If you’ve just got your head around the difference between SARS-CoV-2 variants B.167.1 and B.167.2, you’re way out of date: the WHO says they’re now ‘the Kappa variant’ and ‘the Delta variant’, respectively.

The official rebranding announced overnight means ‘variants of concern’ and ‘variants of interest’ will now be known by letters of the Greek alphabet, from Alpha (the UK or Kent variant) to Epsilon (the California variant).

According to Reuters Health, the WHO took “months of deliberations” to come up with its new naming convention.

It has been keen to drop the place names, saying they’ve unfairly stigmatised the places where variants emerged — like the UK, Brazil or India — and could deter countries from trying to identify new variants, lest their name forever be linked to a microscopic harbinger of death.