The Global Language Monitor Has Released the Official Ambush Marketing Rankings for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics

 

This is Global Language Monitor’s Eighth Consecutive Olympic Ambush Marketing Rankings.

AUSTIN, TX, UNITED STATES, August 4, 2021 — The Global Language Monitor (GLM) has released the Official Ambush Marketing Rankings for the Tokyo 2020 Olympics. GLM has found that the Top Olympic Partners and their ambushers are virtually tied according to their Brand Affiliation Index (BAI) scores.

The Top Olympic Partners for Tokyo 2020 follow:

  • Alibaba
  • Airbnb.
  • Atos.
  • Bridgestone.
  • Coca-Cola.
  • Dow.
  • General Electric.
  • Intel.
  • Panasonic.
  • Procter & Gamble.
  • Samsung Electronics.
  • Swatch Group (Omega, Tissot).
  • Toyota
  • Visa

GLM’s research has identified the top ambush marketers for each of the Tokyo 2020 Top Partners; many of these, of course, carry over from one Olympiad to the next.

According to the latest numbers, the mean score for The Top Olympic Partners was 71.43 BAI against  69.94 score for the Non-affiliated Marketers. This means that the Non-affiliated Marketers are reaping nearly the same economic benefit despite their lack of official association with the Olympic Games.

The first chart shows each Top Partner with ‘Non-affiliated Marketers’ (NAMs) or ambushers.  The second chart shows both Partners and Ambushers in a single, combined ranking.

The Global Language Monitor’s Brand Affiliation Index (BAI), is a proprietary, longitudinal study that analyzes the global association between (and among) individual brands and their competitors or, in this case, the Tokyo 2020 Olympic Games. In the study, The Global Language Monitor measured several dozen factors, closely examining all marketing movements extending from London 2012 to Tokyo 2020. GLM has been tracking the Olympic Partners since the Beijing Summer Games (2008).

We’ve met unlikely ambushers from cartoon characters (Beijing 2008, Kung-fu Panda) to world leaders on the brink of war (PyeongChang 2018, Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump) but never a raging pandemic.

 —   Paul JJ Payack, President and Chief Word Analyst of GLM.

Though official numbers are never released, each Top Partner is believed to pay some 100 million USD for the privilege. GLM has found that the actual number is closer to 1,000,000,000 USD for each Olympiad, fully loaded. This includes indirect costs associated with the sponsorship such as an apparently endless number of activities, contests, promotional items, and events.

Of course, in 2020 GLM found that the Tokyo 2020 Games had themselves been ambushed by the coronavirus with a remarkable 92.8% correlation to the ongoing Pandemic.

This is up some eight percentage points from a year ago when the Games were first postponed. This means that in GLM’s global research data, out of every 100 references to the 2020 Summer Games, more some 92 now contained a reference to the coronavirus and/or COVID-19.

For comparison purposes, GLM created the Economic Value Unit (EVU) that estimates in dollar terms the size of the value leak for each of the TOP Sponsors during the current quadrennial. In like manner, it estimates the value gained by the NAMs or Ambush Marketers.

The study pulls data from hundreds of millions of data points from across the internet and the top 380,000 print, electronic news media outlets, and social networking sites, analyzing sentiment, context and a host of other factors to determine which Worldwide Olympic Partners are most closely associated with the Olympic Games, and which brands are being closely associated with the coronavirus pandemic or both. The findings are published in the Tokyo 2020 Ambush Marketing Report, which is now available for order. (See below.)

Going a step further, the GLM study also includes an analysis on how closely brands and a number of their ‘ambush’ competitors are being affected by the coronavirus, which has been a global concern in the lead up to the Tokyo Games.

“We actually found a remarkable correlation between the coronavirus and the Worldwide Olympic Partners,” Payack continued. “A number of the Brands (and ambushers), actually had nearly as many citations linked to the coronavirus as to the Games themselves. In a few cases, citations to the coronavirus actually exceeded those to the Tokyo 2020 Olympics.”

Early this year, the IOC Executive Board expressed its full commitment to the Tokyo Games, scheduled to take place from July 23 to August 8, reporting that all protective measures are being taken to address the coronavirus situation. Lately, they banned all non-athletic visitors from the Games. This situation has steadily deteriorated.

About Global Language Monitor

Based in Austin, Texas, the Global Language Monitor collectively documents, analyzes and tracks trends in language usage worldwide, with a particular emphasis upon the English language. The company is known for its Words of the Year,  political analysis, college and university rankings, high-tech buzzwords, and media analytics, and the Top Global Fashion Capitals.

For more information, visit Languagemonitor.com.

Paul JJ Payack

Global Language Monitor

+1 737-215-7750

pjjp@Post.Harvard.edu

Coronavirus Scorecard: A Worst-Case Scenario from Early February, 2020

 

WARNING:   This was published in early February as a worst-case scenario.  The intent was to alert the world of the on-coming catastrophe. 

The idea was to take the numbers from the Hong Kong Institute of Science and Technology as published in the  journal, Lancet, and to simply extrapolate them forward — if the coronavirus was left unchecked by any human intervention.

GLM PUBLISHED THIS ARTICLE IN EARLY FEBRUARY WHEN THE EMERGING PANDEMIC WAS LARGELY IGNORED BY THE MEDIA, ACADEMIA AND THE ADMINISTRATION

The Original Report Follows:

Please be discreet when distributing.

We are publishing this article only to show the extent of the spread of the virus IF LEFT UNCHECKED. All recent potential pandemics (including Ebola, SARS, and MERS) were stopped due to deliberate action taken by the worldwide medical community (especially the WHO, the CDC, NHC, etc.,) and the proper precautions directed by the relevant government bodies and heroic NGOs.

*********************************************************

ThoughtTopper Institute: The COVID-19 (Coronavirus) Calendar

Overview: The news from China is not good. Most recently The South China Morning Post detailed,

Measures unveiled by the authorities in Beijing and Shanghai on Monday include stricter controls on the movement of residents and vehicles, compulsory mask-wearing and shutting down leisure and other non-essential community services … Beijing Daily reported on Monday that the capital, with a population of over 20 million, would step up efforts to further restrict access to residential communities and compounds and introduce a citywide registration system for entries into Beijing.

In addition, “Officials at the epidemic control and prevention centre in Shanghai said on Monday that “the vast majority” of the city’s 13,000 residential communities and compounds had instituted “lockdown management”, including entry restrictions and mandatory temperature checks.”

Confusion Abounds

According to the New York Times, “on Thursday, officials added more than 14,840 new cases to the tally of the infected in Hubei Province alone, bringing the total number to 48,206, the largest one-day increase so far recorded. The death toll in the province rose to 1,310, including 242 new deaths.

The sharp rise in reported cases illustrates how hard it has been for scientists to grasp the extent and severity of the coronavirus outbreak in China, particularly inside the epicenter, where thousands of sick people remain untested for the illness.”

Furthermore, some investigators have suggested that the number of new cases was leveling off and will, in fact, peak and level off in the next few weeks. One study actually picked a date (February 23); mark your calendar.

Projections from Published Numbers

The COVID-19 Calendar is based on the data provided by the British medical journal The Lancet working with data supplied to them by the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), and the National Health Commission (NHC) of China, among others. The Global Language Monitor is not responsible for any of the data — only with the extrapolation of the data.

Note: Tip of the Ice Berg? These extrapolations in themselves are hypothetical and should be taken as such. These numbers assume that the number of infections has been substantially under-reported, due to a number of factors.

This data was gathered with an abundance of caution after studying the various numbers coming out of Wuhan. The projected numbers are published herein because these results have been assiduously avoided in the media in all forms.

Obviously, COVID-19 cannot expand indefinitely as in the extrapolation above. Typically, these pandemics either burn themselves out or a halted through Human intervention. The gravest predictions now top out at a 60% infection rate for the entire Human population. Rest assured, that this has never happened in all recorded history.

Origin of Graphics, The Lancet

This ThoughtTopper Institute publication was compiled by Paul JJ Payack, President and Chief Word Analyst of the Global Language Monitor.

About Global Language Monitor

Based in Austin, Texas, the Global Language Monitor is a data research organization. For more information, visit Languagemonitor.com. For more information call +1.737.215.7750 or email Info@languageMonitor.com

Global Language Monitor Announces That ‘Covid’ is the Top Word of 2020

Global Language Monitor Announces That ‘Covid’ is the Top Word of 2020 (Top 50 #WOTY Ranked)

Global Language Monitor Announces That 'Covid' is the Top Word of 2020

 

 

 

Global Language Monitor (GLM), the data research company that documents, analyzes, and tracks trends in language usage worldwide, has announced that Covid is the Top Word of 2020 in its mid-year update.

It’s no surprise that ‘covid’ has risen to the top of the rankings,” said Paul JJ Payack, President and Chief Word Analyst of GLM. “However, ‘covid’ has received the highest number of citations ever recorded in our global survey. In fact, ‘covid’ has outranked all previous Words of the Year in the 21st century by a factor of 100, or more.”

Covid is the commonly used shorthand for the shorthand for Covid-19. Covid-19 is the official name of the virus caused by the SARS CoV-2 virus, so named in WHO’s International Classification of Diseases (ICD).

Covid-19 is ranked No. 2 on GLM’s mid-year update. The Top Ten Words of the Year (#WOTY) for 2020 include Covid, Covid-19, Coronavirus, Corona, Face mask, Progress, Truth, Social Distancing, Trade War, and Sustainability.

Top Words of the Year of 2020 (#WOTY2020) mid-year update follow (Rank, Word, Definition/Comment).

Please Note:  Typically, the Global Language Monitor publishes the Top Twenty Words in its rankings.  In this #WOTY2020 mid-year update, for the historical record, we are extending the published rankings to the Top Fifty. 

Global Language Monitor
Top Words of 2020 for Global English (Mid-year Update
Rank Word   Definition
1 Covid The shorthand for Covid-19 has the largest number of citations ever recorded in the 21st century.
2 Covid-19 The name of the virus caused by the SARS CoV-2 by   WHO’s International Classification of Diseases (ICD).
3 Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 full name of virus that causes Covied-19.
4 Corona From the Latin for ‘crown’.  Compare the Sun’s corona during a total eclipse.
5 Face mask A face covering that helps halt the spread of Covid-19 to varying degrees depending on the material and number of layers.
6 Progress The belief that society moves ever towards betterment
7 Truth The idea that there is an objective, discernible reality for humans to discover and cherish.
8 Social Distancing The distance individuals should keep from each other to lessen risk of virus transmission, usually about 2 meters or six feet.
9 Trade War Colossal struggle between US and China with worldwide repercussions.
10 Sustainability Creating an environment that supplies certain needs without comprmising future production. 
11 Flatten the Curve The ability to manage the number of case so as to not overwhelm the hospital system.
12 Lockdown Restricting movement outside home or district.
13 Identity Politics Politics based on certain elements of one’s makeup, such as skin color or ethic background, or gender.
14 Progressives The word ‘liberal’ outlived its usefulness as the description of one’s political leanings.
15 Zoom Group meetings held over videoconferencing channels.
16 Quarantine Restricting physical movements to one’s home or institution, often separated from all others.
17 Migrants People moving from one nation to another.
18 Donald Trump Donald J. Trump, the 46th president of the US.
19 Symptoms Physical conditions that may signify the presence of a virus or illness.
20 Outbreak The seemingly sudden appearance of a disease in a community or geographic location.
21 CDC The Centers fo Disease Control in Atlanta, Georgia.
22 Conservatives Political philosophy that favors saving the best from the past while moving toward the future.
23 Unemployment Highest unemployment numbers the US has seen since the Great Recession — and possibly the Depression.
24 Climate Change Climate change has ranked in the Top Ten for the last dozen years or so. 
25 Hand Sanitizer Washing one’s hands with an anti-bacterial soap for thirty seconds is a strong barrier against Covid-19.
26 White Privilege Supposed advantages carried by Whites by virture of their ethnic heritage.
27 The Pandemic Current global pandemic precipitated by SARS-CoV-2.
28 The Virus Shorthand for Covid-19.
29 Work at Home The result of social distancing guidelines where employees must stay separated from each other.
30 Stimulus Massive $3 trillion+ funding effort by the US Federal Government to help keep families (and the economy) afloat.
31 George Floyd George Floyd, a black American, was killed by a police officer kneeling on his neck for some eight minutes in Minneapolis.  His death sparked global protests.
32 Black Lives Matter A movement protesting police brutality against African-Americans.  
33 Woke The state of suddenly becoming aware of social injustices in the society.
34 Joe Biden Presumptive presidential nominee of the Democrat Party against President Trump.
35 Wuhan Largest city in Central China, capital of Hubei Province, population 11,000,000; original epicenter of the Covid-19 outbreak.
36 WHO WHO – World Health Organization was established in 1948 by the United Nations as the agency overseeing international public health.
37 Disinfectant A chemical agent that kills bacteria.
38 New Normal The new reality of the pandemic-ravaged world.
38 MAGA Campaign slogan of President Trump in 2016.
39 Fake News Packaged news, planted sources, one-sided exposes, party lines, and official narratives are a new phenomenon only to those with no sense of history.
40 Shelter-in-place Being confined to one’s home or institution to help prevent the spread of the coronavirus.
41 Nancy Pelosi The Speaker of the House of Representatives; the highest ranked Democratic office holder.
42 Self Isolate Quarantined for a minimum of 14 days after being exposed to Covid-19 to help stop the spread of the virus.
43 Dr. Anthony Fauci Dr. Anthony Fauci is director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases
44 “I Can’t Breathe” The last words uttered by George Floyd as he lay dying at the hands of Minneapolis police.
45 Essential Workers    Those workers who perform ‘essential’ tasks during the coronavirus pandemic, most notably in healthcare, food production and distribution, and the service sector.
46 Wet Market Outdoor markets that offer recently slaughtered meat, fish and poultry; sometimes including live animals.
47 Impeach Trump The Trump impeachment effort ended with a vote of acquittal on February 5, 2020, just as the pandemic was taking off in the US
48 Defund Police A movement to re-focus police departments to social welfare duties.
49 Super Spreader A single person or event that propagates ‘clusters’ of the outbreak.   Some 20% of infected super spreaders could be responsible for 80% of viral transmission.
50 Dr. Deborah  Birx Dr. Deborah Birx is the  Coronavirus Response Coordinator, White House Coronavirus Task Force.
The Global Language Monitor

 

Typically, the Global Language Monitor ranks words, phrases, and names on three separate lists, and the lists are limited to 20 items. For this effort, GLM has combined the lists and extended the word count to 50 items. 

Global Language Monitor began recording the Top Words of the Year in 2000 to document the history of the 21st Century through the English language, the world’s first truly global language. The words are culled throughout the English-speaking world, which as of January 2018 ranks more than 2.58 billion speakers. Global Language Monitor employs its NarrativeTracker​ technologies for global internet and social media analysis.

NarrativeTracker is based on global discourse, providing a real-time, accurate picture about any topic, at any point in time. NarrativeTracker analyzes the internet, blogosphere, and the top 300,000 print and electronic global media as well as new social media sources as they emerge.

In addition, the Global Language Monitor has also tracked the Top Words, Phrases and Names of the 21st Century.

More information about these and the company can be found at Languagemonitor.com.

About Global Language Monitor

Based in Austin, Texas, the Global Language Monitor collectively documents, analyzes and tracks trends in language usage worldwide, with a particular emphasis upon the English language. The company is known for its Word of the Year, political analysis, college and university rankings, high-tech buzzwords, and media analytics. For more information, visit Languagemonitor.com.

Media Contact:

Paul JJ Payack​
info@languagemonitor.com

pjjp@post.Harvard.edu

1 737.215.7750

Source: Global Language Monitor

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The Plague: The Imminent Danger (and increasing threat) of the “Super Spreader” Phenomenon

Commentary by Paul JJ Payack

    Paul JJ Payack

There is a very real and imminent threat of the emergence of “Super Spreaders” from the coronavirus pandemic.  This threat appears to be largely overlooked in an analysis of the news media recently completed by Austin-based Global Language Monitor, the data research company.

This risk of the emergence of ‘super spreaders’ has been significantly heightened  by three factors:  the gradual re-opening of the American economy, people flocking to summertime activities after Memorial Day, and the mass protests that have arisen since the death of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis Police Department on May 25th, 2020.  

Official statistics concerning the number of protesters have not been officially tallied, but it is reasonable to assume that there have been more than 1,000,000 to 1,500,000 participating in the US-based protests with another 500,000 in the rest of the world. The period of the protests continues lasted about two weeks ending with the march on Washington, on June 6, 2020.  Many participated on multiple days, multiplying chances of exposure.  

There has been significant research in the clustering and superspreader phenomena particularly since the emergence of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2).

On-going research, such as “Clustering and superspreading potential of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infections in Hong Kong” are currently in the process of peer review,  This and other similar studies are being posted online before the completion of the peer review process because of the severity of the on-going crisis.

The study suggests that most new cases of Covid-19 are propagated by ‘superspreaders’ and not by direct contact or one-on-one transmission.   Researchers assessed more than 1,000 infections in Hong Kong between January 23 and April 28.   The authors used intense contact tracing to determine the manner in which persons were infected with the SARS-CoV-2 virus, which causes COVID-19.   Other researchers have found that some 20% of Covid-19 carriers are responsible for about 80% of disease transmissions

Scientists tracking the new coronavirus’ spread have generally focused on two numbers:  reproduction number (Rο) pronounced ‘R-nought), which represents the average number of new infections caused by a single infected person. The second is called the dispersion factor (k), a number indicating the likelihood that a particular disease will spread in clusters.

Without any social distancing, the new coronavirus’ R-number, according to the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), is around 2.6 - 3.5 

This is where the K factor, measuring dispersion, comes into play. As opposed to the R number, the lower the lower the K number, the more likely it is the virus is propagated by small group of people.

Recent evidence concerning super spreading events abounds:  a meeting of pharmaceutical executives in Boston;  a house party in Westport, Connecticut; and a choir practice in Washington State, among many others.  Each of these smaller events resulted in the transmission of the virus to scores or hundreds of individuals.

Perhaps the most well-known of the current crop of superspreaders is the unnamed bartender at an Austrian Ski Resort.  Contact tracing found some 1300 infections in a number of countries traced to this particular transmitter.  Infections were traced to Iceland, Norway, Austria, and Germany.

Also of note is the finding that the key method of transmission appears to be exercising one’s lungs:  talking, singing, shouting, and speech-giving.  This makes any large gathering problematic in the extreme; whether cheering at a Trump rally, singing on a beach or shouting at a protest.

There is some concern that the fact of the potential exponential progression of the transmission of Covid-19. is not being widely discussed in the media, as shown below.  

The first graphic shows that as the Coronavirus Rapidly Spread in January, the pandemic that would ultimately take the lives of some 100,000 Americans by Labor Day, was treated as an after thought, the News Media was Focused on the Impeachment of President  Trump by a 10:1 Margin (Source: Google Trends).  

The second graphic shows that after the killing of George Floyd at the hands of the Minneapolis Police on May 25, the news media, overlooked the potential  for the exponential growth of the virus led by the superspreader phenomenon.  The ratio was 2:1 protests vs. Covid-19 stories, with virtually no mention of the inherent danger of the superspreader phenomenon.

 

According to Preliminary Estimation of the Basic Reproduction Number of Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV) in China, “The mean estimate of R0 for the 2019-nCoV ranges from 2.24 to 3.58, and is significantly larger than 1” 

This is especially troubling since a recent article in the New York Times,  an epidemiologist  opined  about the number of infections that could be attributed to the recent protests are based on his assumption that  “Over several weeks, as each infected person infected just under one other person on average — the current U.S. transmission rate — those infections would in turn lead to 15,000 to 50,000 more, and 50 to 500 eventual deaths”.   The article does not mention the possibility of the Superspreader Phenomenon.

If the effective R nought rate is indeed closer to that found in the HKUST study and if superspreaders lurk in the midst of these crowds,  both of which seem likely, than the number of infections would increase by a factor of ten, or more.

The New York Times article concluded that “Societal benefit of continued protests must be weighed against substantial potential impacts to health.”  According to the CDC,  some 60% of those deaths would be suffered by persons of color.

In another study, Clustering and superspreading potential of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infections in Hong Kong,  Benjamin  Cowling of Princeton University, one of the study coauthors, told Business Insider, “Superspreading events are happening more than we expected, more than what could be explained by chance. The frequency of superspreading is beyond what we could have imagined”.

Study the figure below: Transmission network associated with a single wedding exposure subsequently linked to a preceding social gathering and local source exposure.  Again, the graphic was based on contact tracing in Hong Kong.

From:  Clustering and superspreading potential of severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infections in Hong Kong

Now consider the timely and very real example  of  the infamous Philadelphia Parade at the height of the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918.

 

A huge parade was scheduled in the summer of 1918, the height of the Spanish Flu epidemic, to take place in the heart of Philadelphia.  It purpose was to raise money to support the ‘dough boys’ that had recently been shipped off to Europe to end the stalemate of the horrific ‘trench warfare’.  

Some 200,000 people thronged Broad Street on parade day, along a two-mile route; they cheered as the procession passed along the route.  The unintended result:  within a few days, every hospital bed in he city was occupied.  Within a week, nearly 3,000 died.  Ultimately some 20,000 would die.

The parade was for worthy cause:  The ending of the Great War.  World War I ended with a death toll of some 20,000,000.

Was participating in this colossal event, showing one’s commitment to the cause, to help change the course of world events worth the risk?  Most, at the time,  would have answered yes.

 

For Other Articles on Covid-19, click here. 

Coronavirus Calendar: TrendTopper Institute

CoronaVirus Calendar

GLM has created a which is based on published findings in the journal Lancet and the University of Hong Kong. We have created our own unpublished algorithm based on the official releases of China’s National Health Commission in which the numbers are much lower but still are cause for alarm. #china 

Analysis:

 

Coronageddon: Words of the Pandemic You Need to Know

The Bottom Line: “turbulent gas clouds and respiratory pathogen emissions pose a threat to the public even without the presence of a host. In other words: the longer an individual is outside unprotected, the higher the contraction risk,” said MIT associate professor Lydia Bourouiba.

‘Words of the Pandemic’ glossary and explainer has been released by the Global Language Monitor. 

“As with other global and significant events, GLM has assembled ‘The Words of the Pandemic’ explainer, a glossary of the essential terms the educated layperson needs to know to better understand the significance of the Coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic as it unfolds.” said Paul JJ Payack, President and Chief Word Analyst of the Global Language Monitor. 

The “Words of the Pandemic” explainer will be continuously updated. 
Below is the list of currently defined terms.

Term      Definition

Asymptomatic – Those who test positive for Covid-19 who present no immediate symptoms.

Black Death — The most devastating pandemic recorded in human history, resulting in the deaths of an estimated 75-to-200 million people in Eurasia, peaking in Europe from 1347 to 1351.

CDC — Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.  Located in Atlanta, Georgia, the CDC is part of the US Department of Health and Human Services.

Contagion — The definition of contagion is an infectious disease spread through contact, or the transmission of a disease from one person to another through contact, or the spread of a bad or harmful idea or practice

Corona – A crown or anything resembling a crown.  Also, the ring of highly charged ions surrounding the Sun that is visible during a total eclipse.  Under an electron microscope, the coronavirus outer surface resembles a crown.  Before the invention of the electron microscope, pandemic had more prosaic names such as the Black Death or Spanish Flu.

Covid-19 – The disease caused by the n-coronavirus-19 virus.  Officially named:  SARS-CoV-2.  n-coronavirus-19 is the medical classification of the current pandemic.

Endemic — A medical condition, regularly found a particular group or population.

Epicenter – The precise center of an earthquake or activity, or phenomenon.  The epicenter of Covid-19 is Wuhan China.

Epidemic — An outbreak of disease that spreads quickly and affects many individuals at the same time.

Epidemiology — the branch of medicine that investigates the causes and control of epidemics.

Exponential Growth — Growth whose rate becomes ever more rapid in proportion to the growing total number or size.

Flatten the Curve — Keeping people apart in time and space with social distancing measures, self-isolation and actual quarantine decreases opportunities for transmission.  The graphic below illustrates the effects of flattening the curve — a steep peak indicating a surge of coronavirus outbreak in the near term; the other has a flatter slope, indicating a more gradual rate of infection over a longer period of time.  The gentler curve results in fewer people infected at the beginning of an epidemic.  In effect, lessening the probability of a ‘’surge’ that would inundate a hospital system, as was recently occurred in Northern Italy.  The idea is to provide more time for a healthcare system to ramp up supplies, develop new medicines, and medical procedures.

Ground Zero — The location where the first case occurred, another term for ‘epicenter’.

H1N1 — The current strain of H1N1 consists of genes already found in existing variations of swine, avian and human flu viruses.

Inanimate Objects – So-called “seeds of disease” are able to transfer disease from one person to another.  In that new NEJM study, here’s the finding on coronavirus:  The coronavirus that causes covid-19 “was detectable … up to four hours on copper, up to 24 hours on cardboard and up to two to three days on plastic and stainless steel.”  Glass such as the ‘Gorilla Glass’ used for smart-phone displays are said to carry the virus for 10-days. 

Incubation Period — The time from exposure to a virus to the appearance of the symptoms.

Influenza — A serious disease caused by viruses that infects the upper respiratory tract.

Influenza Pandemic — A global outbreak of a new influenza ‘A’ virus that is easily transmitted from person-to-person worldwide.

Mutating Virus — In general, any flu virus mutates and evolves mechanisms that enable it to escape the immune defense systems of its victims. Scientists have now identified some six strains of the virus that causes Covid-19. 

Outbreak – Sudden increase in occurrence of disease in a particular place or locality.

Pandemic – an epidemic occurring over a wide geographic area and affecting an exceptionally high proportion of the population. 

Pandemic Phases — WHO has divided pandemics into six phases.  (See Figure.)

Pandemic Phase 1 — Low risk of human cases.  No viruses circulating among animals have been reported to cause infections in humans.

Pandemic Phase 2 — Higher risk of human cases.  An animal influenza virus circulating among domesticated or wild animals is known to have caused infection in humans and is therefore considered a potential pandemic threat.

Pandemic Phase 3 — No or very limited human-to-human transmission.  An animal or human-animal influenza re-assortant virus has caused sporadic cases or small clusters of disease in people but has not resulted in human-to-human transmission sufficient to sustain community-level outbreaks.

Pandemic Phase 4 — Human-to-human transmission of an animal or human-animal influenza reassortant virus able to cause “community-level outbreaks.” Implementation of a rapid pandemic containment operation is warranted. Phase 4 indicates a significant increase in risk of a pandemic.

Pandemic Phase 5 — Evidence of significant human-to-human transmission.  Human-to-human spread of the virus into at least two countries in one WHO region.  While most countries will not be affected at this stage, the declaration of Phase 5 is a strong signal that a pandemic is imminent and that the time to finalize the organization, communication, and implementation of the planned mitigation measures is short.

Pandemic Phase 6 — Efficient and sustained human-to-human transmission. This pandemic phase is characterized by community level outbreaks in at least one other country in a different WHO region in addition to the criteria defined in Phase 5. Designation of this phase indicates that a global pandemic is under way.2q

Pangolin – A scaly anteater; a toothless mammal found in Asia and Africa that is thought to have passed the coronavirus from horse bats to humans.  Pangolins were suspected of being sold in an open-air to be ingested by humans.

Plague – The plague is an infectious disease due to a bacterium called Yersinia pestis. Y. that mainly infects rats and other rodents.

Quarantine – Isolating individuals to prevent the spread of infection diseases.

Quarantine in Place – Isolation for a two-week period after exposure to someone with Covid-19.

R0 — Reproductive value where R0 is the average number of people who will catch the disease from a single infected person, in a population that’s never seen the disease before; if it’s greater than 1, the infection will probably keep spreading, and if it’s less than 1, the outbreak will likely peter out.  New research reviews the basic reproduction number (R0) of the new coronavirus, that is, the number that indicates how transmissible a virus is, and finds that it is much higher than current estimates.  R0 for 2019-nCoV is expected to be around 2–3,

“Ring Around the Rosie” – Globally known children’s rhyme that harkens back to the Bubonic Plague of the Middle Ages.

Shelter in Place – An order to remain safety within the building one already occupies, rather than to evacuate the area or seek a community emergency shelter.

Self-isolate — Anyone with the tell-tale fever or cough has been told to self-isolate entirely for seven days, while other members of their household must do the same for two weeks.

Social Distancing — (See Update Newsflash Atop List) Keeping people apart in time and space with social distancing measures, self-isolation and actual quarantine decreases opportunities for transmission.

Spanish Flu – Some fifty-to-200 million or more died in the 1918 pandemic, up to 200,000 in the US.  Some 30% of the world’s population of 1.5 billion were infected.

Super Spreader — In epidemics, a small number of people can spread a disproportionately large number of infections.

Swine Flu — Officially named swine influenza A (H1N1).

Symptoms — Body aches, fever, headaches, sore throat, body pain, chills and fatigue. Sometimes diarrhea and vomiting.         

Tokyo 2020:  The Games of the XXXII Olympiad – The Summer Olympic Games have been rescheduled to begin on July 23, 2021.

Typhoid Mary — Ms. Mallon was suspected of transmitting typhoid fever to 51 people during the Spanish Flu pandemic (Possibly by serving ice cream with unwashed hands.).

WHO — Located in Geneva, Switzerland, the World Health Organization, is the directing and coordinating authority for health within the United Nations

Zoonotic – Diseases that spread from animals to humans, such as the Covid-19 and Ebola.

About the Global Language Monitor

Austin-Texas-based Global Language Monitor is a data research firm that analyzes and catalogues the latest trends in word usage and word choices, and their impact on the various aspects of culture, with a particular emphasis upon Global English.  For more information, email info@LanguageMonitor.com, visit www.LanguageMonitor.com, or call +1.737.215.7750.

Question: Who Missed the Emergence of the Coronavirus?

Answer: The Administration (including Congress), Academia, and the Media

See CoronaGeddon: Words of the Pandemic You Need to Know

The Early Stages of the Pandemic from The Lancet. with Data from HKUS&T

See The Coronavirus Calendar Here

The potential for a global pandemic of historic proportions was in plain sight for the administration, academia, and the global media to see in January and February.

Back in January, the Global Language Monitor, the data research company,  created a data model of the expansion of the newly discovered n-coronavirus in Wuhan, China.   (You can see this on the LanguageMonitor (dot) com site.)

The numbers were truly frightening, so frightening that I decided not to publish my findings until I could find a respected research study that mirrored my numbers and projections. I found one, published in The Lancet medical journal in the UK, that used data from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUS&T).   The Lancet created a number of graphics that illustrated the impending nightmare that you can see on our site.

The key to HKS&T’s data is that it assumes a much larger base to start from (rather than China’s official count). I then created the Coronavirus Calendar that I published about six or seven weeks ago, the main point of which was that the virus doubles every six days or so, with an infection rate of 2.63 with a mortality rate of about .02.  (The mortality rate has been a bit lower over the last few weeks but is actually higher in Iran and Italy.) GLM distributed this study to the worldwide media. 

Update: China Did Not Count 43,000 Asymptomatic Cases

Though I created the Coronavirus Calendar, I am still shocked at how quickly it is moving. (For California, that’s 39 million * .6 * .02%.) If you extrapolate these numbers for your community, state, region or nation, you can see the horrifying conclusions.

This is not to say, of course, that this result is inevitable.  There is still much that can be done by the concerted efforts of the global institutions — and the very real fact that many pandemics in the past have actually burned themselves out.

Paul JJ Payack
President
The Global Language Monitor
Austin, Texas

Tokyo 2020: The Global Language Monitor Finds That the Olympic Games Have Been Ambushed by COVID-19

Through its proprietary algorithms, a study conducted by Global Language Monitor determined the Olympic Games themselves have a remarkable 84.5% correlation to the Coronavirus and Covid-19.

Copyright 2020 Global Language Monitor

The Correlation Between Tokyo 2020 and the Coronavirus

As the 2020 Summer Olympic Games in Tokyo fast approach, the threat of coronavirus is dominating the global conversation. Global Language Monitor (GLM), an Austin-based data research firm that analyzes Global trends across the world, helps companies discover how their brands are being perceived, and how closely they are being associated with current events.

In their exclusive ambush marketing analysis for the seventh consecutive Olympic Games, GLM has found that the Tokyo 2020 Games have themselves been ambushed by the coronavirus and COVID-19, with a remarkable 84.5% correlation to the coronavirus and Covid-19. 

This means that in GLM’s global research data, out of every 100 references to the 2020 Tokyo Summer Olympics, more than 80 also contained a reference to the coronavirus and/or COVID-19. The study was concluded on March 16, 2020

“In our studies over the years we have found some remarkable ambushers from an animated cartoon character (Beijing 2008, Kung-fu Panda) to world leaders on the brink of a nuclear crisis (PyeongChang 2018, Kim Jong-un and Donald Trump), but never did we imagine a global pandemic as an Olympic Ambusher,” said Paul JJ Payack, President and Chief Word Analyst of the Global Language Monitor.

Going a step further, the GLM study also includes an analysis on how closely brands and a number of their competitors are being affected by the coronavirus, which is a global concern in the lead up to the Tokyo Games. The information is critical in helping brands position themselves accordingly and adapt to the volatility of the situation as the threat of COVID-19 looms.

“We actually found a remarkable correlation between the coronavirus and the Worldwide Olympic Partners,” Payack continued.  “A number of the Brands (and ambushers), actually had nearly as many citations linked to the coronavirus as to the Games themselves.  In a few cases, citations to the coronavirus actually exceeded those to the Tokyo 2020.”

Affiliation Between Worldwide Olympic Partners and the Coronavirus


Using the BAI™ (Brand Affiliation Index™), and the EAI™ (Entity Affiliation Index™) and other proprietary algorithms, GLM also determined which Tokyo sponsors are linked most closely to the Tokyo 2020 brand, as shown in the chart below,

The Affiliation of the Worldwide Olympic Partners to the Tokyo 2020 Brand by BAI

The study pulls data from an abundance of data points from across the internet and the top 350,000 print, electronic news media outlets, and social networking sites analyzing sentiment, context and a host of other factors to determine which Worldwide Olympic Partners are most closely associated with the Olympic Games, and which brands are being closely associated with Covid-19, the coronavirus or both. The findings are published in the Tokyo 2020 Ambush Marketing Report [link].  The Top Ambush Marketers ninety-days out from the start of the Tokyo Games follow:

The Top Ambush Marketers ninety-days out from the start of the Tokyo Games follow:

The Top Ambushers of the Worldwide Olympic Partners by BAI

Tokyo 2020 sponsors are segmented by the amount they pay in fees to the (IOC) International Olympic Committee. The various classifications are Worldwide Olympic Partners, Olympic Gold Partners, Olympic Official Partners, Official Olympic Supporters.

Though sponsorship fees are never officially acknowledged, the total, fully loaded, cost of a tier-one Olympic Sponsorship has been estimated to be as much as one billion USD ($1,000,000,000) over the course of a four-year Olympiad.  Partners’ competitors are also put under the microscope to determine the effectiveness of ambush marketing techniques. In Olympics past, opportunistic ambush marketers have leveraged the worldwide popularity of the Olympic Games without any sort of sponsorship, yet still maintained a high degree of association. The analysis helps provide insights that empower brands with leverage to determine whether their investment is worthwhile.  The complete Tokyo Olympics Ambush Marketing Report is available, here.

Early this March, the IOC Executive Board expressed its full commitment to the Tokyo Games, scheduled to take place from July 24 to August 9, reporting that all protective measures are being taken to address the coronavirus situation. This situation has steadily deteriorated.

“Infodemic” Declared English-language Word by the Global Language Monitor

One of the Fastest Words Ever to be Recognized in Global English

March 3, 2020, Austin, Texas — Infodemic has been accepted as an official English-Language word by the Global Language Monitor (GLM), the US-based data research firm. This is among the fastest a word has ever met the minimum criteria for ‘wordhood,’ about six weeks from the first recorded citation.

The prestigious British medical journal, The Lancet, commented a few days ago: “A global epidemic of misinformation - spreading rapidly through social media platforms and other outlets - poses a serious problem for public health.

According to the MIT Technology Review, “The coronavirus is the first true social-media “infodemic” [where] Social media has zipped information and misinformation around the world at unprecedented speeds, fueling panic, racism … and hope”.

Infodemic has met all requirements to be considered an English-language word — ready to takes its place among the million-or-so others of the fourteen-hundred-year-old language,” said Paul JJ Payack, GLM’s President and Chief Word Analyst.

To be considered an official English-language, the neologism must satisfy all three criteria:

  • Geographic distribution — The word must appear across political entities and geographic regions.
  • Diversity of Media — The word must appear in a variety of media, including print and electronic media, online and social media, and books and magazines.
  • A minimum number of citations: 25,000.

At the Munich Security Conference on February 15, the WHO Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus pronounced, “We’re not just fighting an epidemic; we’re fighting an infodemic”. Within a few weeks, market data provider Refinitiv included the word in research reports and then was repeated in various media outlets, including the South China Morning Post.

A quick search on Goole now provides nearly 700,000 entries.

Infodemic is a ‘portmanteau’ neologism. First used by Lewis Carroll in 1871, a linguistic blend of words or phonemes (sounds) are combined into a new word, in this case, Information and epidemic, Such words can be easier to pronounce and understand than other types of new word creation.

About Global Language Monitor

Based in Austin, Texas, the Global Language Monitor collectively documents, analyzes and tracks trends in language usage worldwide, with a particular emphasis upon the English language. The company is known for its Word of the Year, To Global Fashion Capitals, political analysis, college and university rankings, high-tech buzzwords, and media analytics.

For more information, visit Languagemonitor.com, email info@languagemonitor.com or call +1.737.215.7750.

The COVID-19 (Corona Virus) Calendar

The ThoughtTopper Institute

Projections from Published Numbers

The COVID-19 Virus
The COVID-19 Virus

March 29, 2020 Update

Beijing excluded 43,000 Positive Tests from the Published Numbers

COVID-19 (Coronavirus) Calendar

New: What You Need to Know & How to Protect Yourself

(South China Morning Post 2/21/2020)

This is being posted only to those who follow me; Please be discreet when distributing.

We are publishing this article only to show the extent of the spread of the virus IF LEFT UNCHECKED. All recent potential pandemics (including Ebola, SARS, and MERS) were stopped due to deliberate action taken by the worldwide medical community (especially the WHO, the CDC, NHC, etc.,) and the proper precautions directed by the relevant government bodies and heroic NGOs.

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ThoughtTopper Institute: The COVID-19 (Coronavirus) Calendar

Overview: The news from China is not good. Most recently The South China Morning Post detailed,

Measures unveiled by the authorities in Beijing and Shanghai on Monday include stricter controls on the movement of residents and vehicles, compulsory mask-wearing and shutting down leisure and other non-essential community services … Beijing Daily reported on Monday that the capital, with a population of over 20 million, would step up efforts to further restrict access to residential communities and compounds and introduce a citywide registration system for entries into Beijing. 

In addition, “Officials at the epidemic control and prevention centre in Shanghai said on Monday that “the vast majority” of the city’s 13,000 residential communities and compounds had instituted “lockdown management”, including entry restrictions and mandatory temperature checks.”

Confusion Abounds

According to the New York Times, “on Thursday, officials added more than 14,840 new cases to the tally of the infected in Hubei Province alone, bringing the total number to 48,206, the largest one-day increase so far recorded. The death toll in the province rose to 1,310, including 242 new deaths.

The sharp rise in reported cases illustrates how hard it has been for scientists to grasp the extent and severity of the coronavirus outbreak in China, particularly inside the epicenter, where thousands of sick people remain untested for the illness.”

Furthermore, some investigators have suggested that the number of new cases was leveling off and will, in fact, peak and level off in the next few weeks. One study actually picked a date (February 23); mark your calendar.

Projections from Published Numbers

The COVID-19 Calendar is based on the data provided by the British medical journal The Lancet working with data supplied to them by the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology (HKUST), and the National Health Commission (NHC) of China, among others. The Global Language Monitor is not responsible for any of the data — only with the extrapolation of the data.

Obviously, COVID-19 cannot expand indefinitely as in the extrapolation above. Typically, these pandemics either burn themselves out or a halted through Human intervention. The gravest predictions now top out at a 60% infection rate for the entire Human population. Rest assured, that that has never happened in all recorded history.

Note: Tip of the Ice Berg? These extrapolations in themselves are hypothetical and should be taken as such. These numbers assume that the number of infections has been substantially under-reported, due to a number of factors, as outlined in the Lancet article.

This data was gathered with an abundance of caution after studying the various numbers coming out of Wuhan. The projected numbers are published herein because these results have been assiduously avoided in the media in all forms.

Origin of Graphics, The Lancet

No alt text provided for this image

This ThoughtTopper Institute publication was compiled by Paul JJ Payack, President and Chief Word Analyst of the Global Language Monitor.

About Global Language Monitor

Based in Austin, Texas, the Global Language Monitor is a data research organization. For more information, call +1.737.215.7750 or email Info@languageMonitor.com