Novel means ‘new’ and the word is used with coronavirus to refer specifically to the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which was discovered in 2019, and to distinguish it from the other coronaviruses that caused previous epidemics such as SARS and MERS in previous years.
Categories:
Infectious Disease
Cross-reference:
SARS-CoV-2SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome)MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome)Virus