A social media post with more than 11,000 likes has been flagged as false for mistakenly conflating coronavirus and COVID-19. The post references an episode of Grey’s Anatomy in which a character is quarantined for suspected Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS). The post notes that it is “odd” that coronavirus was mentioned on the show in 2015, years before the current COVID-19 pandemic. MERS is a type of coronavirus but is genetically distinct from COVID-19. The post highlights that while “COVID-19” and “coronavirus” have entered the common lexicon, confusion around the terms still exists.
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The Public Health Communications Collaborative (PHCC) was formed in 2020 to coordinate and amplify public health messaging on COVID-19 and increase Americans’ confidence in guidance from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and state and local public health officials.
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