[Tiksi]

Yeah, I agree it's technically not correct, but in the context of coronavirus specifically, much like COVID-19 is the disease and SARS-CoV-2 is the virus, but everyone calls it COVID, that's what people are referring to in my experience.

In other contexts New England is usually used correctly, though I have seen people include NY and/or the original 13 colonies as "New England"

That said I didn't know about the mid-atlantic administrative region, thanks for that info. It seems really weird to call NY, which borders Canada, mid-atlantic and have it stop at the south of NJ, especially when east north central goes further south. South atlantic looks about 2-3x bigger than mid and definitely goes way past the north-south halfway point of the east coast.