Why New COVID-19 Variants Have Such Complicated Names

If you’ll be able to title the at present circulating coronavirus variants with out wanting them up, your reminiscence is healthier than most individuals’s—even those that are nonetheless listening to COVID-19.

In the intervening time, the highest 5 variants within the U.S. are referred to as BA.5 (making up about 39% of latest circumstances, per the newest information from the U.S. Facilities for Illness Management and Prevention), BQ.1.1 (nearly 19%), BQ.1 (16.5%), BA.4.6 (9.5%), and BF.7 (9%). In the meantime, the XBB variant has been detected in at the least 35 international locations, and the European Centre for Illness Prevention and Management is monitoring a variant referred to as B.1.1.529.

This alphabet-soup nomenclature appears like a marked departure from the World Well being Group’s (WHO) Greek letter system, which was instituted in Could 2021 to offer individuals a simple and location-neutral approach to confer with new variants. Whereas the Greek lettering system, which yielded names like Alpha, Beta, and Delta, didn’t change present scientific naming techniques—akin to these accountable for labels like BA.5 and XBB—it was meant to simplify public communication about necessary viral strains.

The WHO solely assigns a brand new Greek letter to a variant if it’s considerably completely different from earlier variations. And for the final 12 months, we’ve seen taste after taste of Omicron, relatively than completely new iterations of the virus, explains Maria Van Kerkhove, the WHO’s technical lead for COVID-19. That’s why we haven’t but had a pressure referred to as Pi.

Dr. Peter Hotez, co-director of the Middle for Vaccine Growth at Texas Youngsters’s Hospital, has nicknamed the newer strains “Scrabble variants,” as a result of lots of them include high-scoring Scrabble letters like Q and X. And, he provides, as a result of they “form of scrabble your mind.”

“I’m a scientist who’s been growing coronavirus vaccines for the final decade, and it’s even difficult for individuals like myself” to comply with them, Hotez says. They’re not simply exhausting to recollect. The names are sufficient to make the typical particular person’s eyes glaze over—which isn’t nice, contemplating that a lot of the general public has already checked out of the pandemic.

Van Kerkhove, nonetheless, argues that the general public in all probability doesn’t have to know all of the granular particulars of BQ.1 versus BQ.1.1 versus BF.7. “What most people actually must know is, what does it imply for me by way of danger? We are going to give new names utilizing the Greek letters when these variants are considerably completely different to one another” by way of severity, immune evasion, or transmission, she says.

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However some consultants say variant names do have real-world implications for common individuals. Hotez factors to the brand new bivalent boosters, which have been formulated to focus on the BA.4 and BA.5 variants. BQ.1 and BQ.1.1 are descendants of BA.5, so the vaccines in all probability additionally present some quantity of safety towards them, and that information would maybe present further motivation to get the brand new pictures. However, partly due to their names, the typical particular person seemingly doesn’t know that BQ.1 is said to BA.5, Hotez says.

T. Ryan Gregory, a professor of integrative biology at Canada’s College of Guelph, says the alphabet-soup names are necessary for scientists to know, as a result of they impart details about how the virus has advanced. However he thinks there must also be frequent names that most people can use, simply as there are scientific and customary names for animal species. He’s even promoted (unofficial) nicknames for current variants, calling BQ.1.1 “Cerberus,” BQ.1 “Typhon,” and XBB “Gryphon.”

If all of the variants begin to mix collectively within the public consciousness, individuals may not register the emergence of latest strains that might be able to dodge immunity they’ve acquired from vaccinations or prior infections, Gregory says. A clearer understanding of circulating variants is also necessary in health-care settings, since some monoclonal antibody therapies don’t work effectively towards sure variants, he provides.

Van Kerkhove says the WHO’s Technical Advisory Group on SARS-CoV-2 Virus Evolution is engaged on a “extra strong” technique of assessing when a variant ought to get a brand new title, with a selected concentrate on immune evasion. The soar from Delta to Omicron was so dramatic that it was a simple name to offer Omicron a brand new title, Van Kerkhove says. However now that the virus is mutating in subtler methods, it’s a extra sophisticated determination. In late October, the advisory group voted towards assigning new labels to XBB and BQ.1 as a result of they don’t seem to be sufficiently completely different from earlier types of Omicron.

For variants that don’t meet the WHO’s threshold for a brand new Greek letter, the company might at the least use a extra comprehensible naming system, Hotez suggests—maybe beginning with Omicron, after which transferring on to Omicron 1, Omicron 2, and so forth. Van Kerkhove says the WHO has mentioned doing so, however even that system comes with issues. There are about 300 Omicron sublineages at present underneath surveillance, she says, and “Omicron 300 appears like a film franchise.”

The general public in all probability doesn’t have to know and talk about all of these variants, Gregory says. However for the strains that unfold extensively and account for a good portion of infections, it’s value having simply understandable names.

Proper now, most individuals both really feel like, “‘Wow, that is alphabet soup, and I can’t maintain observe,’ or ‘Properly, it’s all Omicron,’” so it doesn’t matter when there’s a brand new variant, Gregory says. What the general public is lacking—and what it wants, he says—is a shared vocabulary that might assist everybody perceive the pandemic because it continues to evolve.

Write to Jamie Ducharme at jamie.ducharme@time.com.