Hi, John. I suggest that the (or a) reason for the Greek letter designations is to suppress terms like "the Indian variant" and "the Brazilian variant". With what seems to be a worldwide wave of anti-Asian violence irrationally caused by references to the "China virus", I completely support such an effort.
I believe that's what they intended, but the PANGO designations were working fine for that purpose, and were far more descriptive and specific. I've seen virologists who've petulantly responded to this new thing by saying "I'm going to go back to geographic designations," which is the opposite of what anyone wants. This is a mess.
Hi, John. I suggest that the (or a) reason for the Greek letter designations is to suppress terms like "the Indian variant" and "the Brazilian variant". With what seems to be a worldwide wave of anti-Asian violence irrationally caused by references to the "China virus", I completely support such an effort.
I believe that's what they intended, but the PANGO designations were working fine for that purpose, and were far more descriptive and specific. I've seen virologists who've petulantly responded to this new thing by saying "I'm going to go back to geographic designations," which is the opposite of what anyone wants. This is a mess.