Covid-19: In pandemic, word definitions shift and new lexicon emerges

A worker wearing a face mask as he rides a cart past a closed shop with a Chinese flag in its window in Beijing, on Friday (March 20). After the Covid-19 gripped China, onlookers saw a "lockdown” at the outbreak’s epicentre of Wuhan, with public transit coming to a halt, monitors enforcing orders keeping people inside and officials going door-to-door searching for infected people to go into quarantines. - AP

BEIJING/PHILADELPHIA: Newscasts bring word of "hot zones” and "lockdowns.” Conversations are littered with talk of "quarantines” and "isolation.” Leaders urge "social distancing” and "sheltering in place” and "flattening the curve.”

In an instant, our vocabulary has changed - just like everything else.