• Skip to primary navigation
  • Skip to main content
  • Skip to primary sidebar

Smith's School of English

To provide English speakers the opportunity to own their own business teaching English in Japan.

  • Franchise Entry
    • Buy a Developed Franchise
    • Start Your Own
  • The Franchise
    • Work Visa & Taxes
    • Franchise Training
    • Franchise Support
      • What Franchisees get
      • SSE Products
      • FAQ’s
  • Testimonials
  • About
    • Coaching Confidence
    • Contact
  • Blog
    • English School Articles
  • Facebook
  • Instagram
  • YouTube

Blog · April 8, 2022

Coronaviruses & COVID-19 – What are they?

You are here: Home / Blog / Coronaviruses & COVID-19 – What are they?

In December 2019, news slowly started to come out from Wuhan, China that people were going to hospital and were sick with a strange new respiratory illness. Many of these people had severe pneumonia, and at the time, the cause of this illness was not known. However, in early 2020, scientists determined that the illness, now called “COVID-19”, was the result of infection by a new type of coronavirus that would be later named “SARS-CoV-2.”
This new virus has spread around the world causing a pandemic that has changed all of our lives over the past two years, and will continue to affect how we live and interact with each other into the future.

In this blog I am going to answer some common questions my students ask me about coronavirus and COVID-19.

Q. What is the difference between “coronavirus” and “COVID-19”?

First, let’s clear up a common confusion. Many people think that the new coronavirus and COVID-19 is the same thing. They are related but they are not the same thing.

The new coronavirus’s official name is “SARS-CoV-2”, which is an abbreviation for:
SARS-CoV-2 = Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome – CoronaVirus – 2

And the illness is called “COVID-19”, which is an abbreviation for:
COVID-19 = Corona Virus Disease  –  2019 (2019 was the year the new virus was discovered)

Many people say “I was infected with COVID”. This is incorrect. People are infected with SARS-CoV-2, not COVID-19. COVID-19 is the illness that you develop. So they are related, but they are not the same thing.

Q. What is a coronavirus?

Coronaviruses are a big family of different viruses. Some of them infect people, and others infect animals, including bats, camels, and cattle.
Up to now, seven human coronaviruses (HCoVs) have been identified. Four of them are common, and usually cause only mild respiratory illnesses in healthy human adults. These four coronaviruses cause one third of common cold infections. The other three human coronaviruses are MERS-CoV, SARS-CoV-1 and the new coronavirus is called SARS-CoV-2.
Everyone has had many colds in the past, so everyone has been infected with a coronavirus, at least once in our lifetimes. Did you know that?

Q. Why is it called a coronavirus?

I tell all of my students at Smith’s English School – Miyakojima that the Latin language is the base of many European languages. Many words in English, especially medical words, come from Latin. In this case, “corona” is the Latin word for “crown” in English.

For example, let’s look at the image below…

For those people who enjoy drinking beer, they probably know Corona Beer. Let’s look at the label of a Corona Beer bottle.  What do you see? If you look closely you will see a gold crown in the middle of the bottle.
The crown is the brand symbol for the beer is, so it’s called “Corona” beer. Many people don’t know this. Did you know this?

So you are probably thinking….What is the connection between corona, crowns and coronavirus?

Well, let’s look at another picture. Below, you can see the image of a coronavirus.

Do you see the red spikes sticking out of the grey colored ball?
The scientists decided that these red spikes looked like the points on a crown and so they named this family of viruses “corona virus” or “crown virus”.

Isn’t it interesting to understand how Latin influences English vocabulary? Latin is used especially in the case of English medical words. 

So in this blog post, we have learned what the difference is between the “new coronavirus” and “COVID-19” Also, we have learned what a coronavirus is, and why it is called a coronavirus.

In my next blog post, we will look at how the new coronavirus is spread, and how we protect ourselves from getting infected by the virus at Smith’s English School locations.

Dan Elliot – Smith’s English School – Miyakojima

Share this:

  • Facebook
  • X

Like this:

Like Loading...

Related

Filed Under: Blog Tagged With: coronavirus, COVID-19, スミス英会話都島校, 英会話

Dan

Reader Interactions

Comments

  1. Jim says

    April 10, 2022 at 1:04 pm

    Very informative Dan. Much of this I didn’t know. Looking forward to your next blog.

    Reply
  2. Dan says

    April 11, 2022 at 9:44 pm

    Thanks Jim. I’m new to the whole blogging thing, so it will take some time for me to get good at it.
    I hope my future posts get better and better as I improve my writing.
    Thank you again for the encouragement!

    Reply

Leave a ReplyCancel reply

Primary Sidebar

Search

From the Blog

  • Blog
  • English School Articles
  • Smith's Sustainabilty
  • Sustainability Development Goals
  • Testimonials
スミス英会話メインページ

5 days ago

スミス英会話メインページ
今週のワンポイントレッスンはコチラです★Tell us about a conversation you had today.今日した会話について教えてください。smithweb.co.jp/2025/06/one-point-lesson-7a15/#スミス英会話 #月謝制英会話 #ワンポイントレッスン ... See MoreSee Less
View on Facebook
· Share

Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Linked In Share by Email

スミス英会話メインページ

2 weeks ago

スミス英会話メインページ
今週のワンポイントレッスンはコチラです★What do you think is necessary for a person to grow?人が成長するために必要なものは何だと思いますか?smithweb.co.jp/2025/05/one-point-lesson-7a14/#スミス英会話 #月謝制英会話 #ワンポイントレッスン ... See MoreSee Less
View on Facebook
· Share

Share on Facebook Share on Twitter Share on Linked In Share by Email

Blog Posts
  • Discussing Milestones
  • A Common Listening Problem English Learners Have
  • Protected: The Japan Iwaskows
  • Christmas holidays in Germany (part 2)
  • German Christmas (part 1)
  • Autumn in Japan vs Autumn in Canada
  • Unique Japan- Smith’s School of English, Sagamihara
  • Edward’s Language Journey
  • Osaka Higashi Line – Convenient Fuse
  • Small Talk in Katsura
Smith’s School of English Franchises
#101,8-21-5, Hanafuku-building, Fukushima-Ku,OsakaTel: 0120-222-248 (Japan)
Tel: 81-6-6455-8050 (Other)
Fax: 06-6455-8052
E-mail: info@sse-franchise.com

Copyright © 2025 · Smith's School of English, all rights reserved. · Privacy · Log in

%d