False claim COVID spelled backwards is Hebrew word for demonic possession | Fact check

Chris Mueller, USA TODAY
·3 min read

The claim: COVID spelled backward is 'divoc,' which in Hebrew means 'possession by an evil spirit'

A Jan. 22 Instagram post (direct link, archive link) shows two cartoon zombies and several emojis, including a syringe.

"Covid spelled backwards is Divoc," reads the post. "Divoc in Hebrew means 'possession by an evil spirit.'"

The post was liked more than 500 times in two days. Similar posts were shared on Facebook.

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Our rating: False

COVID-19 was chosen as the name for the disease because it describes the type of virus that causes it and the year cases were first reported. "Divoc" is not a Hebrew word, according to an expert.

WHO announced the name COVID-19 in early 2020

The origin of the term COVID-19 is well documented. The World Health Organization announced on Feb. 11, 2020, that COVID-19 would be the name of the disease caused by the SARS-CoV-2 virus.

The name is short for "coronavirus disease 2019,” a WHO report says. To break it down further, "Co" and "Vi" come from coronavirus, a family of viruses that cause respiratory illnesses in humans. The "D" stands for disease and "19" stands for 2019, the year the first cases were observed.

The name was selected to avoid stigmatizing a particular place or group of people.

“We had to find a name that did not refer to a geographical location, an animal, an individual or group of people,” WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus said at the time.

Fact check: No, coronavirus is not a Latin word for 'heart attack virus'

So the reverse spelling of COVID has nothing to do with the name, and "Divoc" is also not a word in Hebrew, Joseph Benatov, director of the modern Hebrew language program at the University of Pennsylvania, told USA TODAY.

There is a different Hebrew word, typically spelled "dybbuk" or "dibbuk," that means "a disembodied human spirit that, because of former sins, wanders restlessly until it finds a haven in the body of a living person," according to Britannica.

Benatov said the words "Covid" and "Dybbuk" are backward versions of each other when written in Hebrew characters – "Covid" is "קוביד" and "Dybbuk" is "דיבוק."

"The claim is still ridiculous in my mind," he said.

USA TODAY reached out to the social media user who shared the post for comment but did not immediately receive a response.

Lead Stories and PolitiFact also debunked the claim.

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This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: No, COVID spelled backward is not a Hebrew word | Fact check