Corona Virus strains to be named after Greek letters

Since the time Pandemic began, the batch of covid19 viruses was named differently, former US president Trump called it the China virus. A novel coronavirus (nCoV) was identified on 7 January 2020 and was temporarily named “2019-nCoV”. It was subsequently named the “COVID-19 virus”. Since its first discovery, Covid 19 virus has been mutating and different variants are found in different parts of the world. WHO has been naming the virus strains with a combination of numbers and alphabets which go by multiple names including B.1.351, 501Y.V2 and 20H/501Y.V2. WHO has been facing criticism for its complicated naming system.

Following this, WHO has decided to name the Covid 19 strains following the Greek numbering system. The four coronavirus variants considered of concern by the U.N. agency and known generally by the public as the UK, South Africa, Brazil and India variants have now been assigned the Greek letters Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta, respectively, according to the order of their detection.

The Indian variant will be known as the Delta variant of Covid 19 Virus.

Explaining this decision, WHO denoted “While they have their advantages, these scientific names can be difficult to say and recall and are prone to misreporting,”