In the context of the COVID-19 infodemic, the global profusion of monikers and hashtags for "UK coronavirus variant" have found their way into daily communication and contributed to a backlash against UK people. How to name it is a catch-22 for scientists.
Dear Zhiwen Hu
In my opinion, there should be a consensual way in science-communication regarding new variants, because there will be many more to come.
In practice, all variants of Covid-19 are part of the same virus. Hence, we should not necessarily have to give them new names for communication purposes, as they may be confusing to the non-specialised audience. Of course, scientists do need to classify them and communicate their emergent risk, but that is a separate issue. New variants are the same virus with new characteristics.
For instance, we have hundreds of flu variants resulting from cumulative mutations over time, but we know that Influenza is a particular type of virus. We call it "Influenza" or "flu" and then avoid having to confuse people or generate more collective anxiety or discrimination.
Please reply or give feedback.
Best,
Lucas
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