It doesn’t seem that there’s a good name for the COVID variant that’s currently causing havok in India, and will likely cause havok elsewhere in the world (including quite possibly in parts of the US). Of course, there’s the technical term, Lineage B.1.617, but that’s a mouthful, and not easily distinguishable when spoken in casual form from the many other variants.
It’s often called in casual speech by the country where it first appeared, but it’s generally considered bad form to refer to diseases by their location of origin, for reasons that I’m inclined to agree with.
Wikipedia also mentions that some people have called this variant the “double mutation”, but there will be many variants that feature multiple mutations, so it’s not a very specific name to give the variant.
I’m inclined to just call it “(COVID) Six-seventeen” (from B.1.617), but I’m not sure if other people will resonate well with that indexing.
It doesn’t seem that there’s a good name for the COVID variant that’s currently causing havok in India, and will likely cause havok elsewhere in the world (including quite possibly in parts of the US). Of course, there’s the technical term, Lineage B.1.617, but that’s a mouthful, and not easily distinguishable when spoken in casual form from the many other variants.
It’s often called in casual speech by the country where it first appeared, but it’s generally considered bad form to refer to diseases by their location of origin, for reasons that I’m inclined to agree with.
Wikipedia also mentions that some people have called this variant the “double mutation”, but there will be many variants that feature multiple mutations, so it’s not a very specific name to give the variant.
I’m inclined to just call it “(COVID) Six-seventeen” (from B.1.617), but I’m not sure if other people will resonate well with that indexing.