Skip to Main Content

Coronavirus and COVID-19

Information related to coronavirus and COVID-19 as of spring 2020

W&M Emergency Information Page about COVID-19

What is COVID-19?

According to the Centers for Disease Control:

"On February 11, 2020 the World Health Organization announced an official name for the disease that is causing the 2019 novel coronavirus outbreak, first identified in Wuhan China. The new name of this disease is coronavirus disease 2019, abbreviated as COVID-19. In COVID-19, ‘CO’ stands for ‘corona,’ ‘VI’ for ‘virus,’ and ‘D’ for disease. Formerly, this disease was referred to as “2019 novel coronavirus” or “2019-nCoV”.

There are many types of human coronaviruses including some that commonly cause mild upper-respiratory tract illnesses. COVID-19 is a new disease, caused be a novel (or new) coronavirus that has not previously been seen in humans. The name of this disease was selected following the World Health Organization (WHO) best practiceexternal icon for naming of new human infectious diseases."

Get oriented:

Library databases

Search Strategies

Try these variations:

  • covid-19
  • covid 19
  • 2019-ncov
  • coronavirus
  • novel coronavirus