Well ... it is pretty commonly used in the UK to mean disease/virus etc. such as 'a stomach bug', but I still don't think that excuses or explains its usage in

Well ... it is pretty commonly used in the UK to mean disease/virus etc. such as 'a stomach bug', but I still don't think that excuses or explains its usage in this article. To me that just reads like a poor use of technical terminology. But yeah as another commenter noted this article is aimed at a non-technical audience.