5 ms·
How was "Omicron" chosen as the name of this variant?
by nope96 5y ago
How was "Omicron" chosen as the name of this variant?
- jenny91 5y agoThey're just going through the greek alphabet, I believe
- manojlds 5y agoAnd skipped Xi
- dmt0 5y agoXi was the original variant
- omginternets 5y agoI almost corrected you before realizing how brilliant you are. Well played.
- bserge 5y agoI like to think "Futurama". Soon Omicron Persei 8 will subjugate the humans!
- throwaway4good 5y agoThey use the greek alphabet to avoid stigmatising or politicizing the origins the various variants. They also pick names that are easy to remember and pronounce as opposed to the more technical names (ie. B.1.1.529).
- throwaway4good 5y agoThese names are for public consumption. The reality is a world of tens of thousands variants that are constantly evolving. The B.1.1.529 is from a computer program that names clusters of variants via a clustering algorithm.
- Kye 5y agoPangolin, pangolout https://github.com/cov-lineages/pangolin https://github.com/cov-lineages/pangolin I'm surprised it has so few stars, watches, and forks given how big a deal it is.
- throwawayboise 5y agoAny thoughts on whether they would have done this greek alphabet thing had the first outbreak been in Africa instead of China? And why change now, when viruses (and variants) have long been named after the country or region where the first outbreak was recorded?
- samus 5y agoWhat if a second variant occured in the same country? We shouldn't be afraid of existing names that are taken from persons or placenames, but it's worth switching to better naming systems where they make sense.
- cblconfederate 5y agoI suppose Nu might be dangerously confusing with Mu , and Xi was politically untenable. The next one is going to be Pi
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- leegraham 5y ago'Nu' also has the problem of sounding like 'new', so phrases like 'the Nu variant' are confusing if spoken aloud.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- funtimes323 5y agoCause it sounds more scary than 'Nu'. We'll have to see what King Puppy Killer, a.k.a Dr. Mengel, a.k.a Fauci the Horrible has to say.