Geographic bias in virus naming: Lessons from coronavirus show it’s better to act early

(Press-News.org) “China virus”, the Chinese virus — at the start of the 2020 pandemic, you likely often encountered this epithet in the media. The use of geographically-based labels to define the disease (COVID-19) and the virus causing it (SARS-CoV-2) had significant consequences on public opinion, fueling and amplifying — sometimes with very serious outcomes — prejudices against specific people and countries, accused of having a causal role in spreading the contagion. The neutral designation COVID-19, proposed for the disease by the WHO in mid-February 2020, was quickly adopted globally. However, geographic names arose again with subsequent variants of the virus: in the media and in everyday language, people referred to the “Indian,” “British,” or “South African” variants, among others.

To counter this trend, in May 2021 the WHO introduced a nomenclature based on Greek letters — Alpha, Beta, Delta, etc. — completely neutral and free of geographic references. A study published in the Journal of Science Communication (JCOM) analyzed the impact of this change in the Australian media, showing that although the shift toward neutral names happened relatively quickly after the announcement, the positive effects in reducing potential stigma remained only partial.

This finding highlights the importance of expanding research on this topic, in order to establish effective communication guidelines within national and global pandemic response plans.

At the beginning of 2020, Italy was one of the first countries to be hit by what was then frequently called in the media the “Wuhan virus”. During those same days, serious racist incidents were recorded against citizens of Chinese nationality, such as in Brescia, where, at the beginning of February, members of a far-right political party posted threatening flyers outside businesses run by Chinese citizens. Such grave episodes are only the tip of the iceberg of widespread prejudice at the time, amplified — if not outright provoked — by the geographic-based naming of the virus and the disease.

To counter this trend, the name COVID-19 for the disease was officially announced and adopted by the World Health Organization (WHO) on February 11, 2020. However, with the emergence of new virus variants, the use of geographic names to refer to them did not disappear, forcing the WHO in May 2021 to propose a taxonomy based on Greek letters for every new strain, precisely to counteract stigmatizing effects.

States and supranational organizations were evidently unprepared for the impact of communication on the pandemic, allowing geographic-based denominations to take hold before responding.

But was it enough to fix the problem later? “Not exactly,” explains Lucy Campbell, an Australian researcher and first author of the JCOM study. “Even though the transition to Greek-letter names was adopted fairly quickly,  the geographic characterization of the virus did not disappear as rapidly.”

Campbell specifically measured this disconnect between the new names and the lingering stigma by analyzing Australian media data as a case study. She examined newspaper articles published between May 11 and the end of June 2021, covering the period just before and after the WHO announcement (made on May 31). In the period before the announcement, geographic references accounted for the vast majority of names — nearly 70% — while the rest of the cases used the alphanumeric (scientific) designation of the virus. After the announcement, in June, alphanumeric and especially Greek-letter names covered over 70% of the cases, showing that newspapers had largely embraced the change.

However, the effects of geographic “framing” did not disappear as quickly.

“Coverage of SARS-CoV-2 in the Australian media continued to show a prevalence of negative framing and causal attribution, both in headlines and in the articles themselves,” explains Campbell. “Even though Greek letters were used in the names, the articles still contained geographic references that conveyed a sense of threat or negative attribution.”

This finding shows that, despite attempts to fix the problem after geographic labels had already triggered widespread prejudice, the effects may not have been quickly eradicated with the introduction of the new names.

“It is therefore important to continue research in this field,” concludes Campbell, “in order to develop shared tools and strategies for proper communication in the event of new pandemics — tools that can be implemented right from the early stages of crisis management, helping to prevent the negative consequences and incidents we observed in the case of COVID-19.”

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