The dictionary of this pandemic is another term richer. The World Health Organization has named the new variant ‘omikron’. Another letter of the Greek alphabet, but not the expected next one. ‘To avoid stigmatization’, it reads.
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We once knew Alfa as the British variant, Delta as the Indian one. The mutations that have now surfaced in South Africa are labeled ‘omikron’. The Greek letters make it easier to talk than the scientific name – like this B.1.1.529. “It’s an easy way to name the correct variant without mistakes,” according to the WHO.
And so we are already at the fifteenth letter of the Greek alphabet. At the moment there are still seven variants that are being followed up. Five of these are ‘worrying’: alpha, beta, gamma, delta and omikron. Lambda and mu are monitored, but are less important. The variants epsilon, zeta, eta, theta, iota and kappa were noticed but were soon dominated by other variants.
Popular last name
But the letters nu and xi were skipped. The reason for this is that now would be ‘too confusing’, and can sound like the word ‘new’. Xi is a very common surname in China, just think of President Xi Jinping.
Scientific publications stick to the official name with letters and numbers, because they also contain a lot of information about the nature of the variant. But the choice not to use geographical names outside of that is a conscious strategy of the WHO.
Donald Trump has long talked about the Wuhan virus instead of corona, others stick to names such as ‘Indian variant’. But that is “stigmatizing and discriminating” against where a variant is first discovered, according to the WHO. Such geographical names were also not always accurate in the past. For example, the Spanish flu would not have originated from Spain, but rather from the US.
Let’s just hope we never get omega.
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