Bites and Bits of English: The language of COVID pandemic

It is amazing how Covid19 has changed our lives. It's been with us for almost a year and we have adapted to wear masks, clean our hands compulsively, avoid touching other people, working/ teaching online or semi-online with windows and doors open (almost frozen) etc.

Language has changed and adapted too, we have got used to a medical and technical jargon that some moths ago was completely unknown.

I have decided that it would be interesting to summarize some of the most commmon words and expressions that are here to stay.

I must thank Oxford and Cambridge blogs for their useful posts on it.

Some of the words you see in the photo above are quite common nowadays, but I thought it could be great to know some others that are also present in the news we listen to or read everyday.

Referring to people we can talk about.....

(a)symptomatic (adjective): showing symptoms or not of a particular disease - She had no idea her husband had coronavirus because he was asymptomatic.

Carrier (noun)= portador: a person or animal that transmits a disease to others, whether suffering from it themselves or not - People who are asymptomatic can still be carriers.

It is important to track those people to avoid virus spreading and get immunity...

Contact tracing (noun)= rastreo: identification and monitoring of people who may have had contact with an infectious person - By insisting on strict contact tracing as soon as someone was potentially infected, they managed to control the spread of the disease.

Droplets (noun)= aerosoles : the spray produced when people cough or sneeze, and which can spread diseases - Health care personnel wear protective clothing to guard against the disease carried in droplets when infected people sneeze or cough.

Herd immunity (noun)= inmunidad de rebaño: an indirect protection from a disease resulting from a large percentage of the population gaining immunity (either through vaccination or through recovering from the disease) - This virus is unlike the seasonal flu because there is currently no vaccine or herd immunity.

Not to get infected it is important to have the correct protection....

Personal protective equipment (PPE) (noun)= EPI: special clothing, headgear, goggles, masks and other garments that shield people from injury or infection. - Much of the PPE worn by doctors and nurses has to be worn once only and destroyed after use.

Vaccine (noun)/ˈvæksiːn/= vacuna: a substance used to protect humans and animals from a disease- A vaccine for cholera was invented in 1879.

You could be tested with a PCR test using a swab (hisopo) or with an antibodies / antigen test (test de anticuerpos).

If you are not lucky enough and you are infected you can have some of these symptoms:
rash ( erupciones) sore (dolores) vomiting, headache, fever ( fiebre), fatigue, cough ( tos) chills (escalofríos), breathless ( problemas respiratorios)

Some governments have taken measures such as curfews (toques de queda), lockdowns (confinamientos) or restrictive timetables, but please try to avoid
panicbuying (buying large quantities of particular products because of fears of shortages) or stockpiling ( store large quanties of stuff)