The brand new Covid variant has put the world on excessive alert for one more wave of infections – however, amid all of the breaking information, not many individuals appear very assured on the subject of announcing Omicron.
In line with the Merriam-Webster dictionary, the letter is often pronounced like oh-my-cron within the UK, however there isn’t a single agreed upon approach to say it in England.
Within the US, it’s pronounced like ah-mih-cron or oh-mih-cron.
Nevertheless it looks as if only a few individuals have been capable of agree on a common approach of claiming it.
What does Omicron even imply?
The brand new Covid pressure was named after the fifteenth letter of the Greek alphabet on the finish of November by the World Well being Organisation (WHO).
The WHO desires to keep away from stigma round sure areas linked to varied variants and so has tried to call them in an ordered system.
The WHO additionally solely names these variants that are “of curiosity” or “of concern”.
Giving the strains one other identify away from their sophisticated scientific names helps most people entry them too.
Why did the WHO select this phrase?
WHO has recognized 5 variants of concern which we have to regulate.
The primary few Covid strains have been referred to as Alpha, then Beta and Gamma – going so as of the alphabet.
The newest one which shook the worldwide neighborhood was the Delta variant – which is the identify of the fourth letter of the Greek alphabet.
WHO then recognized six different variants however they didn’t meet the thresholds to be within the of curiosity or of concern classes.
It named the following two variants of curiosity, Lambda and Mu, after the subsequent two letters within the Greek alphabet, however then skipped two letters to call Omicron.
A WHO spokesman Tarik Jasarevic defined: ”‘Nu’ is just too simply confounded with ‘new’, and ‘Xi’ was not used as a result of it’s a frequent final identify.”
He added that the WHO need to keep away from “inflicting offence to any cultural, social, nationwide, regional, skilled or ethnic group” on the subject of naming ailments.