This Monday finds the world without any major war, natural disaster or particularly newsworthy item, except maybe Omicron, the latest COVID-19 virus of concern: It is the 13th variant of the SARS-CoV-2 virus. Thus we should be up to the 13th Greek letter to name this strain. But the World Health Organization skipped #13 Nu and #14 Xi...why? Nu sounds like new, which could confuse people, they say.  But it is new, so why not? Xi sounds like Xi Jinping, and the UN is afraid of the Chinese president.   Or maybe it was to not stigmatize a region. If you're wondering why you never read or heard about Epsilon, Zeta, Eta, Theta, Iota, Kappa, Lambda and Mu, they were definitely variants, but never reached the level of concern.  Actually, though, Lambda  (Peru ) and Mu ( Columbia ) remain variants of interest. Best as I can tell, you can pronounce OMICRON any way you want.  However, if you had to pick one, say  oh-MY-cron : Oh-muh-cron. “The correct pronunciation is “oh-my-cron”, with the e

         From  Worldometer  (new  COVID-19 deaths yesterday):          DAY    USA    WORLD     Brazil      India      South Africa June     9    1093     4732         1185       246       82 July    22     1205     7128         1293      1120     572 Aug    12     1504     6556        1242        835     130 Sept     9     1208      6222       1136       1168       82 Oct     21     1225      6849         571        703       85 Nov    25      2304    12025        620        518      118 Dec     30      3880    14748       1224       299      465 Jan      14       4142    15512         1151        189       712                  Feb      3       4005    14265       1209       107      398           25       2414    10578        1582        119      144 Mar     2        1989      9490       1726       110      194           31       1115      12301        3950       458       58 April   6         906     11787         4211        631       37 May    4         853     13667         3025