In Naming Omicron Variant, Authorities Skipped ‘Xi’ and ‘Nu’

LONDON—As health authorities all-around the earth grappled with the emergence of a new pressure of the coronavirus, virologists ended up battling with a thorny query of their individual: what to identify it?

The Globe Wellbeing Corporation has been using Greek letters to refer to the most widely common coronavirus variants, which or else have unwieldy scientific names. It experienced by now absent by means of 12 letters of the Greek alphabet when a new variant termed B.one.one.529 was detected.