I’ve had enough of lazy journalists and TV commentators who are calling COVID-19 “corona” because it’s easier, faster and cooler. 

No, it’s not corona. 

That is a beer. 

COVID-19 is a coronaVIRUS. That’s the entire word.

A coronavirus is a group of RNA viruses that cause a variety of diseases in human and animals.

Corona Extra, according to WikiLeaks, is a pale lager produced by the Mexican brewery Cerveceria Modelo and owned by the Belgian company AB InBev.

Even Yahoo has a recent headline saying, “Students resume class in Germany after corona shutdown.”

Really? The poor kids. Sounds like they ran out of beer and now they’re finally able to go back to school after beer production is up and running again. I hope they have one on me.

Others calling the pandemic “corona” lately include Wired, The Jerusalem Post,  and the New York Times. But there have been many more over the past months.

Even President Trump has used the phrase when he said that much of the United States is “corona-free.”

I guess prohibition has worked then according to the president.

If you look in the Mirriam-Webster dictionary and type in “corona,” you will not find anything about a virus. You won’t even find the beer listed. 

The three definitions that show up include: the projecting part of a classic cornice; something suggesting a crown and a long cigar having the sides straight to the end to be lit and being roundly blunt at the other end.

It’s also defined as a city in southern California, east of Los Angeles.

I’ve seen nowhere in the Merriam-Webster dictionary, CDC or WHO literature or any legitimate science or medical journals that abbreviate the coronavirus and call it “corona.”

So my acceptable names for the pandemic include the following…COVID-19, SARS-CoV-2, coronavirus, and the much applauded “China virus” to remind everyone who brought this pandemic to the world in the first place.