After Omega

[NotAllThere]

No, totally agree, got to cater for the masses after all. But we seem to manage with things like H5N1...

Didn't the government cancel that project further than Leeds?

[d000hg]

No, totally agree, got to cater for the masses after all. But we seem to manage with things like H5N1...

You mean avian flu? https://www.gov.uk/government/news/b...-great-britain

How awful it is trying to make complicated science accessible to the 'masses'. We shouldn't be informing them of things over their silly little heads.

Even medical people use the names as shorthand. Only snobs insist on using complicated names to make it clear how clever they are.

‘I’m afraid I can’t comment on the name Rain God at the present time, and we are calling him an example of a Spontaneous Para-Causal Meteorological Phenomenon.’

‘Can you tell us what that means?’

‘I’m not altogether sure.»? Let’s be straight here.»? If we find something we can’t understand, we like to call it something»? you can’t understand, or indeed pronounce.»? I mean if we just let you go around calling him a Rain God, then that suggests you know something we don’t, and I’m afraid we couldn’t have that.

‘No, first we have to call it something which says it’s ours, not yours, then we set about finding some way of proving it’s not what you said it is, but something we say it is.

‘And if it turns out that you’re right, you’ll still be wrong, because we will simply call him a … er, “Supernormal…” — not paranormal or supernatural because you think you know what those mean now, no, a “Supernormal Incremental Precipitation Inducer”.»? We’ll probably want to shove a “Quasi” in there somewhere to protect ourselves.»? Rain God!»? Huh, never heard such nonsense in my life.»? Admittedly, you wouldn’t catch me going on holiday with him.’

[malvolio]

You mean avian flu? https://www.gov.uk/government/news/b...-great-britain

How awful it is trying to make complicated science accessible to the 'masses'. We shouldn't be informing them of things over their silly little heads.

Even medical people use the names as shorthand. Only snobs insist on using complicated names to make it clear how clever they are.

Flu doesn't have a shorthand name: it's "the flu". The popular names derive from misunderstandings of its origin. Every year the human-affecting variant of the day is referred to by its reference number, even in the papers. Perhaps, being an ex-microbiologist married to a practising microbiologist with an knowledge of epidemiology I'm a little biased, but it is not snobbish not to talk down to people...

Covid is one of many coronaviruses - some of us had one of those related viruses in Christmas 2019 and it really wasn't pleasant - and should be called Covid-19. It may acquire a more generic name at some point, but that hasn't happened yet. Then again it really ought to be called SARS-Covid-2 anyway, but "SARS" probably scares people since the last epidemic happened.

[SueEllen]

Oh dear!

https://www.theguardian.com/world/li...of-who-meeting

First European case of B.1.1.529 variant identified in Belgium A first case in Europe of the new variant of Covid-19 has been identified in Belgium in an unvaccinated young adult woman who developed mild flu-like symptoms 11 days after traveling to Egypt via Turkey.

The patient did not report any links with South Africa or other countries in southern Africa. None of her family members have developed symptoms. The patient was said to have a high viral load at the time of diagnosis by researchers at the universities, KU Leuven and UZ Leuven.

[NickFitz]

What are we going to call the variant after we've reached Omega Variant?

Given the apparently random order in which they're plucking them from the alphabet, the one after Omega will probably be called Rho or Omicron

[_V_]

Given the apparently random order in which they're plucking them from the alphabet, the one after Omega will probably be called Rho or Omicron

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-59426277

The World Health Organization designates the new strain of Covid a "variant of concern" and gives it the Greek name Omicron

[NickFitz]

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/live/world-59426277

I'm confused now. This morning we were supposed to be worrying about Nu and now it's Omicron. Did they change the letter, or are there two new ones?

[AtW]

[NickFitz]

I'm confused now. This morning we were supposed to be worrying about Nu and now it's Omicron. Did they change the letter, or are there two new ones?

To answer my own question: the WHO worked out that calling the new variant "the Nu variant" might be a bit confusing, at least for English speakers, so they dumped Nu in favour of Omicron

Of course, "The Omicron Variant" has the further advantage of sounding like a thriller about a stolen antimatter device

[NotAllThere]

If you care to check, there have been alpha, beta, gamma, delta, epsilon, zeta, eta, theta, iota, kappa, lambda and mu variants. The one after nu is xi, followed by omicron, pi, rho, sigma, tau, upsilon, phi, chi, psi and omega.

I'm reminded of this: