Maintaining control of an out-of-control situation

Losing control can lead to a lot of things like fear, panic, suspicion, emotions of that nature. That’s one of the aspects of the spread of the coronavirus and the disease it carries, COVID-19. Despite our best efforts, there are things we can’t control about the disease. The things we can control, indeed are being asked to control, so disrupt the normalcy of our lives that they leave us feeling helpless and angry.

But we can exert some control on this disease if we understand and accept that will mean sacrifice, at least for a while for the protection of our society. If you don’t understand what I mean, find someone from the Depression/World War II generation and ask them what they went through for the protection of their society.

We can also control how we treat this disease by what we call it. That means referring to it in a manner that treats it seriously.

In 2015, the World Health Organization established guidelines for labeling viruses and diseases. To quote, “Viruses are named based on their genetic structure to facilitate the development of diagnostic tests, vaccines and medicines” while diseases “are named to enable discussion on disease prevention, spread, transmissibility, severity and treatment.”

Viruses and diseases can have different names. HIV is the virus that causes AIDS. We all know the disease measles, but many people don’t know the virus that causes it, rubeola.

The virus that carries the current disease resulting in the WHO classifying the outbreak as a pandemic is called severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2, SARS-CoV-2. The disease that has resulted in 329,862 confirmed cases and 14,386 deaths worldwide (as of Sunday, March 22) is called coronavirus disease 2019, for the year it surfaced, COVID-19.

That is how you will always see it referred to in anything I write in this publication, online or on social media. You will not see me refer to it as “Chinese virus,” or “Wuhan virus” despite the fact it appears to have originated in a wild animal market in the Chinese city of Wuhan.

You will never see me refer to it as “Wuflu,” because that is inaccurate. While some symptoms of COVID-19 mimic those of the flu, the disease is caused by a virus different from influenza.

From my perspective, referring to COVID-19 this way is attempting to make comedy of a very serious situation. It trivializes the disease that has infected thousands and killed hundreds in this country.

By doing so, it prevents us from maintaining focus on measures to slow the spread of COVID-19, flattening the curve, so that we can eventually get back to the normalcy of our lives.

But I know what some of you are saying: Really McCallum, what about Spanish Influenza, West Nile Virus, Swine flu, Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS) and even Legionnaires Disease — all named for places of origin or sometime animals. That’s true, they were, but they were also all before the WHO’s 2015 instructions using science to name diseases and as such already engrained into our lexicon.

Going back and renaming these diseases according to science would be a waste of time.

As for the use of “Chinese virus,” “Wuhan virus,” or “Wuflu” being racist, the words themselves are not. It’s the intent behind them that is, and that comes down to the individual, something I can’t comment on or pass judgement.

One last thing you will not see me use is the phrase “New normal” to describe our situation now or going forward with COVID-19. To me, that’s defeatist.

We will find a way to deal with coronavirus, and it’s likely our world will be much changed after that, given the impacts economically, socially and physically. But we will get past it and we can get back to the way our lives were before it came to our shores.

That is something well within our control.

John McCallum can be reached at jmac@cheneyfreepress.com.