Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta ... The variants of Covid-19 are more and more numerous.
So bloated that the World Health Organization (WHO) will soon no longer be able to use the Greek alphabet to name them, as it had been doing since the end of May.
Indeed, 12 variants have already been identified, and this alphabet contains only 24 letters.
Among them, some are considered to be of concern (Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta), others as being of interest (Eta, Iota, Kappa, Lambda and Mu) or else as having been of interest (Epsilon, Zeta and Theta).
To discover
Covid-19: what we know about the Delta variant
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This is why the WHO is considering naming the variants according to a new system: spatial constellations.
“
We might run out of Greek letters, but we're already looking at the next set of names.
We are therefore considering naming them according to star constellations
, ”said epidemiologist Maria Van Kerkhove, technical director of the Covid-19 component of the WHO infectious disease surveillance program in an interview with the
Telegraph
in mid-August.
.
No Apollo nor Athena
"These will be stars and constellations less known but easy to pronounce,
" she confirmed to a journalist from
Science Magazine
.
"
We are just checking internally with our colleagues around the world to verify that no name is offensive in a local language or is a traditional name
," she added.
The names of Greek gods and goddesses were ousted because of their pronunciation, which would complicate their universalization.
Read also Covid-19: should we fear the arrival of a "super-variant" by 2022?
The WHO project is, however, far from unanimous among scientists. If the American epidemiologist Eric Feigl-Ding thinks that "'
Cassiopeia' sounds pretty good,
" Eric Lagadec, astrophysicist at the Côte d'Azur Observatory and president of the French society of astronomy and astrophysics, does is not of this opinion: "
They did nothing these constellations!" I suggest another thing, what if we named natural disasters after climate deniers?
Proof that even naming variants can be political.