Here are the most common vocabulary relating to the topic ‘Coronavirus’. These words are collected from different sources and can be used in both productive sections of IELTS. They can also help you better understand the Reading section of the test.
Part 1
- lockdown (noun) – an emergency situation in which people are not allowed to freely enter, leave, or move around in a building or area because of danger.
– Police imposed a lockdown in the building until the shooter could be stopped.
– The entire city was in lockdown. - pandemic (noun) – occurring over a wide geographic area (such as multiple countries or continents) and typically affecting a significant proportion of the population.
– The 1918 flu was pandemic and claimed millions of lives.
– In some parts of the world malaria is still pandemic. - contagious (adj) – a contagious disease can be caught by touching someone who has the disease or a piece of infected clothing.
– The infection is highly contagious, so don’t let anyone else use your towel.
– Keep him out of school until he’s not contagious anymore. - track (verb) – to follow a person or animal by looking for proof that they have been somewhere, or by using electronic equipment.
– It’s difficult to track an animal over stony ground.
– The military use radar satellites to track targets through clouds and at night. - vaccinate (verb) – to give someone a vaccine, usually by injection, to prevent them from getting a disease.
– The children were vaccinated against the major childhood diseases.
– If a vaccine is approved, the first thing Kathryn Rizzo wants to do is vaccinate their three children. - prevalent (adj) – existing very commonly or happening often.
– These diseases are more prevalent among young children.
– Trees are dying in areas where acid rain is most prevalent. - mutation (adj) – a permanent change in an organism, or the changed organism itself.
– Environmental pressures encourage genes with certain mutations to persist and others to die out.
– These plants carry the mutation for red flowers. - tranmissible (noun) – of diseases, etc., able to be passed from one person or animal to another.
– Almost every transmissible disease has an incubation period during which the person is infected but not yet showing signs of disease.
– To start a pandemic, the virus will have to be highly transmissible between humans. - outbreak (noun) – a time when something suddenly begins, especially a disease or something else dangerous or unpleasant.
– Since the epidemic erupted in February, Iran has failed to gain a grip on the outbreak, which has infected more than 1 million people there and killed about 50,000, according to official reports.
– In the years after the first outbreak in the United States, polio was given little attention. - infection (noun) – a disease in a part of your body that is caused by bacteria or a virus.
– They tested her blood for signs of the infection.
– Bandage the wound to reduce the risk of infection. - case (noun) – a particular situation or example of something.
– Over a hundred people were injured, in several cases seriously.
– The number of new cases of the illness appears to be declining. - wave (noun) – a number of events of a particular type that happen again or are repeated after a pause.
– There are fears that easing the lockdown rules will trigger a second wave of the disease.
– A new wave of job losses is expected this year. - restriction (noun) – an official limit on something.
– Do these parking restrictions cover residents as well as visitors?
– These restrictions infringe upon basic human rights. - confirmed case (noun) – someone tested and confirmed to have Covid-19.
– The first confirmed cases of COVID-19 in Australia were reported in late January 2020.
– There have been more than 2.7 million confirmed cases of coronavirus in the UK and over 75,000 people have died, government figures show. - death toll (noun) – the number of people who die because of an event such as a war or an accident.
– The annual death toll from infectious diseases is now more than 17 million.
– The day after the explosion the death toll had risen to 90. - symptom (noun) – any feeling of illness or physical or mental change that is caused by a particular disease.
– He’s complaining of all the usual flu symptoms – a high temperature, headache, and so on.
– He’s been HIV-positive for six years, but just recently he’s started to develop the symptoms of AIDS. - quarantine (noun) – a general period of time in which people are not allowed to leave their homes or travel freely, so that they do not catch or spread a disease.
– I’ve been doing a lot of baking during quarantine.
– The country has been hit hard, with many people under quarantine and food supplies scarce. - curfew (noun) – a rule that everyone must stay at home between particular times, usually at night, especially during a war or a period of political trouble or pandemic.
– They are suffering from virtually round-the-clock curfews which have gone on for months.
– He was shot for breaking the curfew. - spike (noun) – a higher price, amount, etc., usually before a fall.
– We saw in Canada and the US, huge spikes in infections after Thanksgiving. - contain (verb) – to keep something harmful within limits and not allow it to spread.
– Farms in the area have been closed off in an attempt to contain the disease.
– More police were sent to help contain the violence.
Part 2
- self-isolation (noun) – the practice of not leaving your house and of staying away from other people when you have, or may have, an infectious disease, so that you do not infect anyone else.
– Self-isolation is about protecting others and slowing down the spread of infectious diseases.
– The Government is advising self-isolation for anyone who has travelled back from an area where the coronavirus is known to be present. - patient zero (noun) – the first person to be infected during an epidemic (= the appearance of a particular disease in a large number of people at the same time).
– Scientists were hunting down patient zero who first developed SARS.
– The little boy was dubbed swine flu patient zero. - social distancing (noun) – the practice of keeping away from other people as much as possible, or of keeping a certain distance from other people, in order to stop a disease from spreading to a lot of people.
– To slow the transmission, social distancing might be useful.
– The cities that instigated early social distancing measures did better. - zoonotic (adj) – (of a disease) able to spread from animals to humans.
– Rabies is perhaps the best-known and most feared of all zoonotic diseases.
– The source of these infections is unknown, but zoonotic transmission from pigs has been suggested. - swab (noun) – a small piece of soft material used for cleaning a cut or for taking a small amount of substance from a body, or the substance itself that can then be tested.
– The nurse cleaned the cut on my leg with a swab.
– “I’m just going to take a swab of your ear,” said the doctor. - inoculate (verb) – to protect someone against disease by putting a weak form of the disease into their body using a needle.
– All the children had been inoculated against hepatitis. - travel bubble (n phr) – an agreement between two or more countries to open up their borders for travel without strict quarantine.
– Hong Kong’s long-awaited travel bubble with Singapore is most likely to be postponed for a second time. - underlying (health) conditions (n phr) – a medical condition or disease that interferes with daily life or activities and requires continuous medical attention or medical care that lasts for longer than one year.
– Police in Vancouver reported more than 130 sudden deaths, most of them old people or those with underlying conditions.
