A Virus Gone Truly Viral!

When news spreads like wildfire on social media, we say it has gone viral. How many of us had ever reflected on the origin of the adjective “viral”: well now there’s no doubt about it since Covid-19 has illustrated the phenomenon perfectly to the world. One can already envision "Word of the Year 2020" in most dictionaries: corona, ventilator, epidemic, pandemic, PPE, self-isolation, social distancing, etcetera, etcetera! Words galore: Heaven for many English teachers and Hell for the majority on this planet!

One can envision google searches such as epidemic versus pandemic and social distancing versus physical distancing.  Actually, the latter distinction is worth some reflection. When the World Health Organization adopted physical rather than social as the adjective, many - including psychologists and sociologists -  lauded the decision, affirming the fact that while physical distance was "absolutely essential" during the global pandemic, "it does not mean that socially we have to disconnect from our loved ones, from our family."

WHO epidemiologist Maria Van Kerkhove said on March 20, "Technology, right now, has advanced so greatly that we can keep connected in many ways without actually physically being in the same room or physically being in the same space with people," adding, "We're changing to say physical distance and that's on purpose because we want people to still remain connected." 

London School of Economics social psychologist Martin Bauer had rightly questioned the “unfortunate” phrasing from the start, pointing out in an interview with Al Jazeera that the WHO terminology change had been overdue when it happened in late March; the phrasing error should not have been allowed to happen: "In these strange times of the virus, we want clear physical distance (minimum two metres), but at the same time, we want people to remain close to each other 'socially'."

The next time you listen to television news, try to observe which of the above expressions is used. At the time of writing this blog post, many channels are still using the older terminology. Perhaps they take it for granted that people understand – or perhaps they don’t consider that changing a word here and there will really make a difference. I wonder what my readers think. For example, do students feel socially dispersed or disconnected when they are physically remote from their teacher and classmates, or do they still feel united by common learning objectives and common online work areas and discussion forums? I look forward to hearing your views.