India: “My name is Covid, not a virus.”

My name is Covid, not a virus. This is the first sentence from the profile of Indian entrepreneur Kovid Kapoor on Twitter, which caused a stir on social media.

The 31-year-old, who is the head of a travel startup, explained on the social network that this week he traveled abroad for the first time since the start of the pandemic, and that his first name “has been entertaining a lot of people”.

“My future trips abroad will be fun!” He tweeted, with a post that garnered 40,000 “likes” and retweeted 4,000 times, adding that if his first name helped him break the ice in meetings, on the other hand when he went to order a cup of coffee, he asked one not to announce his first name in the cantonad.

His comment sparked a torrent of jokes, ‘memes’, letters and even requests for interviews, injecting a bit of kindness into a sad topic, as the number of variable Omicron infections increases in India.

He told AFP he hoped that all this publicity would be reflected in his work, which is facing difficulties like all workers in this sector.

Covid, which, in Hindi and Sanskrit, means scholar or educated individual, is a first name that is not widely used in India. He explained that his mother chose his first name long before he was born.

“It’s an unforgettable name with a beautiful meaning,” he said. “It makes an impression when I introduce myself. I wouldn’t change it for the world.”