Accordingly, there used to be a UK variant, an Indian variant, a South African variant, a Brazilian variant and a few more. Since the scientific names are not easy to remember, the more widely prevalent variants started to be named after the country from which they were first reported. This designation shows that the variant has evolved from the B.1 variant. The Omicron variant, for example, is also known by its more scientific designation B.1.1.529. All of them are given scientific names which represent their parentage and the chain of evolution. Their decision to skip the two letters and use the next available one to name the latest variant had generated a lot of curiosity and interest on the internet.ĭepending on the threat they pose, WHO classifies new variants either as ‘variants under monitoring (VUMs)’, ‘variants of interest (VoIs)’ or ‘variants of concern (VoCs)’. “Two letters were skipped – Nu and Xi – because Nu is too easily confounded with “new” and XI was not used because it is a common surname and WHO best practices for naming new diseases (developed in conjunction with FAO and OIE back in 2015) suggest avoiding ‘causing offence to any cultural, social, national, regional, professional or ethnic groups’,” the WHO said in a statement.
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