China

Lambda, Mu … Omicron? Why the WHO skipped ‘Nu’ and ‘Xi’ to name latest coronavirus variant



Going by the Greek alphabet, the next names should have been “Nu” and “Xi” but the WHO skipped them and went on to call the latest coronavirus variant “Omicron”.But why? Was it to avoid similarities with Chinese President Xi Jinping’s name?Before the World Health Organization named Omicron as a variant “of concern” on Friday, the last identified variant was the Mu variant, named after the 12th out of 24 letters in the Greek alphabet.Nu and Xi, the 13th and 14th letters, were next in line.But in…



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