Category: Virus

Hydroxychloroquine

Hydroxychloroquine has been used for many decades to treat malaria and autoimmune diseases such as rheumatoid arthritis and lupus. Recently it has been used to treat those infected with Covid-19, though with mixed results. On March 28, 2020 the Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approved hydroxychloroquine for emergency use to treat “adults and adolescents who weigh at least 110 pounds (50 kg) and who are hospitalized with COVID-19, but who are unable to participate in a clinical study” (MedlinePlus). Unfortunately, the FDA cancelled the Emergency Use Authorization on June 15, 2020 as clinical studies showed that use of this medication was not effective for the treatment of coronavirus and some patients suffered adverse side effects such as an irregular heartbeat.

On 19th May 2020 CNN published an article stating that POTUS #45 was taking hydroxychloroquine on a daily basis to help prevent the onset of Covid-19 possibly because “the President’s physician, Navy Cmdr. Sean Conley, alluded in a memo released Monday night to Trump’s personal valet testing positive two weeks ago for coronavirus. While Conley didn’t say directly that Trump started taking hydroxychloroquine in response to the valet testing positive, the timing mentioned by Trump and the positive test match up” (Nikki Carvajal and Kevin Liptak).

The video below is an interview with President Trump advocating for the use of hydroxychloroquine and informing viewers that he’s been taking the anti-malarial drug, describing the medication as a “game changer” in the fight against Covid-19 (ABC News).

Social Media Trends as of August 4, 2022

Facebook #hydroxychloroquine: 58,000 people are posting about this
TikTok #hydroxychloroquine: 24.7 million views
YouTube #hydroxychloroquine: 21,000 videos and 1,400 channels

Google Trends: hydroxychloroquine appeared during the week of March 15, 2020 and peaked during the last week of July 2020 as more people searched online to see if this antimalarial drug could cure Covid-19.

Sources:

ABC News channel. “Trump says he’s taking hydroxychloroquine.” YouTube. May 18, 2020. URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1I9Bb8Fbui0.

Hydroxychloroquine. MedlinePlus. URL: https://medlineplus.gov/druginfo/meds/a601240.html.

Nikki Carvajal and Kevin Liptak. “Trump says he is taking hydroxychloroquine though health experts question its effectiveness.” CNN.com. May 19, 2020. URL: https://www.cnn.com/2020/05/18/politics/donald-trump-hydroxychloroquine-coronavirus/index.html.

Pandemic Treatment Virus

Remdesivir

Remdesivir is an antiviral medication developed by Gilead Sciences, a biopharmaceutical company. It has been used to treat those aged 12 and older who were hospitalized with Covid-19. Its initial use was to “fight the Ebola virus, that prevents an RNA-based virus from reproducing within an infected cell by blocking it from replicating its viral genome” (Dictionary.com)

Clinical trials using Remdesivir were conducted as early as April 2020. The New England Journal of Medicine published a report which identified the antiviral drug as a “promising therapeutic candidate for Covid-19 because of its ability to inhibit SARS-CoV-2 in vitro. In addition, in nonhuman primate studies, Remdesivir initiated 12 hours after inoculation with MERS-CoV reduced lung virus levels and lung damage.”

In October 2020, Remdesivir was given approval for medical use in the United States to treat patients who were hospitalized “with mild-to-severe COVID‑19…[and] in January 2022, a study indicated that non-hospitalized people who were at high risk for COVID-19 progression had an 87% lower risk of hospitalization or death after a 3-day course of intravenous Remdesivir” (Wikipedia).

The pandemic has created new words in the English language some of which have been added to the major dictionaries. On June 16, 2021 an article was published on the News18.com website that stated “Remdesivir has been added to the [Oxford] dictionary’s list of words. Remdesivir became a popular name during the harrowing second wave that hit India in April. The anti-viral injection that sent people scouting for it, has now recorded itself as a dictionary word in June 2021 following its extensive demand” (Buzz Staff).

Social Media Trends as of August 3, 2022

Facebook #remdesivir: 46,000 people are posting about this
Instagram #remdesivir: 28,875 posts
YouTube #remdesivir: 5,200 videos and 2,200 channels

Google Trends: remdesivir appeared as a blip during the week of February 2, 2020 and reached its peak in during the week of April 26, 2020 which coincided with some clinical trials using Remdesivir in the United States.

Sources:

BuzzStaff. “‘Remdesivir’ Added to Oxford Dictionary after Surge in Use During India’s Second Covid-19 Wave.” News18.com. June 16, 2021. URL: https://www.news18.com/news/buzz/remdesivir-added-to-oxford-dictionary-after-surge-in-use-during-indias-second-covid-19-wave-3854156.html.

“Remdesivir.” Dictionary.com. URL: https://www.dictionary.com/browse/remdesivir.

“Remdesivir.” Wikipedia.com. URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Remdesivir.

“Remdesivir for the Treatment of Covid-19.” The New England Journal of Medicine. May 22, 2020. URL: https://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/nejmoa2007764.

Tags antiviral

Pandemic Treatment Virus

Ivermectin / Horsepaste

“You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it.”
– U.S. Food and Drug Administration

Ivermectin is a word that’s been heard a lot since the early days of the pandemic when it was discovered that it might be effective in treating Covid-19. The drug is used to treat parasitic infections in livestock and specific infections in people.

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) state that “Ivermectin is a Food and Drug Administration (FDA)-approved antiparasitic drug used to treat several neglected tropical diseases, including onchocerciasis, helminthiases, and scabies. For these indications, ivermectin has been widely used and is generally well-tolerated. Ivermectin is not approved by the FDA for the treatment of any viral infection…The Panel recommends against the use of ivermectin for the treatment of COVID-19, except in clinical trials” (COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines).

The US Food and Drug Administration has the following statement on its website concerning use of the drug Ivermectin:

There seems to be a growing interest in a drug called ivermectin for the prevention or treatment of COVID-19 in humans. Certain animal formulations of ivermectin such as pour-on, injectable, paste, and “drench,” are approved in the U.S. to treat or prevent parasites in animals. For humans, ivermectin tablets are approved at very specific doses to treat some parasitic worms, and there are topical (on the skin) formulations for head lice and skin conditions like rosacea.

However, the FDA has received multiple reports of patients who have required medical attention, including hospitalization, after self-medicating with ivermectin intended for livestock (FDA).

When people decided to use Ivermectin to cure their Covid-19 infection, they soon discovered how difficult it was to get a hold of. Some decided to take matters into their own hands by buying Ivermectin Paste Dewormer which is used to treat parasitic infections in horses. This is where the term “horse paste” comes from. This product contains an appropriate amount of the drug suitable for horses that weigh a lot more than a human. Some people overdosed on horse paste and ended up in the emergency room. The situation got bad enough that the US Food and Drug Administration posted the following tweet:

https://twitter.com/us_fda/status/1429050070243192839?lang=en

Social Media Trends as of July 30, 2022

Facebook #ivermectin: 36,000 people are posting about this
TikTok #ivermectin: 102.9 million views
YouTube #ivermectin: 1,600 videos and 950 channels

Google Trends: ivermectin first appeared during the week of April 5, 2020 when research came out around this time showing the drug was able to eliminate Covid cells in 48 hours. Since then, interest in the search term has gone up dramatically reaching its peak during the week of April 29, 2021 as more people started looking online for ways to cure their Covid-19 infection instead of getting vaccinated.

Facebook #horsepaste: people are posting about this
TikTok #horsepaste: 306,700 views

Google Trends: horsepaste registered interest during the final week of 2019 but didn’t really take off till March 2020. The popularity of the search term peaked during April 2020.

Sources:

BBC News channel. “Why some Americans treat Covid with an unproven horse dewormer – BBC News.” YouTube. September 15, 2021. URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R0HOYn6sO8Q.

FDA. “Why You Should Not Use Ivermectin to Treat or Prevent COVID-19.” US Food and Drug Administration. URL: https://www.fda.gov/consumers/consumer-updates/why-you-should-not-use-ivermectin-treat-or-prevent-covid-19.

“Horsepaste” meme – Homer Simpson drooling. Meme Generator. URL: https://memegenerator.net/instance/85800949/homer-simpson-drooling-mmmmmm-horse-paste.

“Ivermectin.” COVID-19 Treatment Guidelines. National Institutes of Health. Last updated: April 29, 2022. URL: https://www.covid19treatmentguidelines.nih.gov/therapies/antiviral-therapy/ivermectin/.

US FDA. “You are not a horse. You are not a cow. Seriously, y’all. Stop it.” Twitter. August 21, 2021. URL: https://twitter.com/us_fda/status/1429050070243192839?lang=en.

Tags horse paste, ivermectin

Pandemic Virus

Before Times

There was a time in the not so distant past where Covid-19 and Coronavirus weren’t even words. The pandemic, lockdowns and viral escape mutants were the imagination of script writers for dystopian movies. These were the “Before Times,” a nostalgic expression referring to the way things used to be. A time when you could travel on a plane without wearing a mask and be served a meal. A time when you didn’t have to stand “six feet apart” from the person in front of you at the grocery checkout. It was a time when people could freely go to bars, pubs, parties and sporting events without having to worry about catching the ‘Rona and thinking about contact tracing.

Dictionary.com defines Before Times as follows:

Before Times is generally used in discussions that contrast the lasting and far-reaching effects (especially negative effects) of the pandemic to the way things were before it. It’s typically used in a way that’s intended to be at least somewhat (darkly) humorous, perhaps likening the world after the start of the pandemic to a postapocalyptic dystopia.
Example: I’ve been in my house hiding from Covid for so long that I can’t even remember what it was like in the Before Times.
The term Before Times was popularized by the COVID-19 pandemic. It was used in reference to the prepandemic world from the very beginning of the pandemic in early 2020, but its origins are unrelated -and much earlier. The initial spread of the phrase and variations of it is often attributed to the science fiction TV show Star Trek, which used a version of the term in a 1966 episode [Miri]. In the episode, a group of children use the term before time to refer to life before a plague killed most of their planet’s population.

“Before Times” has appeared in a few online news articles. A recent piece written for Fortune magazine that discusses remote working says “while coming into work at all is tepidly popular, coming in on Fridays borders on the unthinkable…the flexibility of our remote-work era might have made the Before Times summer Friday perk redundant, mused Fortune’s Trey Williams. ‘When your boss isn’t sitting in the same room as you, who’s to know if you start happy hour a little earlier on a Friday?” he wrote'” (Thier).

As recently as July 29, 2022 the term appeared in the online SFist newsletter: “If you had told me in the Before Times that San Francisco hotels would be clamoring to let homeless people crash in their rooms on someone else’s dime, I would have asked where I could score some of that Grandpappy Kush you’ve been smoking” (Kukura).

YouTube channel Stuck in the Middle produced a video in October 2021 discussing CNN’s use of the term Before Times. Make of it what you will.

Social Media Trends as of July 24, 2022

Facebook #beforetimes: people are posting about this
Instagram #beforetimes: 7,941 posts
TikTok #beforetimes: 1.8 million views

Google Trends: “before times” appeared in late December 2019 and the search popularity increased after lockdown began in March 2020.

Sources:

“Before Times.” Dictionary.com. March 3, 2022. URL: https://www.dictionary.com/e/slang/the-before-times/#:~:text=Before%20Times%20is%20an%20informal,as%20in%20the%20Before%20Times..

Kukura, Joe. “As Shelter-In-Place Hotel Program Winds Down, Residents and Managers Look Back on Whether it Actually Worked.” SFist.com. July 29, 2022. URL: https://sfist.com/2022/07/29/as-shelter-in-place-hotel-program-winds-down-residents-and-managers-look-back-on-whether-it-actually-worked/.

Stuck in the Middle channel. “CNN Uses Phrase “Before Times” with no explanation or definition.” YouTube. October 11, 2021. URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ORqWYfozXZ4.

Thier, Jane. “It’s Friday: The day you’re not in the office and probably never will be again.” Fortune.com. July 15, 2022. URL: https://fortune.com/2022/07/15/empty-office-fridays-nearly-extinct-remote-work/.

Tags variant

Pandemic Pandemic Art Virus

Pingdemic

Pingdemic is a British term that appeared in the summer of 2021 and is defined by Collins dictionary as “the large-scale notification of members of the public by a contact-tracing app” – hence the “ping.”

The NHS COVID-19 app is used in England and Wales and it works by calculating the “time and distance between mobile devices via Bluetooth, counting 15 minutes spent within two metres as close contact between users (Kent). If someone tests positive for coronavirus, their test result can be shared anonymously with those they come into contact with which results in people receiving a “ping” notification that they should isolate for ten days.

You can imagine the chaos this would have on businesses as millions of people get pinged whenever they’re in close contact with someone who tested positive for Covid-19. Many companies struggled to stay open as employees were forced to go into quarantine and self isolate.

An article published in the Financial Times on July 21, 2021 said that 600,000 people were “were ordered to self-isolate by the NHS Covid-19 app in the week to July 14 as worker shortages caused by the latest wave of the pandemic in the UK threatened to disrupt food and fuel supplies” (Tim Bradshaw, Jim Pickard and David Sheppard). The number of pings from the NHS app rose by 17% from the prior week likely due to the increase in Covid cases. The article points out that “British business leaders have become increasingly agitated about the impact of the ‘pingdemic’ on staffing, which has exacerbated existing problems caused by Brexit and a shortage of lorry [truck] drivers.”

As usual, people get creative in times of distress. James Partridge, a British singer, teacher, composer and pianist uploaded a YouTube short video which he created called the “Pingdemic” song:

Social Media Trends as of July 23, 2022

Instagram #pingdemic: 1,434 posts
TikTok #pingdemic: 993.800 views
YouTube #pingdemic: less than 100 videos and channels

Google Trends: pingdemic first appeared during the week of July 18, 2021. but the popularity of the search term quickly lost interest – probably because this is a British search term. By the end of the August 2021 it no longer registered.

Sources:

Bagwold. “Pingdemic Covid-19 test and trace app” vector image. Dreamstime. URL: 225083478.

Kent, Chloe. “Tracking Covid-19: what does the ‘pingdemic’ mean for the pandemic?” Medical Device Network.com. July 28, 2021. URL: https://www.medicaldevice-network.com/analysis/pingdemic/.

Partridge, James B. “Pingdemic” song. YouTube. URL: https://youtube.com/shorts/B0CpbjZPiD4?feature=share.

“Pingdemic.” Collins Dictionary. URL: https://www.collinsdictionary.com/us/dictionary/english/pingdemic.

Tim Bradshaw, Jim Pickard and David Sheppard. “UK ‘pingdemic’ spreads as record 600,000 people told to self-isolate.” Financial Times. July 22, 2021. URL: https://www.ft.com/content/1bdef6b5-672d-46e0-9502-492a432a51af.

Tags app, ping

Pandemic Pandemic Art Virus

Patient Zero

Patient zero refers to an individual who becomes the first known case of an outbreak of a communicable disease in a specific geographical location. The term isn’t a new one, but in context of the pandemic, it refers to the first person diagnosed with Covid-19.

Merriam Websters dictionary defines patient zero as “a person identified as the first to become infected with an illness or disease in an outbreak.

-The quest to find patient zero, the first person to contract the new virus, has revealed the first known case occurred in Wuhan.”

An article published for the BBC on 23 February 2020 says: “As the cases of coronavirus increase in China and around the world, the hunt is on to identify ‘patient zero’…Chinese authorities originally reported that the first coronavirus case was on 31 December [2019] and many of the first cases of the pneumonia-like infection were immediately connected to a seafood and animal market in Wuhan, in the Hubei province” (Duarte).

Before the Trump administration restricted travel from China, it’s likely that Covid-19 was already spreading throughout the United States. The first person to be diagnosed with coronavirus was a man who tested positive in Seattle, Washington, on 21 January 2020. He had previously traveled from Wuhan, China, where the pandemic began. There was an outbreak of coronavirus in a nursing home outside of Seattle and cases soared. Washington state reported on 29 February 2020 its first death from Covid-19 which may have been the first pandemic death in the United States (Singh).

In March 2022 an independent film produced the movie “Coronavirus: Patient Zero (2020)” and uploaded it to YouTube. A Washington state clinic sees a large number of patients, “suffering from a new outbreak of illness, Dr. Stone (Tim Ross), the head physician, tries to understand the cause and who is Patient Zero as the CDC moves in to quarantine the clinic in a desperate attempt to stop the spread” (Coronavirus: Patient Zero).

Social Media Trends as of June 30, 2022

Facebook #patientzero: 3,600 people are posting about this
YouTube #patientzero: 320 videos and 196 channels

Google Trends: patient zero appeared during the first week of December 2019 when the pandemic started in Wuhan, China. It reached its peak during the week of March 15, 2020 which also coincided with a national lockdown in the United States.

Sources:

“Coronavirus: Patient Zero (2020) | Full Movie | Tim Ross | Samantha Melvin | Bobby Lacer.” YouTube. March 19, 2022. URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JXBH6qTd804.

Duarte, Fernando. “Who is ‘patient zero’ in the coronavirus outbreak?” BBC.com. 23 February 2020. URL: https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20200221-coronavirus-the-harmful-hunt-for-covid-19s-patient-zero.

“Have you seen patient zero? – #COVID-19” MakeAMeme.org. URL: https://makeameme.org/meme/have-you-seen-2486856420.

“Patient Zero.” Merriam Webster. URL: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/patient%20zero.

Singh, Maanvi. “Tracing ‘patient zero’: why America’s first coronavirus death may for ever go unmarked.” The Guardian. 26 May 2020. URL: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/may/26/us-coronavirus-patient-zero-100000-deaths.

Tags covid-19

Pandemic Virus

Flurona

Flurona – the name sounds scary but it’s not a new variant of Covid-19. It’s a word that was coined by the Israeli Outbreak Management Advisory Team in late 2020 when two pregnant woman were diagnosed with both Covid-19 and the flu (Stern).

On 5 January 2022 Dictionary.com added Flurona to its list of Technology and Science terms:

Flurona is an informal term for a case in which a person is simultaneously infected with both the flu and the COVID-19 virus. Flurona refers to a double infection (or co-infection)—two simultaneous but separate infections. It is not a single disease or a new strain of COVID-19.

Flurona is clearly a cause for concern for the medical community as rising numbers of influenza cases and another wave of Covid-19 have the potential to overwhelm hospitals. When news broke of “flurona” many were concerned as an article in the The Washington Post states that “people around the world kicked off 2022 by searching for more information about ‘flurona,’ after Israel reported that two young pregnant women had tested positive for both the coronavirus and the flu” (Hassan).

Here’s a useful video that goes into more detail about what Flurona is and how you can minimize your risk of catching both Covid-19 and influenza:

Social Media Trends as of June 26, 2022

Facebook #flurona: 11,000 people are posting about this
Instagram #flurona: 9,210 posts
TikTok #flurona: 47.7 million views
YouTube #flurona: 508 videos and 334 channels

Google Trends: flurona appeared during the last week of December 2021 and peaked a week later at the beginning of 2022 as many people searched online for information about this condition.

Sources:

Art N More. “New disease, Flurona, double infection of covid and flu” image. Adobe.com. File no: 477861400.

“Flurona.” Dictionary.com. URL: https://www.dictionary.com/e/tech-science/flurona/.

Hassan, Jennifer. “What is ‘flurona’? Coronavirus and influenza co-infections reported as omicron surges.” The Washington Post. January 5, 2022. URL: https://www.washingtonpost.com/health/2022/01/05/flurona-coronavirus-flu-symptoms/.

Stern, Aryeh. “Israel reports first case of ‘Flurona’.” Hamodia.com. December 30, 2021. URL: https://hamodia.com/2021/12/30/israel-reports-first-case-of-flurona/.

USA Today. “‘Flurona’: What to know about co-infections with COVID-19 and the flu.” YouTube. January 5, 2022. URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4r6t8GQ2HhM.

Tags flu

Pandemic Virus

Twindemic

Twindemic first appeared in an article written for the New York Times on August 16, 2020. Jan Hoffman, who writes about behavioral health, referred to a nightmare scenario that would give public health officials chills – the combination of Covid 19 and “a severe flu season, resulting in a twindemic.” Health experts worried that people choosing not to get the flu shot would make matters worse if they got both respiratory illnesses together. Some people worried that getting the flu shot would make them more susceptible to getting Covid-19.

The term was added to Dictionary.com on September 9, 2020 and here’s the definition:

The term twindemic blends twin, here meaning “twofold” or “double,” and pandemic, a global outbreak of a disease, such as COVID-19. In other words, a twindemic represents “twin pandemics” of flu and COVID-19 at the same time. Twindemic may also be informed by a word closely related to pandemic, epidemic—a term for a widespread but more temporary disease outbreak that is often used in the context of seasonal influenza (flu, for short) outbreaks.

The term spread as quickly as the virus and appeared in various publications round the world. As recently as June 24, 2022 an article appeared in the New Zealand publication Stuff that described the country as being “in the grip of a ‘twindemic’ as a severe flu season combines with Covid-19 to put stress on the health system and leave workplaces with staff off sick” (MdConald) Nikkei Asia published a news article on June 19, 2022 declaring that “Australia is seeing a surge in flu cases even as the country continues to contend with the coronavirus, creating the specter of a ‘twindemic’ health crisis experts have been warning about” (Koshikawa).

NBC New York uploaded a video to YouTube on November 9, 2021 which discusses the chances of a “twindemic” happening. Watch closely as medical experts tell you what you need to know.

Social Media Trends as of June 18, 2022

Facebook #twindemic: 1,300 people are posting about this
Instagram #twindemic: 1,375 posts
TikTok #twindemic: 1.6 million views
YouTube #twindemic: less than 100 videos and channels

Google Trends: twindemic appeared during the week of August 16, 2020 when Jan Hoffman used the term in an article published that very week in the New York Times. The popularity of the term tailed off for a while but peaked in October 2021 as the Omicron variant spread quickly throughout the world in a second wave of the pandemic during the flu season.

Sources:

Dzmitry. “Pandemic or twindemic symbol” image. Adobe.com. File no: 465531514.

Hoffman, Jan. “Fearing a ‘Twindemic,’ Health Experts Push Urgently for Flu Shots.” New York Times. August 16, 2020. URL: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/
08/16/health/coronavirus-flu-vaccine-twindemic.html.

Koshikawa, Noriaki. “Australia faces ‘twindemic’ threat as flu and COVID collide.” Nikkei Asia. June 19, 2022. URL: https://asia.nikkei.com/Spotlight/Coronavirus/
Australia-faces-twindemic-threat-as-flu-and-COVID-collide.

MacDonald, Liz. “‘Twindemic’ takes toll on health sector, schools and businesses as flu overtakes Covid-19.” Stuff. June 24, 2022. URL: https://www.stuff.co.nz/national/
health/129061676/twindemic-takes-toll-on-health-sector-schools-and-businesses-as-flu-overtakes-covid19.

NBC New York. “Covid and the Flu: Could We Face a ‘Twindemic’? NYC Experts Weigh In | NBC New York.” YouTube. November 9, 2021. URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GMLENhB_8Vc.

“Twindemic.” Dictionary.com. September 9, 2020. URL: https://www.dictionary.com/e/
tech-science/twindemic/.

Pandemic Virus

Covidy

Covidy is an adjective that describes anything pertaining to Covid 19 and the pandemic. Wiktionary’s definition is as follows:

– Infected with or containing the COVID-19 virus.
– Relating to the COVID-19 pandemic.

The Urban dictionary has a few definitions of Covidy and I’ve listed two of them below:

Definition #1: “an adjective or adverb applied to any and all items and/or behaviors related to the germy world of Covid 19 brought into a quarantined household by the outside world.

–Keep that covidy grocery bag out of my kitchen! And while you’re at it, stop walking around the touching everything without washing your hands first and acting all covidy like that. Ugghh” (Dallasjeni).

Definition #2: “Related to, suffering from, or seeming to suffer from COVID-19 or the ill-effects of the quarantine.

–‘Damn, John, that’s a pretty covidy haircut you’ve got there.’ Or: ‘That sweaty covidy cougher in the grocery store was freaking me out’” (Dictionnaire Diabolique).

Covidy has appeared in a few news articles. As recently as May 30, 2022, the New Zealand Herald reported that the plane Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern and her delegation were traveling in, broke down in Washington DC and her press secretary, Andrew Campbell, tested positive for Covid-19 in San Francisco. Political editor Claire Trevett wrote that “Ardern arranged her own press conference with [the] media – a job usually done by Campbell. Ardern said she was ‘cutting out the middle man’ since Campbell was ‘a bit Covidy at the moment’ and it was still very early in San Francisco” (Trevett).

American stand-up comedian DeRay Davis recently tweeted “new word: Covidy” on January 4, 2022:

new word: COVIDY.

“Man this party look COVIDY as hell”
— DeRAY DAVIS: HOOD HERO (@DeRayDavis) January 4, 2022

Covidy also found its way into designer clothing as illustrated below by an Etsy sweatshirt with an “It’s too Covidy Outside” design.

Social Media Trends as of June 6, 2022

Facebook #covidy: people are posting about this
Instagram #covidy: 236 posts
TikTok #covidy: 2.5 million views
YouTube #covidy: less than 100 videos and channels

Google Trends: covidy first appeared during the week of March 15, 2020 around the time of lockdown. The popularity of this search term peaked in July 2021 and then tailed off as the pandemic waned.

Sources:

“Covidy.” Wiktionary. December 2020. URL: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/covidy.

Dallasjeni. “Covidy.” Urban Dictionary. April 13, 2020. URL: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/covidy.

DeRay Davis: Hood Hero. “new word: COVIDY.” Twitter. Jan 4, 2022. URL: https://twitter.com/deraydavis/status/1478508318201102352?lang=en.

Dictionnaire Diabolique. “Covidy.” Urban Dictionary. April 15, 2020. URL: https://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/covidy.

TLPChoodies. “It’s Too COVIDY Outside – Sweatshirt JH030 funny sweater jumper self isolation lockdown.” Etsy. URL: https://www.etsy.com/listing/940346973/its-too-covidy-outside-sweatshirt-jh030.

Trevett, Claire. “PM’s US trip: Jacinda Ardern’s plane breaks down in Washington, third Covid case among entourage.” New Zealand Herald. 30 May 2022. URL: https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/pms-us-trip-jacinda-arderns-plane-breaks-down-in-washington-third-covid-case-among-entourage/M5RGMZFFCGKPIBNXXH7LOOW6IM/.

Pandemic Virus

Deltacron

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 Omicron variants 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.

Sources:

“Deltacron.” Dictionary.com. January 18, 2022. URL: https://www.dictionary.com/e/
tech-science/deltacron/.

Ellis, Ralph. “Scientists Identify New COVID Variant Called ‘Deltacron’” WebMD. March 11, 2022. URL: https://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20220311/new-covid-variant-deltacron.

Guha Majumder, Bhaswati. “What Is Deltacron? A New Coronavirus Variant Or Lab Error?” Swarajyamag.com. January 10, 2022. URL: https://swarajyamag.com/news-brief/what-is-deltacron-a-new-coronavirus-variant-or-lab-error.

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.

Tags delta, omicron, recombinant, variant

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