Virus words you can't do without -- Virusbuster lingo

[abcdefg]

If you live in China, there are quite a few new terms that need to be added to the "ready access" gyrus of your gray matter. I'll start a list of "virusbuster lingo" to which I hope other will add.

 

口罩 -- Face mask. The tones are important. It's kou3 and zhao 4. If you say it wrong you will embarrass yourself. 口交 is kou3 and jiao1. That means a blow job (oral sex.)

 

免洗洗手液 -- Waterless hand sanitizer, usually an alcohol-based gel.  

 

传染病 -- contagious disease/infectious disease

 

 

[Flickserve]

新型冠状病毒 novel coronavirus 

[imron]

Or as it's known colloquially (at least in some overseas Chinese communities) 武漢肺炎

[roddy]

封村 - seal off the village:

“农村基层实行封村有其地理上的优势，如果是在村口安排专人负责放哨，我认为这样是可以的。但一些地方采取物理封村的方式并不可取，所谓物理封村就是通过挖土，用大车、大石头把进村的路全部封住。一旦有疫情或者其他紧急事情发生，车辆无法出入，会影响救援工作的开展。”

source

[abcdefg]

1 hour ago, roddy said:

封村 - seal off the village:

 

I had not heard that one.

[Tomsima]

疫情 epidemic

野味 game, wild animal meat

天上九頭鳥，地上湖北佬 (a slightly derogatory saying about people from Hubei, basically means hubeiers are shrewd) not directly virus related, but still relevant

[feihong]

1 hour ago, Tomsima said:

天上九頭鳥，地上湖北佬 (a slightly derogatory saying about people from Hubei, basically means hubeiers are shrewd) not directly virus related, but still relevant

Amazingly, my mom just used this idiom in a WeChat message about the epidemic

[Michaelyus]

确诊 (quèzhěn) = to confirm the diagnosis

例 (lì) = "case" of an illness; used as a measure word

 

赴港自由 (fùgǎng zìyóu) = the freedom to visit Hong Kong; can be used with other one-character abbreviated forms

[roddy]

潜伏期 - incubation period. Seen here. In what I can only assume is a Xinhua mobile slideshow inexplicably presented in a scroll-wheel destroying format. 

[feihong]

封城 - lock down a city

[roddy]

谭德塞, WHO head recently in Beijing. 

疫情防控工作, epidemic prevention work.

宅在家, stuck in the house, shut in. 

[Flickserve]

21 hours ago, feihong said:

封

I have seen this word a lot on my Cantonese whatsapp group. Due to sudden flash riots in HK, we get sports centres which close at short notice to limit protestors damage and this is called 封場。

[mungouk]

云监工 — "cloud supervisor", one of the 20+ million online users watching the live stream of the two hospitals that are supposedly being built in a week.

 

2000万网友“云监工” 雷神山医院建设方：有压力

[imron]

3 hours ago, mungouk said:

the two hospitals that are supposedly being built in a week.

This in itself is an amazing thing, that I wouldn't have believed possible if I had never lived in China myself and seen the speed with which buildings can go up.

[carlo]

指数式增长 exponential growth, e.g. 确诊人数呈指数式增长

[roddy]

密切接触 - close contact

[roddy]

17 hours ago, mungouk said:

20+ million online users watching the live stream of the two hospitals that are supposedly being built in a week.

Now 40 million, and they've named (scroll down) every bit of machinery and infrastructure they can see.

[Flickserve]

隔离 to isolate （from pleco）

 

隔离两周 - quarantine two weeks? Can someone verify please.

[roddy]

Yeah, plenty of examples in recent news:

从武汉撤回两百名英国公民的飞机在落地后将被隔离两周。

钟南山建议全体中国人在家隔离两周？这些全是谣言

[Michaelyus]

[危险物品] 防护服 = hazmat suit

慎防 ***** = beware ***** (literary)

争购 = to rush /fight to purchase