: any of a family (Coronaviridae) of large single-stranded RNA viruses that have a lipid envelope studded with club-shaped spike proteins, infect birds and many mammals including humans, and include the causative agents of MERS, SARS, and COVID-19
Coronaviruses can cause a variety of illnesses in animals, but in people coronaviruses cause one-third of common colds and sometimes respiratory infections in premature infants. Rob Stein
… in 2003 a previously unknown coronavirus caused an outbreak of SARS in humans. Ali Moh Zaki et al.
Italy has seen the most coronavirus cases in Europe, with more than 2,000 people ill and 76 deaths associated with COVID-19. Dayton (Ohio) Daily News
—abbreviation CV
Example Sentences
Recent Examples on the WebThis coronavirus is the first respiratory virus tracked with wastewater, Wolfe said. Jacqueline Howard, CNN, 5 Sep. 2022 As of Thursday, there were 827 coronavirus-positive hospital patients in L.A. County’s 92 hospitals, a 12% decrease over the prior seven days.Los Angeles Times, 27 Aug. 2022 The coronavirus is now better at infecting us and is a pretty meh match for the original shots that Pfizer, Moderna, and Johnson & Johnson produced. Katherine J. Wu, The Atlantic, 25 Aug. 2022 In the beginning, when the coronavirus was new, the quest for a vaccine was simple. Carolyn Y. Johnson, Anchorage Daily News, 23 Aug. 2022 After the coronavirus hit, NIAID contributed to the rapid development of Covid-19 vaccines. Andrew Restuccia, WSJ, 22 Aug. 2022 Then the coronavirus hit, shuttering movie theaters and disrupting Marvel’s release calendar. Aaron Couch, The Hollywood Reporter, 23 July 2022 The business was starting to take off when the coronavirus hit last year. Staff, cleveland, 22 July 2022 That's up more than 49% from the same period in 2019, before the coronavirus hit.Arkansas Online, 3 July 2022 See More
Note: The word was introduced by a group of virologists as a short article "Coronaviruses" in the "News and Views" section of Nature (vol. 220, no. 5168, November 16, 1968, p. 650): "… avian infectious bronchitis virus has a characteristic electron microscopic appearance resembling, but distinct from, that of myxoviruses. Particles are more or less rounded in profile … there is also a characteristic 'fringe' of projections 200 Å long, which are rounded or petal shaped, rather than sharp or pointed, as in the myxoviruses. This appearance, recalling the solar corona, is shared by mouse hepatitis virus … . In the opinion of the eight virologists these viruses are members of a previously unrecognized group which they suggest should be called the coronaviruses, to recall the characteristic appearance by which these viruses are identified in the electron microscope."