World Health Organization Gives COVID-19 Variants 'Non-Stigmatizing' Greek Names

WHO said all viruses "change over time" and hoped the shift would remove stigma associated with regions where variants were first seen.

The World Health Organization shifted how it will name current and future COVID-19 variants on Monday, choosing to identify them by letters of the Greek alphabet instead of the countries they were first discovered in. WHO said it hoped the change will help reduce stigma and discrimination after variants that first emerged in countries including the United Kingdom, South Africa, Brazil and India were commonly known as the strains linked to a specific region. Those variants will now be known as the Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta variants, respectively, with new strains being given letters down the line of the Greek alphabet.  Those strains have become the dominant variants of COVID-19 in many regions, and others are currently listed as variants of interest should they become more dangerous.