By Hanna Park
The World Health Organization (WHO) announced changes on Monday to how it will label COVID-19 variants by using Greek letters instead of the place where they were first discovered to avoid stigmatizing nations.
The naming system was developed after the WHO consulted experts from around the world after concerns that labeling the variants by the country of discovery is “discriminatory.”
The WHO considers the “variants of concern" more serious than the “variants of interest.”
Here is a list of the changes to the names for the four variants of concern:
- Alpha: The B.1.1.7 variant first discovered in the United Kingdom
- Beta: The B.1.351 variant first found in South Africa
- Gamma: The P.1 variant first discovered in Brazil
- Delta: The B.1.617.2 variant first detected in India
“While they have their advantages, these scientific names can be difficult to say and recall, and are prone to misreporting,” the WHO said in a statement. “As a result, people often resort to calling variants by the places where they are detected, which is stigmatizing and discriminatory.”
“To avoid this and to simplify public communications, WHO encourages national authorities, media outlets and others to adopt these new labels,” the statement continued.
Here is a list of the changes to the names for the six variants of interest:
- Epsilon: The B.1.427 and B.1.429 variants first found in the U.S.
- Zeta: The P.2 variant first discovered in Brazil
- Eta: The B.1.525 variant first detected in multiple countries
- Theta: P.3 first documented in the Philippines
- Iota: B.1.526 first found in the U.S.
- Kappa: B.1.617.1 initially discovered in India
Meanwhile, researchers will continue to use the scientific names for each variant, first created by Pango, GISAID and Nextstrain.
The simplified nomenclature comes after attacks and hate crimes against Asian Americans surged since the pandemic began in March 2020.
Multiple studies have shown that the phrase “China virus” used repeatedly by former President Donald Trump coincided with a surge in attacks against Asian Americans within the last year. Trump has been sued by a civil rights group for calling COVID-19 the “China virus.”
Earlier last month, President Joe Biden signed a hate crimes law aimed to protect Asian Americans after the spike in hate crimes.