Why Is The New COVID Variant Called “Omicron” Instead Of “Nu”?

The new COVID variant has been named “Omicron”. To be more precise, it has been renamed as “Omicron” from “Nu”. Someone recently brought this up in a conversation, and I realized that I did not know much about this.

So, I decided to do some research and answer my own curious questions. If you’re curious about this topic as well, just read along.

Why Was the New COVID Variant Called “Nu” in the First Place?

To begin understanding the reasoning behind the renaming, we need to answer this question first. It turns out that we name each newly discovered COVID (SARS-CoV-2) variant after a Greek alphabet. So far, the most prominent COVID variants have been called alpha, beta, gamma, delta, etc.

The deciding authority that came up with this naming convention is the World Health Organization (WHO).

This essay is supported by Generatebg

There Have Been Variants After Delta

Anyone who is not deep into this topic (like me) might be wondering what happened to epsilon, zeta, etc.? These are essentially the Greek alphabets after delta. It turns out that there have been several new COVID variants after delta; it’s just that they have not received a lot of public attention. The SARS-CoV-2 page lists the named COVID variants so far.

Why is the New COVID Variant Called “Omicron”?

Another way of formulating this question would be:

“What is wrong with “Nu”?”

Well, “Nu” just happens to come with a lot of baggage attached to it. For starters, “Nu” often gets pronounced as “New” in the English language. This makes it very confusing to communicate information about this particular variant verbally. WHO had been considering “Xi” as well (the Greek alphabet after “Nu”) but chose to skip that one as well to avoid “stigmatizing a region” (*ahem*…China) (credit: Paul Nuki).

Furthermore, “Nu” is easily confused in other languages as well. For instance, in Dutch, “Nu” means “now”, and “Nu” is often attached to the end of words for marketing campaigns. For instance, “COVID-Nu” could end up being confused with a flash-sale offer.

After skipping “Nu” and “Xi”, the next available Greek alphabet available just happens to “Omicron”. So, the WHO just settled down on it to avoid all of this potential confusion and misunderstanding. There you have it; the reason why the new COVID variant is called “Omicron.”

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Further reading that might interest you: Why Do You See No Soap Resistant Epidemic Out There? and 5 Mistakes With Your COVID-19 Job Application.