I suppose Nu might be dangerously confusing with Mu , and Xi was politically untenable. The next one is going to be Pi
'Nu' also has the problem of sounding like 'new', so phrases like 'the Nu variant' are confusing if spoken aloud.
They're just going through the greek alphabet, I believe
And skipped Xi
Xi was the original variant
I almost corrected you before realizing how brilliant you are. Well played.
They use the greek alphabet to avoid stigmatising or politicizing the origins the various variants. They also pick names that are easy to remember and pronounce as opposed to the more technical names (ie. B.1.1.529).
These names are for public consumption. The reality is a world of tens of thousands variants that are constantly evolving. The B.1.1.529 is from a computer program that names clusters of variants via a clustering algorithm.
I'm surprised it has so few stars, watches, and forks given how big a deal it is.
Any thoughts on whether they would have done this greek alphabet thing had the first outbreak been in Africa instead of China? And why change now, when viruses (and variants) have long been named after the country or region where the first outbreak was recorded?
What if a second variant occured in the same country? We shouldn't be afraid of existing names that are taken from persons or placenames, but it's worth switching to better naming systems where they make sense.