The World Health Organization skipped two Greek letters to arrive at the name ‘Omicron’ for the new COVID-19 variant, first found in South Africa. The United Nations body identified it as a “variant of concern”. The strain was initially known as B.1.159. 

“This variant has a large number of mutations, some of which are concerning,” the WHO said in a statement on Friday adding that preliminary evidence suggests “an increased risk of reinfection with this variant, as compared to other VOCs (variants of concern)”. 

Also read: How does Omicron compare with other COVID variants?

Interestingly, while picking the name of the new variant of SARS-CoV2, the World Health Organization skipped two letters of the Greek alphabet, here’s why.

WHO skipped Nu and Xi and jumped to Omicron when the COVID variant was detected in South Africa. 

Also read: Omicron scare in India: Government’s SOPs for states/UTs

Justifying the decision, the world body said that Nu could have been confused with the word ‘new’ while Xi was not picked up following a convention.

“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.

Also read: US praises South Africa over Omicron handling in veiled jab at China

However, several on the internet slammed the WHO for deliberately avoiding ‘Xi’ because it is the Chinese President’s name.  

“If the WHO is this scared of the Chinese Communist Party, how can they be trusted to call them out the next time they’re trying to cover up a catastrophic global pandemic?” US Republican Senator Ted Cruz said. 

 “A WHO source confirmed the letters Nu and Xi of the Greek alphabet had been deliberately avoided. Nu had been skipped to avoid confusion with the word ‘new’ and Xi had been skipped to ‘avoid stigmatising a region’, they said. All pandemics inherently political! (SIC),” Senior Editor of The Telegraph Paul Nuki tweeted. 

Also read: Wouldn’t be surprised if Omicron COVID variant is already in US: Anthony Fauci

The WHO classifies new variants either as ‘variants under monitoring (VUMs)’, ‘variants of interest (VoIs)’ or ‘variants of concern (VoCs)’. They are given names that represent their parentage and the chain of evolution.

‘Omicron’ (uppercase Ο, lowercase ο) is the 15th letter of the Greek alphabet. It has a value of 70. The letter is derived from the Phoenician letter ayin, which was shaped like a circle and meant “eye” in Phoenician language. 

There are currently five variants of concern — Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and Omicron. Two variants of interest – Lambda and Mu.