‘Corona beer virus’ searches surge as China coronavirus spreads
- Google search trends indicate people from the US to Singapore seem to be confusing the Mexican lager with the deadly virus
- While memes about the virus are also showing up, some attempts to use the similar-sounding names as a marketing stunt have fallen flat
From the United States to Cambodia, and even in Israel, Ireland and Singapore, internet users seem to be confusing the Mexican lager Corona for the virus.
According to Google Trends, the first searches for “corona beer virus” started on January 9, the day the World Health Organisation (WHO) said a string of pneumonia-like cases in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province in China, were caused by a previously unknown type of coronavirus.
The number of searches then continued growing as the outbreak moved out of mainland China, keeping pace with reports of infections in Taiwan, the US, Thailand and Vietnam during the Lunar New Year holiday.
“Corona” means “crown” in Latin, which is how the virus got its name. The term “coronavirus” refers to a family of viruses that have spikes on their surfaces resembling little crowns.
The virus causing the current outbreak is a newly discovered strain that has been named 2019 novel coronavirus (2019 n-CoV). The coronavirus family includes Sars-CoV, the virus that caused 2003’s severe acute respiratory syndrome (Sars) epidemic, and Mers-CoV, which was behind the outbreak of Middle East respiratory syndrome (Mers) in 2012.
Corona beer reportedly takes its name from the crown that adorns the church of Our Lady of Guadalupe in the Mexican town of Puerto Vallarta. The pale lager was first brewed in 1925, four decades before the first coronavirus was discovered.