Corona Chronicles: The Word List

The year 2020 A.D. was to put it mildly a bit different! And that difference, among other things, introduced more than a few words into the everyday lexicon. So, in keeping with the theme of the year, presenting my word list for 2020! 

1. Virus – after years the biological virus once again became a primary global threat regaining its crown from the digital version. (Also, Covid & Corona) 
2. Pandemic – the virus went global truly establishing how the world has shrunk and turned into a global village! 
3. Lockdown – to keep the virus in check, governments across the world, imposed lockdowns of varying severity & duration and yielding mixed results. There was a major dispute between the economists & medical professionals on who suffered more – the economy or the health! The dispute remains unresolved in this race to bottom 
4. WFH – Many worked from home or anywhere (WFA). Some took workcations. Whatever the form the way we work has changed. Work is anywhere you place your laptop and have an internet connection! 
5. Zoom – Connecting the working world virtually (alongwith its siblings MS Teams, Webex, JioMeet, Google Meet etc). Also bringing office into home & vice versa! And on a related topic lead to “Zoom Fatigue” setting in as well from being in and out of meetings/calls throughout the day. 
6. Unmute – It’s a meeting, you raise your point and realise that no one is noticing you. Mostly because you had kept yourself on Mute and forgot to “unmute” yourself. 
7. Social distancing – To maintain lockdowns governments asked us to practice social distancing. Shouldn’t they have rather termed it physical distancing! 
8. Bubble – Sports figured a way to get back in action. It was replicated by other agencies as well. Just put the required people in a bubble life with breaches being severely dealt with. But only after making them spend considerable time in Quarantine (been through one – not particularly a fan) 
9. Superspreaders & Hotspots – the anti-bubble, places with multiple cases and causing exponential growth in the infected. (Also, Contact Tracing) 
10. Covidiot – Individuals who don’t bother following simple guidelines – no Masks or necessary PPE using non-essential services! Making themselves a easy prey for the virus as well as potentially becoming a spreader while making contact tracing difficult.
11. Pandemic fatigue – And to round up this word list – pandemic fatigue, from being locked down, attempting to balance household work with office work, sanitizing everything, no general entertainment avenues and the prevailing news environment. The fatigue had to set in! And there were many more variants of above!

Word List as per WHO