Covid-19: List of terms people learnt during the pandemic

Covid-19, the illness caused by the novel coronavirus (nCov), has caused extensive damage to human life and strained the healthcare system across the world. Millions of people have been confined to their homes in an effort to avoid contracting the virus, which spreads rapidly.

Google’s year in search 2020 shows that search terms related to Covid-19 were in the top spots in almost all categories mentioned. From the symptoms of the disease to steps to it, a wide range of information has been trending through the year.

Governments around the world have been creating awareness about the disease and about safety and hygiene practices to reduce the infections. Here is a list of a few terms related to Covid-19 that have become more familiar in the recent past:

CFR

The case fatality ratio (CFR) is an important measure of the severity of a disease among identified confirmed cases. The World Health Organization defines CFR as “the proportion of individuals diagnosed with a disease who die from that disease and is therefore a measure of severity among detected cases.”

Contact Tracing

For diseases that are highly communicable through physical contact, contact tracing is essential to curb the spread of the infections. The WHO says contact tracing is “the process of identifying, assessing, and managing people who have been exposed to a disease to prevent onward transmission” and calls it an essential public health tool.

Flattening the curve

In terms of Covid-19, flattening the curve implies a gradual increase in the number of infections and a gradual decrease, rather than a steep increase or decrease. When represented as a graph, the number of cases over a period of time should remain under the healthcare system’s capacity of a region/country.

Non pharmacological interventions

Non pharmacological refers to treatments and interventions that do not involve medicines, rather tools like travel restrictions, lockdowns and curfews by which the spread of the virus is reduced significantly. While some vaccines have been developed for Covid-19, availability is a concern for many governments and hence, measures to control the spread are vital in their efforts.

Pandemic

A pandemic is a disease or an illness that has affected a large number of people usually across multiple countries by crossing international boundaries.

Personal protective equipment

Medical workers and health care workers are regularly exposed to the virus and hence use protective suits, gloves, masks, eye gear and face covers to protect themselves while on duty, collectively known as Personal Protective Equipment (PPE).

Positivity rate

The ratio of the number of positive cases tested over a specific time period is called the positivity rate. High positivity rate is an indicator of a large outbreak of the disease.

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