Skyrocketing

Skyrocketing Covid Cases

In Korea, the number of covid cases is skyrocketing. The number of new cases is now over 100,000! This should be alarming, but I think a lot of people don’t care about covid anymore. It seems that people accept that the omicron variant is not that deadly and it is time to live with Covid-19. I asked a coworker why he thinks the number of cases is skyrocketing compared to world-wide statistics and he thinks that most people (in other countries) are not reporting their symptoms anymore. Do you think that is true? How people have responded to covid has made me lose all faith in humanity. I don’t think we, as a society, can fix global issues like a pandemic. I have worried about global climate change for a long time and now I have no reason to believe that humans will change.

Meaning

Skyrocketing means that the numbers are rapidly increasing. It is most often used regarding price increases but can be used to talk about amounts, or rates.

Example: The number of covid cases is skyrocketing in Korea right now.

Origin

Skyrockets can be traced back to 1680 to describe a type of firework. They use a solid-fuel source to rise quickly in the air. Bottle rockets are examples of skyrockets. The verb form that we are studying today goes back to 1895. There was an assumption that the rapid increase would be followed by an explosion or vanish. The way that the phrase is used today, I would say there is still a feeling like that. When we say that something is skyrocketing, we don’t expect it to keep up that rapid increase forever.

When I hear skyrocketing, I think of a space shuttle taking off. The immense amount of energy it takes to leave earth’s atmosphere is impressive. In my head I see the long trails of clouds left behind as the rocket passes through the clouds and out of view.

Covid Words

Big events in human history have led to the creation of new words as we try to deal with and describe out new reality. In our two year struggle with coronavirus, we have coined some new English words related to the pandemic. Dictionary.com wrote an article about it back in September. Here are a few of the covid words they talked about. How many of them are familiar to you? Some of them are new to me.

Before Times – what life was like before covid-19
Coronababies – children conceived during lockdown as people had nothing better to do than have sex.
Coronacoaster – constantly changing situation due to covid cases
Coronacut – A bad haircut because we can’t visit our hair stylist.
Coronapocalypse – the end of humanity due to covid
Coronageddon – see coronapocalypse
Covid-10 – The weigh gained (10 pounds) because people are stuck at home.
Covidiot – A blend of covid and idiot. Slang for someone who doesn’t follow the health and safety rules.
Doomscrolling – constantly searching for new information and data about the pandemic.
Quaranteam – The small group of people you see during self-isolation
Quarantine and Chill – how people spend their time at home during the pandemic.
Quarantini – a cocktail that you drink at home because of the virus.
Rona – short for coronavirus
Zoom mom – A demographic consisting of mothers who use Zoom a lot to chat with friends while they are stuck at home.
Zoom town – A place where housing sales are skyrocketing because people can work remotely from home (farther from work).
Zumping – a blend of dump and zoom. People who break up after reconsidering their relationship during the pandemic.

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Reference:

https://www.etymonline.com/word/skyrocket
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skyrocket
https://www.dictionary.com/e/s/new-words-we-created-because-of-coronavirus/#1