hello everyone and welcome back to love English I hope you're all staying
healthy and if you're restricted in terms of how much you can leave your
house then I do hope you're keeping yourself busy
hopefully enjoying catching up with lots of lessons on YouTube and of course
getting in lots of English practice so I'm here today with a little bit more of
a serious lesson but one that I think you're going to find extremely useful as
you know the coronavirus has recently been declared a pandemic with countries
in lockdown travel bans being enforced and some healthcare systems are sadly at
breaking point Italy was the first country to go into a countrywide
lockdown and around 70% of the world now have some sort of restrictions and
regulations in terms of movement of people many countries have also shut
their borders and are not allowing any more inbound flights and to top it all
off there's panic buying you can't find toilet roll or pasta or eggs in the
supermarkets in the UK everyone seems to be stockpiling the necessities well what
does all this mean and importantly do you understand the key vocabulary being
used to discuss this topic as let's face it we are bombarded with it on the news
these days so in this lesson we'll be looking at a lot of the key words and
phrases that you need to know when you're watching the news or following
the news and updates about the coronavirus in English
now coronavirus causes COVID 19 and this is a new strain
meaning type of virus that was discovered in 2019 and has not
previously been identified in humans it's a zoonotic disease which means it
crossed from animals to humans scientists think probably through a bat
now words you will hear very often are pandemic and epidemic so first of all a
pandemic is an outbreak of a disease that occurs over a wide geographic area
and affects an exceptionally high proportion of the population for you
language geeks out there you might like to know that the prefix pan means all or
everywhere and this comes from the Greek language so the World Health
Organization declared the corona virus as a pandemic as it had spread to a
large enough percentage of the world to fall into that category now an epidemic
is slightly different an epidemic is the appearance of a particular disease in a
large number of people at the same time but not necessarily over such a wide
geographical area for example flu epidemics are common in the winter in
the UK now another word you might have heard is endemic an endemic is an
adjective as well and this is especially of a disease or a condition regularly
found and very common among a particular group or in a particular area so it has
a negative meaning so it's where something negative is found commonly in
that particular area or that particular group for example malaria is endemic in
many of the hotter regions of the world or cheating and plagiarism of essays was
found to be endemic in the school the next one is outbreak this is the phrasal
verb but pushed together and made into a noun and this means the sudden start of
a virus or a war for example the outbreak of the coronavirus
began in Wuhan in China in 2019 you can also say that you have an outbreak
of acne spots all over the face which is pretty unpleasant as well the next one
is asymptomatic a symptomatic which means showing no symptoms of a
particular disease some people who may be carrying the virus are actually
asymptomatic meaning showing no symptoms at all that's why it's particularly hard
to detect the coronavirus as a person can have it and yet they may show no
symptoms they may just be carrying it if we put a before something this prefix
this can often make it neutral or mean not the next one is contagious
contagious yawning is contagious so is laughing so is fear hysteria calm love
joy panic there are many ways in which we can use the word contagious and of
course it means that something is catching we can get it easily the more
negative use of this word is that a disease or illness is easy to catch so
as you know the corona virus is highly contagious the next one is social
distancing this term has really been developed due to the corona virus around
the world we are all having to do this now meaning we need to be 2 metres apart
from one another and we can't meet in big groups or socialize as we would have
a much higher chance of catching the disease that way a good tip that the
British government have said is that you need to be able to hold a broom out to
imagine a broom and if you were waving that broom you still wouldn't be able to
touch anyone that is how far away you need to be from other people and that
reduces your risk of catching the virus so make sure you practice social
distancing guys if you don't you're putting yourself as well as others at
risk the next one is a little bit more lighthearted this is a covidiot a
covidiot which is apparently now in the dictionary this is an insulting term
for someone who ignores health advice about covid-19 who hoards food
unnecessarily or panic buys who doesn't social distance that kind of
person who goes to give you a hug when we all know we're not supposed to be
doing anything like that I'm sure every country has a few of these the next one
is contaminated this is an adjective meaning to make something less pure or
make it poisonous for example surfaces can have been contaminated by the corona
virus the virus can survive on some surfaces up to a few days so if someone
with corona virus has touched it then they can have transmitted the virus onto
that surface and they have contaminated it another example could be that a lot
of the food that we were storing was contaminated by a leaking pipe the next
one is incubation period if something incubates it develops so this is the time
it takes for symptoms or signs of the virus to appear so to develop and show
in a person in some people it can be up to 14 days the incubation period which
is why it's so contagious as people may have spread it without even knowing they
have it because they're not showing any symptoms they're still incubating the
virus this is why it's a particularly stealthy kind of virus that's a good word
there stealthy tell me in the comments guys what does the word stealthy mean a
little bit of homework for you look that up what does the word stealthy mean the
next phrase is emergency measures and this means a plan of action for example
Italy took emergency measures and put the country into lockdown so this is the
actions you would take in an emergency a measure is like an action so emergency
measures the next one is quarantine quarantine this is when a person or
animal is isolated from the rest of society or other people because they are
believed to have a virus or a disease which is contagious people traveling
from some countries now where maybe the disease is they'll have to be
quarantined and this could mean that they might have to go into special
government buildings and things like that so it really means to be completely
and officially isolated the next one is self isolate or self isolation
this is not as official as quarantined but this means that you could be an
at-risk person and so you really should isolate yourself as much as possible
for example pregnant women over 70s they're all considered to be more
at-risk all those with underlying health conditions so they should self isolate
meaning you know don't even go anywhere not even shopping the other reason you
might have to self isolate is if you start to show signs of the virus then
you have to self isolate for 14 days to make sure that you definitely don't have
it and that you don't infect anyone I have to self isolate guys as a lot of
you know I'm having a baby and so I've got to be very careful to protect me and
the little one so I'm self isolating at the moment the next one is stockpiling
this is to hoard meaning to buy more to get stock and to literally pile it up so
in a way to store food or goods of any kind in large quantities in case of
future shortages some countries were very sensible and they stockpiled
protective equipment such as masks and gloves before the crisis and others like
the UK sadly did not some people in the UK have stockpiled toilet roll which was
particularly annoying there was quite a few days where I remember my family we
couldn't actually find any toilet paper in the shops we did still have enough to
last but I remember that it was a little bit difficult for us to find it what
have people been stockpiling in your country guys tell me about that in the
comments below perhaps eggs or paracetamol let me hear
about that in the comments below the next one is to work remotely to work
from home a lot of people since the virus are working from home which we
often call working remotely so we're working away from the office this is why
we use the word remote which can mean to be away the next one is lockdown you're
going to hear this word a lot because we're all in lockdown now it's quite a
dramatic word though it came from the prisons if a prison was in lockdown it
was that there was some kind of emergency so all the prisoners had to be
shut in their cells so we're all confined in our houses now so I guess
it's an appropriate word and obviously we can't move between
regions towns cities countries so yes we're in lockdown the next one is death
toll this one is rather sombre one I'm afraid and this means the amount of
people who have died from something so you can talk about the daily death toll
or you can talk about the yearly death toll or the weekly death toll and sadly
these have been quite high in many countries let's hope and pray that these
start to decrease very soon the next one is a phrasal verb to ramp up to ramp up
this is a large increase in activity or in the level of something so someone
puts more effort into something or a group of people put a lot more effort
into it they accelerate it quickly for example if we can if we say we have a
ramp up in orders it means a big increase in orders the reason I included
this is because on the news you might hear the government are ramping up their
measures to combat the corona virus and this means increasing accelerating their
measures ramping up the next one is to contract something so the stress is on
the second syllable not on the first like in the noun which would be a
contract this is to contract so this is the verb that we use when referring to
getting the virus if we contract it it means we get it and this can be for many
viruses so obviously this is just the specific collocation to contract an
illness or a virus guys I really hope that you don't contract the corona virus
make sure you stay safe wash your hands a lot that's very very important and of
course social distance and on that note guys I'm going to leave you I do hope
this vocabulary is going to be useful for when you're watching the news and
getting updates in English about the coronavirus stay safe everyone and keep
washing your hands we'll see you soon on love English bye bye