Hey, it's Annemarie withSpeak Confident English.
At the beginning of this week I did alive session in one of my online Facebook communities and in that session we focusedon how to talk about the coronavirus because it's definitely affecting allof us.
It's worrisome and stressful, but what shouldn't be stressful is knowinghow to talk about it if you need to have conversations with friends, family members or coworkers, and especially if you need to haveconversations in English with medical professionals.
Afterdoing that live session, I received multiple emails from studentsand other community members of mine telling me how helpful it was and theywere glad to have the opportunity to learn and understand the vocabularythat they're hearing and reading about regularly in English and they were alsoglad that they could now use it in their own conversations.
So I decided it would be useful toshare that with you as well.
Again, I don't want you to feel stressedabout how to talk about this.
So in this video today, I'm going to highlight some of the mostimportant vocabulary that you'll need to understand and to use in conversationsabout the coronavirus and what's happening around the world.
Now, before I get started, I want to make it very clear that in noway am I a medical professional and I'm not offering any advice, but I do want to help you fully understandwhat you're reading and hearing about and I want to make it possible for youto share your thoughts, your concerns, or what's happening withothers in your community.
Let's start with the wordsoutbreak, epidemic, and pandemic.
Those are definitely the top words thatare being used when we're talking about the coronavirus.
A really helpful picture to have tounderstand these words is to imagine a target.
You have a central point andthen the circles get bigger.
So an outbreak is an increase in thenumber of cases of a disease in a particular place.
Let me give youan example to help understand that.
In the United States, the coronavirus started with anoutbreak in Washington state.
Over time, it became an epidemic, which is a large outbreak.
That means the number of people who havethe virus continued to go up quickly and it was over a larger geographic area.
Now this week we also startedto hear the word pandemic.
A pandemic is a global epidemic.
It means the number of cases continuesto rise rapidly around the globe.
It's no longer in oneregion or one country.
It's across multiple regions, countries, and continents.
Now, one more word that you may have heardor read that is related to this is epicenter.
An epicenter is afocal point or center point.
If we go back to the first examplesentence using the word outbreak.
Initially the outbreak in the UnitedStates began in Washington state.
The epicenter of an outbreak would bethe particular neighborhood or location where that outbreak began andthis case in the United States, the epicenter was a nursinghome in Washington state.
As we've watched the coronavirus movefrom an outbreak to an epidemic and then to a pandemic, we've neededto respond in different ways.
One of the first things that you'veprobably heard about art restrictions, restrictions are limits or waysto control someone or something.
For example, right now there are manytravel restrictions around the world.
It means there's a limit or some controlof where you can and cannot travel to.
Some companies are alsorestricting their employees.
They may be canceling travel plans orasking employees to stay home to work.
A second response is social distancing.
This is a focused effort to reduce closecontact between people and the purpose of social distancing is to slow downthe movement or the spread of the coronavirus.
This is whywe have schools closing.
This is why large public events are beingcanceled and why many businesses have started to encourage or mandatetelework, which means working from home, using the internet, email and telephone.
Social distancing also means choosingto stay home more often and avoiding public spaces or large crowdswhen you are out of the house.
For example, if you are going to work or you goto the grocery store and you see your neighbor, social distancing would mean that youdon't touch or have close contact.
Instead you keep your distance and thatmeans a big change in behavior for a lot of us.
Depending on where you live, it might be common toshake someone's hand, hug them or kiss on thecheek when you see them, but right now it's better to keep thatdistance again to slow the spread or transmission of the virus.
Another response that you've probablyheard a lot about is self-quarantine.
The word quarantine means to separateand restrict the movement of people who have the coronavirus or have beenexposed to it and those who have not.
Many individuals have been asked or havevolunteered to self-quarantine and what that means is they stay home andthey restrict their movements.
They don't go out in public unlessabsolutely necessary.
For example, if you have a medical appointment.
One final word related tothis is the word isolation.
Isolation is the mostrestrictive separation.
Isolation is when an individual with adisease has been completely separated from other individuals.
While they are contagious.
Let's focus on that word thatI just mentioned.
Contagious.
Contagious refers to how a disease movesor spreads from one person to another by direct or indirectcontact.
Now in this video, so far, I've used the wordspread multiple times.
This is a word that we often use whenwe're talking about the movement of a virus from one person to another.
Earlier I mentioned thatthe purpose of restrictions, social distancing and self quarantineare to slow the spread or the movement of the virus from one person to another, and there are three important reasonswhy we're doing this.
Of course, number one is to protect you andall of your loved ones.
Number two, to protect those who are most vulnerable.
So far with the spread of the coronavirus, it seems that elderly individuals orthose of an advanced age and individuals with a compromised immunesystem are most at risk.
Your immune system is your body's abilityto fight a virus or protect itself from a virus.
A compromised immune systemmeans a weaker immune system.
As a result, someone might get sick more easily ortheir body isn't able to fight a virus as well as someone with ahealthy immune system can.
The third important reason to slow downthe spread of the coronavirus is to reduce the possibility of overstressing, overwhelming or over burdening ourhealthcare systems and hospitals.
Notice that I'm using that prefixover- with all of those words.
When I add the word over, for example, if a hospital is overstressedor a doctor is overburdened, it means too much or above normal.
Certainly one of the top prioritiesright now is to make sure that our hospitals, our doctors, nurses, all of our medical staff and facilitiesare able to treat everyone who needs medical attention.
Now, if you or someone you know does needmedical attention specifically related to the coronavirus, I want to highlight some of the mostimportant words you'll need to know in order to talk to your doctor, nurses, and other medical staff about how you'refeeling, what symptoms you're having.
A symptom is a physicalsign of an illness.
Some of the most common symptoms thatare being talked about are fevers.
A fever is when your bodytemperature is too high.
It's higher than it shouldbe or higher than normal.
To talk about that with a medicalprofessional, you would say, I have a fever, I have a fever of ____, and then give the specificdegree in English.
You'll also hear people say, I'm runninga temperature.
In addition to a fever, you might have symptoms like a cough.
You may also have shortness ofbreath or tightness in your chest.
If you have shortness of breathor tightness in your chest, it means that you have pain here, particularly when you try to breathe andyou're not able to take deep breaths.
For example, you're notable to do something like instead, your breathmight be very shallow.
And again, it's painful.
You feela lot of pressure or pain here.
Other symptoms of the coronavirus includecommon flu symptoms such as sneezing, body aches, a body ache is when your wholebody is in pain or it hurts.
You might also feel tired, fatigued, or lethargic.
Fatigued means very tired andlethargic means you have no energy.
The last thing I want to highlight inthis video today are some of the words we're using to talk about how weare preparing to stay home more.
Again, talking about social distancing, choosing to stay home or evenif you need to self-quarantine.
The first one is thephrasal verb to stock up.
To stock up means to have an extra supply, particularly of basicnecessities like food, medicine and other essential householditems and this is perfectly appropriate to do if you're going toself-quarantine for 14 days.
That means that you need to have enoughfood for you and anyone else who's living with you.
So right now, many people are going to the grocerystore and other markets to stock up on things like dried goods, canned goods, non-perishables and frozen foods.
Dry goods or non-perishables arefoods that last for a long time.
For example, rice, pastaand dried beans.
Now again, this is perfectlyappropriate, even smart to do.
It's great to be well prepared, but one thing to avoidwould be to hoard supplies.
To hoard means to have an extra largesupply that you hide and keep to yourself.
If you are hoarding supplies, it means you are taking more than youneed and as a result other people don't have the opportunity toalso stock up and prepare.
And that's something we definitelywant to avoid.
Of course, right now we want to protectourselves and all of our loved ones.
It's also a time to protect everyonein our community and help where we can.
Now, I know that I didn't cover everypossible word that you may be hearing or reading about when itcomes to the coronavirus.
I'm going to post this lesson on YouTubeand on my website and if you've got a question, if you want to share your experienceor you hear a word that you're not sure about, if you're strugglingwith how to express something, please be sure to share that with me.
You can always ask questionsin the comment section ofthe online lesson that is the best place to share and askany question that you might have.
I will be checking my online lessonregularly for any comments that you and others in the confidentEnglish community might have.
My number one goal is that you don'tfeel stressed about how to communicate on this important topic.
Thank you somuch for joining me today and again, never hesitate to let me know if youhave a question about something you've heard, something that you're trying to expressor if you simply want to share what's happening where you live, and with that, I hope that you and everyoneyou love stay safe and healthy.
.
