The World Health Organization skipped a couple of letters in the Greek alphabet when it named the omicron variant. That fueled all sorts of speculation and claims on social media about why the ...

According to the Greek alphabet, the World Health Organization was expected to name the latest Covid-19 variant “Nu” or “Xi.” But both names were seen as problematic.

The 15th letter of the Greek alphabet had been a fairly innocuous entity for 2,500 years. But in just two weeks, it became notorious. Omicron moved beyond classical philosophy texts, beyond the ...

But the Greek alphabet also has letters that look familiar but sound different – P makes an R sound. Then there are letters that are unrecognizable, such as psi – shaped like a little pitchfork.

After a new variant with the unwieldy scientific name of B.1.1.529 was discovered last week in South Africa, observers might have expected WHO to name it after the next Greek letter on the list: Nu.

The WMO “decided that if a significant storm designated by a letter of the Greek Alphabet, in either the Atlantic or eastern North Pacific Basin, was considered worthy of being ‘retired’, it ...

Rather, a WHO expert panel recommends using Greek alphabet letters to refer to variants, “which will be easier and more practical to discussed by non-scientific audiences,” WHO says on a new ...

In the past, the Greek alphabet was used when there were more storms in a single hurricane season than names on the list. That’s only happened twice, in 2005 and 2020. Last year’s Atlantic ...

According to the Greek alphabet, the World Health Organization was expected to name the latest Covid-19 variant “Nu” or “Xi.” But both names were seen as problematic.