SPEAK EASY
Previously unfamiliar words now part of daily usage
Well, this sure wasn’t the 2020 most of us were expecting.
This year will undoubtedly be remembered as the year the coronavirus changed everything. The pandemic swept across the world, leaving tragedy in its wake.
The coronavirus took a lot away. It cost people their lives, and it has wiped away livelihoods. It has kept people apart from their loved ones, ruining wedding celebrations, spoiling graduation ceremonies and canceling birthday parties.
But it also gave us a few things. Like, for example, a bunch of new words and phrases we now all use in our everyday vernacular.
There are so many new things we all now casually say that you could probably make a pretty decent bingo card out of them.
The phrases
“You’re on mute.” We might have shouted this at our screens at some point during the lockdown while on video conferencing calls.
“Flatten the curve.” Medical professionals and government officials said this in the early days of the pandemic in a bid to prevent hospitals from getting overwhelmed with COVID-19 patients. It stressed the need to reduce the overall number of cases and stop the exponential increase in infections.
“Stay at home.” Most of us heard this in spring when much of the country was told to hunker down inside and safely out of reach from the virus.
“Stop the spread.” A favorite from elected officials. In fact, the county commissioners liked the message so much that they launched a public awareness campaign that incorporated the slogan.
“The new normal.” This describes the state to which the economy and society has settled into amid this global health crisis.
“Pandemic hair.” This is a phrase that some of us used to excuse our longer than usual locks while salons and barber shops were shut down for several months. It could also be used as an explanation for a failed attempt to give yourself or someone else a haircut.
The words
Pandemic: An infectious disease prevalent over a whole country or the world.
Quarantine: Keeping someone who was in close contact with someone who has COVID-19 away from others.
Isolation: Keeping someone who is sick or tested positive for COVID-19 without symptoms away from others.
Commun i t y spread: Means people have been infected with the virus in an area, including some who are not sure how or where they became infected.
Asymptomatic: Means that no symptoms or signs of the disease is present.
Percent-positivity: The percentage of all coronavirus tests performed that are positive.
Incident rate: How many people out of 100,000 have tested positive for the disease over a certain time period.
Contact tracing: The process of identification of people who may have come into contact with an infected person and subsequent collection of further information about these contacts.
PPE (personal protective equipment): Equipment worn to minimize exposure to hazards that
cause serious workplace injuries and illnesses.
Dr. Fauci: An American physician and immunologist who has served as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases since 1984.
Face masks: A protective covering of the nose and mouth to prevent you from breathing infected air or spreading germs to others.
N-95: A respiratory protective device designed to achieve a very close facial fit and very efficient filtration of airborne particles.
Social dis t a n c - ing: Means keeping a safe space between yourself and other people who are not from your household.
Shutdown order: A legal instruction to close nonessential businesses.
Essential worker: Those who conduct a range of operations and services that are typically essential to continue critical infrastructure operations.
Contactless: Not requiring touching or interaction between people.
Superspreader: A person who transmits an infectious disease to an unexpectedly or unusually large number of other people. It can also be a term describing an event that results in numerous cases.
Zoom: A cloud-based video communications app that allows you to set up virtual video and audio conferencing, webinars, live chats, screensharing and other collaborative capabilities.