“Because it leads to a big geopolitical squabble. You get people using the origin terms because they want to harm or embarrass the people or the governments in those regions, and that’s counterproductive from a disease-control standpoint. So we’re calling this one CARS-ArV. The ‘CA’ stands for ‘camel-associated’ since we believe the virus transferred to humans from artiodactyls like camels.”

A heated babble broke out. One man raised his voice above the rest. “CAR ART? You’re calling this thing CAR ART?”

“No, I’m not calling it CAR ART, because that sounds silly and this is not a silly situation,” said Kira. Her voice had taken on a slight edge of impatience. “You can call it the CAR ART virus if you don’t want to be taken seriously. But I’d refer to it as the artiovirus, or by its scientific name: CARS-ArV.”

Light laughter in the room as the CAR ART guy took his seat. “If it came from camels, is it related to MERS?” asked the next questioner, a woman from NPR.

Kira looked relieved. “That’s a good question. MERS was also associated with camels, though a different kind of camel and a different kind of virus. But it does bring up an interesting dilemma.”

The press waited.

“One of the tools we use to try to eradicate a virus is to extinguish its animal reservoir. We’ve done that before in China with palm civets and in America with chickens and in Britain with cows. But it would be very difficult to do with camels.”

“Why?”

“Well, it’s one thing to take out a bunch of palm civets or ferret badgers or even chickens. They’re not exactly beloved pet-like creatures. But camels are a prized animal. They’re vital in a whole bunch of different areas of commerce and culture. Plus, would you want to be the one to slaughter millions and millions of camels? That would create a lot of supersized corpses, which would be difficult and dangerous to dispose of. Have you ever seen a camel up close? They’re huge and they’re very fetching animals.”

The press calmed down. Some of them were even smiling.

“So,” said Kira, “we’re going to try a different approach. We’re going to try to vaccinate the camels. Now”—she held up a hand—“before you ask, we don’t have a vaccine yet, for either camels or humans. But that’s one of the things we are working on to halt future spread of this virus. And, as you know, viruses mutate.”