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"Covid" has been with us since at least the 1800's. [1]
['This Content Is Not Subject To Review Daily Kos Staff Prior To Publication.']
Date: 2025-03-03
Technically the above statement is true.
Before COVID-19 was a thing, I just discovered that “covid" was an old unit of measurement in British colonial India.
I was searching google books for the first mention of the word and was shocked to find it back in a book published in the 1800’s! See above screenshot.
The covid (also "covad" or "kovid") was a traditional Indian length measurement equal to about 18 inches or 45 centimeters, though this varied by region. It measured the distance from elbow to middle fingertip—similar to a "cubit."
This unit was widely used in trade, especially for textiles in Bombay (Mumbai) and Madras (Chennai). The covid gradually disappeared as India adopted the metric system after independence.
The similarity between this historical measurement and COVID-19 is purely coincidental—the disease name is an acronym for "coronavirus disease 2019."
But considering that a covid unit involves using the middle finger, it would seem that both terms could be given the middle finger, indeed.
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More Covidlandia stuff at my house on Substack today.
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