Coronavirus Name
Coronavirus Name
[Megan is carrying a box with biohazard symbols on it towards a desk where Ponytail (wearing safety glasses) is working on a laptop, across from Cueball (also wearing safety glasses) who is putting a test tube into a PCR machine. There's also a flask on the desk.] Ponytail: Feels like we missed the window for the "COVID-19" renaming. "Coronavirus" is just too catchy. Cueball: But it's not specific! There are a lot of coronaviruses.
[In a frameless panel, Ponytail (still wearing safety glasses) is pointing at a screen or picture showing a modern city skyline with a large spider crawling across three of the high-rise buildings.] Ponytail: I think it's fine. It's like, you know the giant spider downtown that sits on the buildings and sometimes eats cars? I think technically it's a mutant T. annexa wolf spider, but everyone is just calling it "the spider" and we all know what they mean.
[Back to the setting from the first panel. Megan is standing and Ponytail had turned towards her and Cueball has stepped back from the machine.] Megan: I've been meaning to ask, what's with that spider? Should we...do something? Ponytail: Honestly I've been too busy with the virus stuff to look into it-I just changed my commute to avoid Main St. Cueball: Yeah, that's fair. One thing at a time.

This comic is the first comic in a long series of comics about the COVID-19 pandemic . For several weeks in a row, all comics were related to this pandemic.
This is thus Randall's first take on the COVID-19 pandemic. As of the publication date (March 2, 2020), the pandemic had infected more than 90,000 people, and had caused more than 3,000 deaths.
Coronavirus is a category of viruses named for their appearance, which is similar to a halo or crown, and includes four different viruses which can cause the common cold in humans. However, the virus itself is not called COVID-19, but is called severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). So calling the virus or disease "coronavirus" is like calling a specific strain of flu The Influenza virus . However, since the new coronavirus is so hyped in the media it has attracted so much attention, so the name "coronavirus" has become associated with COVID-19, making it difficult to discuss other types of coronaviruses later on.
As of March 2, 2020, COVID-19 in China has a 20% hospitalization rate and a 2% death rate by current estimates, compared to a typical rate of around 0.1% for the flu in the US .
In this comic, researchers Ponytail , Megan and Cueball are discussing that it is by now too late to try calling the disease its official name COVID-19, as the name coronavirus has stuck. Cueball reacts with dismay, since there are many other types of coronaviruses.
To illustrate that Cueball's complaint is excessively pedantic and inconsequential, Ponytail — rather than using a more real-world analogy — compares the coronavirus naming to a giant car-eating spider living on top of the skyscrapers of the town, which people similarly refer to generically as simply "The Spider," even though that is not the most technically-accurate name (it is technically a mutated Tigrosa annexa wolf spider ). Everyone knows what you mean when you say "Coronavirus", as they do when you mention "The Spider".
The comic then goes on to poke fun at itself by treating Ponytail's example as a real concern, as Megan then asks if they should not also do something about the spider. But Ponytail and Cueball agree that they can only tackle one problem at a time, and coronavirus takes up all their time. Ponytail further notes that she simply began altering her route to circumvent the location where The Spider has taken up residence, as evidence that the Spider issue can be easily avoided, and is therefore not an immediate concern.
The title text references the health advice that people avoid touching their face with unwashed hands, in order to prevent infections that they picked up by touching things from entering their mucous membranes. (It's a lot easier for an infection to enter the body through the inside of your nose than your hands.) It is likewise quite important to keep the giant spider from touching your face, but for the dissimilar reason that it might bite and eat you.
Notably, the rename to COVID-19 did eventually catch on as the default description of the disease caused by "The Coronavirus" SARS-CoV2.
[Megan is carrying a box with biohazard symbols on it towards a desk where Ponytail (wearing safety glasses) is working on a laptop, across from Cueball (also wearing safety glasses) who is putting a test tube into a PCR machine. There's also a flask on the desk.] Ponytail: Feels like we missed the window for the "COVID-19" renaming. "Coronavirus" is just too catchy. Cueball: But it's not specific! There are a lot of coronaviruses.
[In a frameless panel, Ponytail (still wearing safety glasses) is pointing at a screen or picture showing a modern city skyline with a large spider crawling across three of the high-rise buildings.] Ponytail: I think it's fine. It's like, you know the giant spider downtown that sits on the buildings and sometimes eats cars? I think technically it's a mutant T. annexa wolf spider, but everyone is just calling it "the spider" and we all know what they mean.
[Back to the setting from the first panel. Megan is standing and Ponytail had turned towards her and Cueball has stepped back from the machine.] Megan: I've been meaning to ask, what's with that spider? Should we...do something? Ponytail: Honestly I've been too busy with the virus stuff to look into it-I just changed my commute to avoid Main St. Cueball: Yeah, that's fair. One thing at a time.
