In the early days of the coronavirus outbreak, President Trump referred to the virus as “the China virus” and “the Chinese virus.” But in a press briefing on March 18, the president got pushback from the media. A reporter asked why he was calling it the “Chinese virus” when there were reports of bias against Chinese Americans.

Trump’s immediate response (“because it comes from China”), as well as his references to China’s conspiracy theory implicating the U.S. military, made everything clear. But in the days following, he changed his wording to “COVID,” “COVID-19,” “the virus,” and sometimes “plague.”