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They 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
by throwaway4good 5y ago
They 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.