COVID-19 is a disease. The virus is SARS-CoV-2. You're not even right at being pedantic. Illnesses don't need to be treatable or curable to be called diseases.
What I am, is wrong about it not being a disease. All these are listed as diseases: SARS-COV, MERS-COV, and nCOV. Even, also, the common flu. I never thought of that as a disease before now, since it's a viral infection. Thank you for making me learn a little more tonight.
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_East_respiratory_synd...
"Coronaviruses (CoV) are a large family of viruses that cause illness ranging from the common cold to more severe diseases such as Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS-CoV) and Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS-CoV). A novel coronavirus (nCoV) is a new strain that has not been previously identified in humans."
The naming is actually a bit confusing to me, as the CDC has this to say[1]:
"On February 11, 2020 the World Health Organization announced an official name for the disease that is causing the 2019 novel coronavirus outbreak, first identified in Wuhan China. The new name of this disease is coronavirus disease 2019, abbreviated as COVID-19. In COVID-19, ‘CO’ stands for ‘corona,’ ‘VI’ for ‘virus,’ and ‘D’ for disease. Formerly, this disease was referred to as “2019 novel coronavirus” or “2019-nCoV”."
I'm not sure where the separation between virus and disease is or was, of if that even matters in the end.
Wikipedia calls diseases "medical conditions that are associated with specific symptoms and signs".
In my worldview, up until tonight, my understanding of a disease was something that won't go away on it's own. Heart disease, Huntington's, etc.
I agree about the media. While I've seen COVID-19 everywhere; I didn't know anything about the nomenclature in this field and have only heard references to a virus, not a disease.