In choosing a name for the latest variant of SARS-CoV-2, Omicron, the World Health Organization (WHO) ignored two letters of the Greek alphabet, one of which is also a popular surname in China. , shared even by President Xi Jinping.
The WHO has used Greek letters to denote the most prevalent variants of the coronavirus, which otherwise have long scientific names.
The organization has already used 12 letters of the Greek alphabet before the new variant appeared in South Africa this week. After Mu, the 12th named after a Greek letter, WHO chose the name Omicron, instead of Nu or Xi, the two letters between Mu and Omicron.
The WHO said Nu could have been mistaken for the word “new” when Xi was not chosen following a convention.
“Two letters were ignored – Nu and Xi – because Nu is too easily confused with ‘new’ and XI was not used as it is a common surname and WHO best practice to name the new diseases (developed in collaboration with FAO and OIE in 2015) suggest to avoid “offending any cultural, social, national, regional, professional or ethnic group”, the WHO said in a statement.
All variants have scientific names that represent their parentage and the chain of evolution. Omicron, for example, is also known by its more scientific designation B.1.1.529, which shows that it evolved from the B.1 lineage.
Since scientific names are not easy to remember, the most common variants began to be named after the country from which they were first reported: “British variant”, “Indian variant”, “South African variant” or “Brazilian variant”.
To remove the link with specific countries, which triggered a game of insults and blame, the WHO decided on a new naming system using Greek letters. The variant which was previously called “Indian” was therefore given the name Delta, while the one associated with the United Kingdom was named Alpha.
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