Omicron Variant?
 

Can anyone shed any light as to why the latest Covid-19 variant has been designated using the Greek letter omicron.

I understand so far WHO has designated four variants, alpha, beta, gamma and delta, so why jump to omicron, when there are several more letters in between to choose from?.

That is because it is a Transformer like Optimus Prime, going to save the Earth from Aliens. :shrug:

Rev.

From inews.com....

"Why is the new strain called Omicron?

Omicron is the Greek letter “O”, and is the 15th letter in the Greek alphabet.

The reason such a late letter has been used is twofold. Firstly, there are other variants that, while not classified as variants of concern, still have been named. For instance, there are Lambda and Mu variants, we just do not really hear about them, as they are barely prevalent.

Secondly, the WHO decided to skip ahead and not name any variants “Nu” or “Xi”.

WHO spokesperson Tarik Jasarevic said Nu is too similar to the world “new”, while Xi has not been used because it is a common last name.

He added that the WHO aims to avoid “causing offence to any cultural, social, national, regional, professional or ethnic groups” when naming viruses."

So now we know!!

We're expecting Ultron any time soon.:eek:

Thanks Paul, can't resist:

'He added that the WHO aims to avoid “causing offence to any cultural, social, national, regional, professional or ethnic groups” when naming viruses." '


Thanks for that. It seems the WHO are perhaps unaware of the unfortunate, and possibly the only, anagram of Omicron being ‘moronic’.

Thanks for the information, good to know that 'prospective variants' have 'aleady' been allocated Greek letters however these have not been problematic enough to be made 'public' as it were.

Just by way of information I suppose. The Greeks have been telling the rest of the world, who use our language, that they have been mispronouncing it, including the letters of the alphabet ( a Greek word!) for centuries!. No Greek will say Nu as in new, or Xi as in pie, so had the world taken the trouble to learn the language from which almost all other languages, certainly European ones, are based, then organisations such as the WHO wouldn't have to play political correctness in case it offends, so the letter following delta is epsilon, the 5th letter of the Greek alphabet, no confusion there, not even a hint of offense.

Yesterday I watched Wee Burney saying there were 11 cases of Omicron in Scotland as she attempted to pacify the malcontents among the members of the Scottish Parliament. Thin ice.

Pedant alert!

Omicron is one of two Greek letters for O, the other one being Omega. Likewise they have two letters for E, namely Epsilon and Eta

Never heard her called that before:}:} I've heard her called Wee Jimmy Crankie...

We are back to working at home again now until more news on this variant is looked at, we had just started going back into the office once every fortnight and was due to go in today.

Despite having one or two forbears giving me a Hibernian connection, I admit I don't fully know the reason for the nickname. Alec Salmond perhaps?