Page 208 - The International Journal of the Royal Society of Thailand Vol.XIII-2021
P. 208
The International Journal of the Royal Society of Thailand
Volume XIII – 2021
were permanently replaced by COVID-19, the newly coined term on February 11,
2020 by WHO. The term is an acronym that stands for ‘Coronavirus Disease 2019’
(Coronavirus Disease; CO+VI+D = COVID). The official name for the disease was
deliberately chosen to avoid stigmatization and discrimination. To further
ameliorate the situation and prevent future xenophobic attacks, WHO responded
to such abusive action and declared, “No country should be stigmatized for
detecting and reporting variants.” (Kerkhove, 2021). In a nutshell, no country
should be stigmatized when it detects and reports new strains of infection. To solve
the problem of causing feelings of hatred, reproach, or discrimination and to
prevent this feeling from spreading into an uncontrollable conflict, WHO (2021)
decided to announce the use of the Greek alphabet consisting of 24 letters in
Figure 2 (Greek Alphabet, n.d.). Some of the early COVID-19 strains detected along
with corresponding basic information are provided in Figure 3.
198 COVID-19 Impact Manifestation as Seen through the Lens of Language Use
