WHO has renamed COVID variants using Greek letters

The World Health Organisation has proposed new names for coronavirus variants using letters from the Greek alphabet, because those proposed by scientists are way too complicated.

WHO’s naming scheme will be used to label noteworthy strain of the coronavirus.

Now, the new labels for the UK, South African, Brazilian and Indian mutant strains of the coronavirus are Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta respectively.

The decision came after months of deliberations with experts considering a range of other possibilities such as Greek Gods.

The organisation said the labels do not replace existing scientific names involving numbers, Roman letters and periods, which convey important scientific information about the mutant strains, and will continued to be used in research.