Why is Omicron called this name?

Why is Omicron called this name?

Why is Omicron called this name? The Chinese pronunciation of Omicron is Omicron. Starting from the Greek letter omicron, it was first detected in South Africa on 202119. Why is Omicron called this name?

Why is it called Omicron 1 The World Health Organization (WHO) named the new and new crown pneumonia mutant found in South Africa "Omicron" in Greek letters (pronounced Omicron in Chinese). The name of Omicron is decided by WHO, and it is not what you want.

Reason 1: WHO naming

According to the announcement issued by WHO on the afternoon of 26th, the mutant B. 1. 1.529 appeared in South Africa was identified as the highest-level COVID-19 mutant and named Omicron.

Reason 2: It was named after the previous one.

The naming of COVID-19 mutant after each mutation is novel, so this time the Omicron mutant also followed the previous naming experience. COVID-19 mutant viruses are all named after Greek letters, and Omicron is named after "Omi-cron" (the 5th Greek letter ο/kloc-0).

What is Omicron strain?

Omicron strain is the latest variety of COVID-19. It is understood that this is the fifth variation of COVID-19 epidemic since the global outbreak. The first mutation was discovered in Britain in 2020, and the second mutation appeared at the end of 2020, and was named Beta. The third mutation appeared in 65438+February, 2020, and was detected in Amazon, Brazil, and was named Gamma. Delta is a variant that appeared in India in the first half of 20021and caused several rounds of local epidemic in China. However, Omicron strain has a higher load and is more infectious than Delta virus.

Why is Omicron called this name 2 Omicron? The Chinese pronunciation is Omicron. It was first detected in South Africa on 202 1, 1654381October 9. 165438+1October 26th, WHO defined it as the fifth "noteworthy variant" named Omicron.

The fifteenth letter of the Greek alphabet, omicron, comes from the Greek letter omicron, that is, small O, which has the same etymology as microblog and omega. In fact, this pinyin has also been seen in high schools, especially in science students and physics classes, and it is always used as a unit of measurement.

In an article entitled "How to Read Omicron", Christine Hauser said that there have been many differences about the pronunciation of this Greek letter, which can even be described as "confusion". Hauser said that language experts generally believe that the Greek letter Omicron has no formal English pronunciation. In the United States, Omicron is often pronounced as "AH-muh-kraan" and a few people pronounce it as "OH-mee-kraan". British people, such as British Prime Minister Johnson, read it as "OH-my-kraan".

The article also quotes English pronunciations marked by various dictionaries. For example, Andreas Willi, a professor of comparative linguistics at Oxford University, said that Omicron is pronounced like the English phrase "o-MIKE-Ron".

On October 29th, 20021165438+/kloc-0, WHO said that the overall risk assessment of COVID-19 Omicron mutant in the world was "very high", and it may spread widely around the world. 165438+1On October 30th, the data released by the Dutch government showed that omega clone mutants had appeared in Europe long before the first case was reported in South Africa.

How powerful is Omicron's communication?

Epidemiological and laboratory monitoring data showed that the number of cases infected by Omicron mutant increased obviously, and it partially replaced Delta mutant, and its transmission power increased by 37.5% compared with Delta.

Why is Omicron called this name 3 Expert: There are three possible sources of Omicron.

Omicron strains have accumulated many mutations, but there is no evidence of these mutations in known public databases. So where did the Omicron mutant come from? Eddie Holmes, a world-renowned expert on virus evolution, believes that there are three possible sources of Omicron strains.

The first possibility is that the strain has been hidden in South Africa for a long time, but it has not been discovered before;

The second possibility is that COVID-19 entered an animal somewhere and evolved, and later humans were infected;

The third possibility is that the early virus strains evolved from people with weak immune systems.

How to protect Omicron?

Omicron mutant is essentially a kind of COVID-19, which is similar to the transmission law in COVID-19 in the past, so the conventional protection methods are still effective.

Therefore, from the national level, the establishment of a "dynamic zero clearing" strategy to extinguish the epidemic when it is discovered can minimize the impact of the epidemic on the economy and life.

For individuals, it is necessary to realize that COVID-19 can spread through people, things, respiratory tract and contact, which increases the difficulty of epidemic prevention and control.

To make long-term preparations, take several basic protective measures (wearing masks, washing hands frequently, ventilation more, gathering less, etc.). ), and then actively vaccinate COVID-19 vaccine, reduce severe illness and death, and minimize the impact of the epidemic on individuals and society.

In addition, once you have fever and respiratory symptoms, don't take transportation and go to the fever clinic as soon as possible; When conducting an epidemiological investigation on you, you must truthfully explain your life history in the first 14 days to the epidemic prevention personnel, and you must not hide it. At the same time, we should take the initiative to vaccinate COVID-19 vaccine.