On February 11, 2020, the World Health Organization officially named the coronavirus causing illness, severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) 2, or SARS-CoV-2. The name was chosen because it is genetically related to another coronavirus that caused the SARS outbreak in China in 2002. The virus causes COVID-19 and was first discovered to be causing illness in 2019, hence why the virus is sometimes referred to by the name of “SARS-CoV-2019.”
