DNA Special: How new COVID-19 variant Omicron got its name?

Now the coronavirus is spreading all over the world in its new variant i.e. in its new form. And its name is Omicron. This virus has been found for the first time in South Africa. It is spreading rapidly all over the world and till now it has been entered in 16 countries. Doctors say that this variant of the coronavirus is seven times deadlier than the previous variant Delta and it spreads many times faster.

According to a recent study, as much as the delta variant of COVID-19 spread in 100 days, it has spread in just 15 days. And so far, 32 mutations have taken place in this variant. When a virus mutates rapidly, that is, it changes its form, it becomes very difficult to fight it.

This variant also has a connection with China. The WHO names the new variants of COVID-19 according to the letters of the Greek Alphabet. Omicron is the 15th letter of the Greek Alphabet. Before getting this variant, WHO had used 12 letters of it and accordingly, it had to name the new variant as the 13th letter of the Greek Alphabet. This 13th letter is Nu but the WHO felt that if this variant was given this name, it would create confusion and people would understand the name of this variant as New instead of NU.

Hence this letter was omitted. After this, WHO had to name this variant on the 14th letter of the Greek Alphabet. But it refused to do so either because the 14th letter is Xi. The WHO felt that if this new variant was named Xi, then the world would associate it with Chinese President Xi Jinping and this thing could also anger China. For this reason, the 15th letter was chosen for naming the variant, which is called Omicron. Now the question arises that if WHO is so afraid of China, how can the world trust this health agency at the time of a terrible pandemic?

You can understand WHO's double standards with another example. All the variants that have been kept in the list of 'variants of concern' by WHO so far have not been found in China because China has never honestly told WHO that a new variant of coronavirus has been found here. Even WHO never got much information from China about this. When the Alpha variant was found in the UK last year, the UK honestly informed the WHO about it. India also showed similar honesty when the Delta variant was identified here. The Government of South Africa has also accepted the truth and said that Omicron's case has been found here. With this, you can differentiate between China and these countries and also know the working style of WHO.

However, there is good news that for the last few days in India, the average cases of coronavirus per day have been 8,000. On November 28, about 8,300 people were infected with the virus in the whole country. However, you have to understand here that this virus knows how to test humans. This virus changes its nature on weakening or in the event of defeat and becomes dangerous again. Whereas it takes a whole birth for humans to change their nature. And in many cases, people are not able to change their nature even till their death.