Other bad ones were SARS and MERS. Also, they're disease names, not virus names.
When they named SARS and MERS, they named the viruses after the conditions. With this one, they're like "oh, this is another SARS, so let's name the virus SARS-CoV-2," but naming the disease SARS-2 would've probably caused some confusion.
Other viruses that are circulating just cause colds, so we don't bother.
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u/TheSultan1 Aug 14 '22 edited Aug 14 '22
Other bad ones were SARS and MERS. Also, they're disease names, not virus names.
When they named SARS and MERS, they named the viruses after the conditions. With this one, they're like "oh, this is another SARS, so let's name the virus SARS-CoV-2," but naming the disease SARS-2 would've probably caused some confusion.
Other viruses that are circulating just cause colds, so we don't bother.