The coronavirus variants will be named based on the letters of the Greek alphabet instead of their place of discovery, the World Health Organization said in a bid to avoid stigma.
The WHO has named four disturbing variants, known to the public as the UK / Kent variants (B.1.1.7), South Africa (B.1.351), Brazil (P.1) and India (B.1.617) .2). They will be given the letters Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta, respectively, to reflect the order of discovery. Each new variant will follow this pattern.
The decision to go for this naming system came after months of discussions with experts considering a range of other options, such as the Greek gods. The WHO said the new designations do not replace existing scientific names that include numbers, Roman letters and periods, which convey important scientific information and will continue to be used in research.
"Although they have their advantages, these scientific names can be difficult to say and remember and tend to be misreported. As a result, people often refer to them as variants of the places where they were discovered, which is stigmatizing and discriminatory. "To avoid this and to simplify public communications, the WHO encourages national authorities, media outlets and others to adopt these new designations."
Historically, diseases have generally been named after the locations where they were detected, such as the Ebola virus, which got its name from the Congo River. However, these designations can be detrimental to countries and are often inaccurate, as is the case with the "Spanish flu" of 1918, the origin of which is unknown.
Crimes driven by hatred of Asians have increased as a result of the pandemic and the fact that Covid was first discovered in Wuhan, China.
Sources: Guardian, CNN
