The World Health Organization on Monday said it has come up with a new system for naming coronavirus variants, in an attempt to make it easier for the public to discuss the variants while also not stigmatizing countries.
While scientists will still refer to variants using numbers and letters — for example, the variant believed to have first emerged in the United Kingdom is called B.1.1.7 — the WHO will name them using the letters of the Greek alphabet. B.1.1.7 is now Alpha, for example, and B.1.617.2, the newest coronavirus variant first identified in India, is Delta.
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