What is Covidiot? Twitter users explain

Covidiot is a combination of two words, COVID-19 (aka coronavirus) and ‘idiot’

Pranav Hegde

March 23, 2020 / 11:03 IST

The Centre has asked its citizens to follow several precautionary measures like staying at home, not hoarding necessary day-to-day items, washing hands, etc, to avoid being infected from the novel coronavirus, or COVID-19.

Despite this, there are several reported cases of people not adhering to these guidelines. For such people, Twitterati has come up with a new term — Covidiot.

Covidiot is a combination of two words, COVID-19 (aka coronavirus) and ‘idiot’. According to UrbanDictionary, a ‘covidiot’ is ‘someone who ignores the warnings regarding public health or safety. A person who hoards goods, denying them from their neighbours.’

The online dictionary has given an example of how the phrase can be used, including, “Did you see that covidiot with 300 rolls of toilet paper in his basket?”

The new term has gone viral on Twitter where Tweeples are seen schooling ‘covidiots’ for not following basic community guidelines to tackle coronavirus.

COVID-19 Vaccine

Frequently Asked Questions

How does a vaccine work?

A vaccine works by mimicking a natural infection. A vaccine not only induces immune response to protect people from any future COVID-19 infection, but also helps quickly build herd immunity to put an end to the pandemic. Herd immunity occurs when a sufficient percentage of a population becomes immune to a disease, making the spread of disease from person to person unlikely. The good news is that SARS-CoV-2 virus has been fairly stable, which increases the viability of a vaccine.

How many types of vaccines are there?

There are broadly four types of vaccine — one, a vaccine based on the whole virus (this could be either inactivated, or an attenuated [weakened] virus vaccine); two, a non-replicating viral vector vaccine that uses a benign virus as vector that carries the antigen of SARS-CoV; three, nucleic-acid vaccines that have genetic material like DNA and RNA of antigens like spike protein given to a person, helping human cells decode genetic material and produce the vaccine; and four, protein subunit vaccine wherein the recombinant proteins of SARS-COV-2 along with an adjuvant (booster) is given as a vaccine.

What does it take to develop a vaccine of this kind?

Vaccine development is a long, complex process. Unlike drugs that are given to people with a diseased, vaccines are given to healthy people and also vulnerable sections such as children, pregnant women and the elderly. So rigorous tests are compulsory. History says that the fastest time it took to develop a vaccine is five years, but it usually takes double or sometimes triple that time.

Show