The new version of Covid-19 is identified as Omicron, the next available letter in the Greek alphabet. And since news that it is a variant of interest, screeds of newsprint, column inches, interviews, opinions, Tweets and posts have been given over to what happens next. It could prove a variant where existing vaccines are not highly effective; it could prove a variant that is highly infectious but not as life threatening. We cannot yet be sure.
But it is a variant of interest given the amount of published information which has swamped Google. At the start of last week, enter Omicron and you would be directed to a printer in Canterbury, Kent. The company might have been on the crucial front page of Google. Not any more. Now anyone hoping to find a printer with this name has little chance of success. And this applies to other businesses that opted for what should have been a fairly obscure moniker. Through no fault of their own, all their marketing efforts have been swept away, hopefully only for a short time with minimal damage.
This must also give others cause to think. Any business that has used a Greek letter later in the alphabet will be hoping that theirs is skipped by those responsible for naming the latest virus variants. Among these will be Durst whose flatbed large format printers are the Rho range and whose Tau narrow web label presses might become the next victims of Covid. Common sense says few could confuse inkjet printers with a virulent virus, but in this pandemic common sense has sometimes been in short supply. Such confusion is not to be sneezed at.
A virus by any other name might be handy
The new version of Covid-19 is identified as Omicron, the next available letter in the Greek alphabet. And since news that it is a variant of interest, screeds of newsprint, column inches, interviews, opinions, Tweets and posts have been given over to what happens next. It could prove a variant where existing vaccines are not highly effective; it could prove a variant that is highly infectious but not as life threatening. We cannot yet be sure.
But it is a variant of interest given the amount of published information which has swamped Google. At the start of last week, enter Omicron and you would be directed to a printer in Canterbury, Kent. The company might have been on the crucial front page of Google. Not any more. Now anyone hoping to find a printer with this name has little chance of success. And this applies to other businesses that opted for what should have been a fairly obscure moniker. Through no fault of their own, all their marketing efforts have been swept away, hopefully only for a short time with minimal damage.
This must also give others cause to think. Any business that has used a Greek letter later in the alphabet will be hoping that theirs is skipped by those responsible for naming the latest virus variants. Among these will be Durst whose flatbed large format printers are the Rho range and whose Tau narrow web label presses might become the next victims of Covid. Common sense says few could confuse inkjet printers with a virulent virus, but in this pandemic common sense has sometimes been in short supply. Such confusion is not to be sneezed at.
Gareth Ward
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