Yes. It took a while for WHO to name it. They didn't want to call it SARS because it was too frightening- SARS caused a lot of devastation in Asia.
From the WHO website Q and A [1]:
Is COVID-19 the same as SARS?
No. The virus that causes COVID-19 and the one that caused the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2003 are related to each other genetically, but the diseases they cause are quite different.
SARS was more deadly but much less infectious than COVID-19. There have been no outbreaks of SARS anywhere in the world since 2003.
I went to the WHO website to document my first assertion, that they chose the name to not cause fear and confusion with SARS, but didn't find it. It used to be right on the front page explaining the virus- they also explained the name.
No kidding? I've been remembering it as COrona Virus Infectious Disease 2019. I haven't seen a source on this though- just made sense since CoV was established early in the timeline as corona virus.
From the WHO website Q and A [1]:
Is COVID-19 the same as SARS?
No. The virus that causes COVID-19 and the one that caused the outbreak of Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) in 2003 are related to each other genetically, but the diseases they cause are quite different.
SARS was more deadly but much less infectious than COVID-19. There have been no outbreaks of SARS anywhere in the world since 2003.
[1] https://www.who.int/news-room/q-a-detail/q-a-coronaviruses
I went to the WHO website to document my first assertion, that they chose the name to not cause fear and confusion with SARS, but didn't find it. It used to be right on the front page explaining the virus- they also explained the name.