worked remotely, I started to lose track of the days. Was it Thursday or Friday? Sunday or Monday? With no daily commute, every day felt like yesterday, especially under lockdown when we couldn’t go outside except to go shopping or for a solitary walk around the block. Time seemed to pass quickly and the days went by in a blur.
The Collins Dictionary has “blursday” listed as a new word suggestion: “humorous word for any day of the week that feels not much different from the one before” (Melony).
The Urban Dictionary has a couple of entries for “blursday,” one dating from 2007, so this isn’t a new term:
Defintion #1: “When you’ve been sheltering in place for so long because of a global pandemic you have no idea what day it is as they all blur together.
-I got so drunk on Friday. I slept in all blursday but Sunday I went to brunch” (J4432).
Blursday appears in a number of online publications. An article published for WebMD on May 7, 2020, entitled “Today is Blursday: How Lockdown Warps Time,” describes the feeling “of your internal clocks melting as your stay-at-home days drone on” and that many people all over the world report that their perception of time has been distorted because of the effects of lockdown. Most feel that time is speeding up but others say their days have slowed down to a crawl (Goodman).
Some people got creative during lockdown and produced journals for sale like this cool notebook from Amazon described as a “Funny notebook for the shelter in place self-quarantine phenomena where the days blur together” (Lit Notebooks).
Blursday is the name of a movie released in June 2021 which was directed by Vincent Soberano, an award winning actor and filmmaker, and tells the true stories of three couples in their apartments during lockdown. The IMDB entry describes the movie as “a unique and profound story about loss, love and pregnancy during confinement.”
An article published for Broadway World on May 29, 2021 quotes Soberano’s reasons for making the movie: “On Blursday, I wanted to produce a time capsule film, detailing a journey through THE FIRST 100 DAYS of the global pandemic. Following the global theme of “we are all in this together”, I created a couple of cinematic rules: To be performed by three couples around the world and to be captured inside their own apartments using computers and phone cameras.” The movie was filmed at each of the couples’ apartments in Los Angeles, Hong Kong and Buenos Aires, “shot via Zoom and in person” (Wild). Watch the trailer below:
image submitted by Piscine26
Social Media Trends as of May 7, 2022
Facebook #blursday: 2,400 people are posting about this Instagram #blursday: 6,081 posts TikTok #blursday: 828,000 views YouTube #blursday: less than 100 videos and channels
Google Trends: blursday first appeared as a blip in February 2009 and didn’t really take off in popularity until March 2020 when lockdown arrived in the United States. The term peaked in April 2020 at the peak of lockdown and then tailed off for a pit, spiking again in November 2020 (as some states reintroduced lockdown after previously lifting them) before returning to where it was in 2009.
The term “The Great Reset” has been around for a couple of years and is the name of the 50th annual meeting of the World Economic Forum (WEF) which was held in June 2020. Klaus Schwab is the founder and chairman of the WEF which started in 1971. The forum meets annually in Davos, Switzerland. Its attendees are politicians, leaders and those prominent in the business world.
Although the term is prevalent everywhere in newspapers, magazines and social media, the Urban Dictionary was the only dictionary that had a definition:
The Great Reset is a proposal by the World Economic Forum (WEF) to rebuild the economy sustainably following the COVID-19 pandemic. It was unveiled in May 2020 by the United Kingdom’s Prince Charles and WEF director Klaus Schwab. It seeks to improve capitalism by making investments more geared toward mutual progress and focusing more on environmental initiatives. It has been criticized for using the pandemic to implement a risky experiment and a petition to stop it gained 80,000 signatures in less than 72 hours. A conspiracy theory has spread in response, claiming it will be used to bring in socioeconomic and environmental changes and a supposed New World Order.”
The official website of the WEF has a page discussing the “Great Reset” and the opening sentence is a quote from Klaus: “The pandemic represents a rare but narrow window of opportunity to reflect, reimagine, and reset our world” (WEF). The organization discusses how the world can “reset itself” after the pandemic is over to create a more sustaining, prosperous future led by politicians, digital entrepreneurs, and business leaders.
An article published on the WEF website in 2016 entitled “8 predictions for the world in 2030” quotes Danish MP Ida Auken: “I don’t own anything. I don’t own a car. I don’t own a house. I don’t own any appliances or any clothes. Shopping is a distant memory in the city of 2030, whose inhabitants have cracked clean energy and borrow what they need on demand.” It was from this quote that the catchphrase “You will own nothing and you will be happy” proliferated across social media.
On 5 June 2020 the WEF produced a video featuring highlights from the 50th annual meeting known as “The Great Reset Launch.” The points for discussion focus on a “new social contract centred on human dignity, social justice and where societal progress does not fall behind economic development.“
Google Trends: the great reset first appeared as a blip in June 2020 which was around the time that the World Economic Forum hosted its annual meeting to discuss “The Great Reset.” The popularity of the term peaked during the week of November 15, 2020.
Covidian is a new term and its broadest meaning is anything related to or typical of the Covid-19 pandemic. It can refer to someone who follows all the health directives and mandates. The term is listed in the Urban Dictionary and here are three definitions:
Definition #1: “A Covidian is someone who lived through the global Covid-19 pandemic, starting in January 2020
-She was a Covidian. She survived the Covidian era. -They met in the Covidian crisis. -He hoarded toilet paper in the Covidian era” (Cosgrove)
Definition #2: “A person who identifies with COVID-19, or is obsessed with COVID-19 ‘prevention’ measures.
-Look at this Covidian wearing his mask while driving his car alone. -This Covidian attempted to argue that health is more important than freedom. Little did the Covidian know, health requires freedom” (_Correct_ Definitions_).
GREETINGS COVIDIANS is the name of a visual research project at Florida International University which looks at and analyzes personal experiences during the pandemic. It is led by the Research Network for Health and Society (REACH) The project is featured in an online article written for FIU entitled: “Greetings, Covidians: Seeing COVID-19 through fresh eyes” (Lederman). To participate, visit https://www.greetingscovidians.net/ and submit an anonymous photo with a caption that explains how you’re experiencing the pandemic. The picture can be taken inside your home or in a pubic place. Your submission forms part of a digital gallery.
Here’s a YouTube video from Dr. Z’s called “Covidians vs Covidiots.” Dr. Z encourages people to find middle ground so they don’t become too casual or too cautious about coronavirus.
Social Media Trends as of May 4, 2022
Facebook #covidian: people are posting about this Instagram #covidian: 672 posts TikTok #covidian: 48,600 views YouTube #covidian: less than 100 videos and channels
Google Trends: covidian appeared in December 2019 and achieved peak popularity April 2020.
Quarantine: “A form of living hell during Covid-19 where we have to stay home and live a very shitty life style and our mental health is affected. We also can’t see our friends or anyone for a long time. We are also out of school and everything.” Also known as a “Cornteen,” the American spelling of quarantine (Urban Dictionary).
We’re in Year 3 of the pandemic and most of us have probably quarantined at least once. It’s a strategy designed to prevent transmission of coronavirus by having those who had close contact with an infected person stay apart from others and having their movements restricted to see if they get sick. Many governments imposed quarantines on people who traveled abroad or even across state lines. Typically the quarantine period was 14 days though this has changed as more people are vaccinated.
The UVA Health website has a glossary of pandemic terms, and for quarantine it says it “is sometimes called ‘isolation.’ Quarantines keep people away from each other to prevent the spread of disease. Stay-at-home orders are a type of quarantine” (Glossary of Terms).
According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, if you were exposed to someone with Covid-19 you should remain home and quarantine for 5 days while wearing a mask around others in the home. You are advised not to travel. After five days you should get tested and watch for symptoms for 10 days from the day you last had contact with someone diagnosed with Covid-19. You do not need to quarantine if you have been fully vaccinated or you previously tested positive for Covid-19 within the last 90 days (Quarantine and Isolation).
Alessi Ayvaz, staff writer for The Californiam recently wrote an article on how the pandemic has changed our lexicon: “If I asked each one of you reading this article the exact difference between quarantine and isolation before and after the pandemic, I am almost certain that you would have had to look up the definitions before (and hopefully not research as much now, whether or not you’ve had your own experiences in the La Loma dorms in Foothill). The CDC defines quarantine as “separating” and “restricting” people possibly exposed to an infection to see if they do become sick, whereas isolation is separating those who are confirmed to be sick from those who are not.“
So what did people do when stuck in quarantine? LoveThyNerd website published a “Nerdy Quarantine Resource Mega List” for nerds which had information on quarantine info, groups to play games with on Facebook, exercising for nerds, coloring pages and online conventions for those in quarantine.
On March 26, 2020 veteran U.S. Army Ranger Mat Best and country artist Tim Montana wrote the song “Quarantine.” As of May 2, 2022 the song has received over 4.5 million views.
“Quarantine, quarantine, Drinking whiskey like vaccine, Waving at the neighbors, Social distancing.”
image submitted by brovarky
Social Media Trends as of May 1, 2022
Facebook #quarantine: 3.9 million people are posting about this Instagram #quarantine: 29,963,299 posts TikTok #quarantine: 78.7 billion views YouTube #quarantine: 304,000 videos and 138,000 channels
Google Trends: quarantine achieved peak popularity during the week of October 25, 2020.
Dr. Anthony Stephen Fauci serves as the Chief Medical Advisor to the President, a position he has held since January 20, 2021. He has advised many Presidents on local and global health concerns such as HIV/AIDS. Dr. Fauci also serves as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases, a position he has held since 1984. You can read more about his extensive research into infectious diseases here.
Dr. Anthony Fauci attending a pandemic update April 7, 2020
Whether you like him or not, Dr. Fauci has become a household name and is the face of the Covid-19 pandemic. He has given extensive interviews in the media concerning the pandemic, mask wearing and vaccinations.
An article published on 22 March 2020 for The Guardian entitled “Coronavirus: meet the scientists who are now household names” discusses how medical experts found themselves in the ‘Covid-19 spotlight.'” Speaking of Dr. Fauci, correspondent Jon Henley writes “Anthony Fauci has earned praise from the US public for telling the truth about coronavirus, even when it means contradicting the president” (Henley).
A new term was added to the dating lexicon in February 2021. To “Fauci” someone is to cut off a relationship with a person who doesn’t take social distancing or the pandemic seriously as this Twitter interview with Dr. Fauci confirms:
Spend #ValentinesDay with #NIAID Director Dr. Fauci, whose last name has been added to the pandemic’s dating lexicon.
Facebook #fauci: 53,000 people are posting about this Instagram #fauci: 103,174 posts TikTok #fauci: 322.2 million views YouTube #fauci: 4,000 videos and 1,600 channels
Google Trends: dr fauci achieved peak popularity during the week of October 25, 2020.
