in february 2020, the world health organization announced they had chosen a name for the disease caused by sars-cov-2: covid-19. "covi" for "coronavirus," "d" for "disease," and "19" for the year 2019. they said they did not want the name to have any person, place, or animal in it, like "wuhan," or “pangolin,” because then people might blame the disease on that place, person, or animal. they also wanted the name to be easy to say out loud.