By: HISTORY.com Editors

2020

World Health Organization officially names novel coronavirus disease COVID-19

Published: February 05, 2021Last Updated: May 27, 2025

A few months after the first known case was detected in Wuhan, China, and approximately three weeks after the first U.S. case was reported, on February 11, 2020, the World Health Organization officially named the illness that would go on to cause a pandemic "coronavirus disease 2019," shortened to the acronym COVID-19.

Often referred to as the "Wuhan virus" in its very early stages, and also “nCoV-2019,” WHO guidelines state that names for new infectious diseases may not include geographic locations, animals, individuals or groups of people and must be pronounceable. CO stands for corona, VI is for virus, D is for disease and 2019 represents the year it was first discovered.

“Having a name matters to prevent the use of other names that can be inaccurate or stigmatizing,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said during a media briefing announcing the name. “It also gives us a standard format to use for any future coronavirus outbreaks.”

Since its onset, COVID-19 rapidly spread to every continent. By April 2023, it resulted in roughly 763 million global cases and nearly 7 million deaths, including more than 1 million deaths in the U.S. alone. On May 5, 2023, the WHO declared COVID-19 over as a global health emergency.

Timeline

Also on This Day in History

Discover more of the major events, famous births, notable deaths and everything else history-making that happened on February 11th

1778

Voltaire returns to Paris from exile

On February 11, 1778, some 300 people visit Voltaire following his return to Paris. Voltaire had been in exile for 28 years. Born Francois-Marie Arouet to middle-class parents in Paris in 1694, Voltaire began to study law as a young man but quit to become a playwright. He made a name for himself with classical […]

1:20m read

1805

Sacagawea gives birth to her first child

Sacagawea, the Shoshone interpreter and guide to the Lewis and Clark expedition, gives birth to her first child, Jean Baptiste Charbonneau. Meriwether Lewis and William Clark first met the young Sacagawea while spending the winter among the Mandan tribe along the Upper Missouri River, not far from present-day Bismarck, North Dakota. Still only a teenager, […]

3:16m read

1858

St. Bernadette claims to see the Virgin Mary

In southern France, Marie-Bernarde Soubirous, a 14-year-old French peasant girl, first claims to have seen the Virgin Mary, the mother of Jesus Christ and a central figure in the Roman Catholic religion. The apparitions, which totaled 18 before the end of the year, occurred in a grotto of a rock promontory near Lourdes, France. Marie […]

1:22m read

1878

First US cycling club formed

On February 11, 1878, the Boston Bicycle Club, the first organization for recreational cyclists, is formed. The following year, a club is formed in Buffalo, followed by a club in New York in 1880. In the ensuing decades, as middle-class participation in cycling grows, hundreds of cycling clubs are formed across the United States. The Boston […]

1:34m read

1916

Women’s rights activist Emma Goldman is arrested

Emma Goldman, a crusader for women’s rights and social justice, is arrested in New York City for lecturing and distributing materials about birth control. She was accused of violating the Comstock Act of 1873, which made it a federal offense to disseminate contraceptive devices and information through the mail or across state lines. In addition […]

2:24m read

1945

Yalta Conference ends

On February 11, 1945, a week of intensive bargaining by the leaders of the three major Allied powers ends in Yalta, a Soviet resort town on the Black Sea. It was the second conference of the “Big Three” Allied leaders—U.S. President Franklin D. Roosevelt, British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, and Soviet Premier Joseph Stalin—and the […]

1960

The Payola scandal heats up

The Payola scandal reaches a new level of public prominence and legal gravity on February 11, 1960, when President Eisenhower called it an issue of public morality and the FCC proposed a new law making involvement in Payola a criminal act. What exactly was Payola? During the hearings conducted by Congressman Oren Harris (D-Arkansas) and […]

2:12m read

1963

Julia Child’s “The French Chef” debuts

On February 11, 1963, Julia Child’s “The French Chef” debuts on public television in the U.S., introducing French cuisine to Americans and creating the cooking world’s first television star. The first episode kicks off with Child stirring the contents of a large steaming pot of boeuf bourguignon, intoning, “French beef stew in red wine… It’s […]

2:08m read

1970

Japan launches its first satellite

From the Kagoshima Space Center on the east coast of Japan’s Ohsumi Peninsula, Ohsumi, Japan’s first satellite, is successfully launched into an orbit around Earth. The achievement made Japan the world’s fourth space power, after the Soviet Union in 1957, the United States in 1958, and France in 1965. Two months after Japan’s launching of […]

0:40m read

1990

Nelson Mandela released from prison

South African leader Nelson Mandela is released from prison after serving 27 years.

2012

Pop superstar Whitney Houston dies at age 48

Whitney Houston, one of the world’s top-selling singers from the mid-1980s to late 1990s, is found dead in the bathtub of her suite at the Beverly Hilton Hotel in Beverly Hills, California on February 11, 2012. Houston’s death was the result of accidental drowning; heart disease and cocaine, which was found in her system, were determined […]

3:00m read

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Citation Information

Article Title: World Health Organization officially names novel coronavirus disease COVID-19
Author: HISTORY.com Editors
Website Name: History
URL: https://www.history.com/this-day-in-history/february-11/world-health-organization-officially-names-coronavirus-covid19

Date Accessed: October 21, 2026
Publisher: A&E Television Networks
Last Updated: May 27, 2025
Original Published Date: February 05, 2021

World Health Organization officially names novel coronavirus disease COVID-19

Related

21st Century

They Were Inside the Twin Towers on 9/11. Here Are Their Stories.

9/11: How Air Traffic Controllers Managed the Crisis in the Skies

How United Flight 93 Passengers Fought Back on 9/11

About the author

Fact Check

Citation Information