Update: WHO Gives Coronavirus an Official Moniker—and You’ll Want to Use It if Needed

With the current coronavirus outbreak continuing internationally—including more than 42,700 cases and over a thousand deaths in China, as well as 13 confirmed cases in the U.S. to date, the World Health Organization was moved to create an all-new name to aid in tracking and to properly reflect the nature of the pathogen. What has been known up to now as 2019-nCoV will be called COVID-19 from this point forward. This will be important for urgent care providers to keep in mind when talking with concerned patients, researching the latest information from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, or reporting suspicious cases presenting to urgent care. COVI comes from the word coronavirus; D stands for disease, and 19 represents 2019, the year the virus was identified.