{"id":1103445,"date":"2021-12-09T17:13:35","date_gmt":"2021-12-09T22:13:35","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1103445"},"modified":"2021-12-09T17:13:37","modified_gmt":"2021-12-09T22:13:37","slug":"fact-check-is-the-omicron-variant-named-after-military-codes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/fact-check-is-the-omicron-variant-named-after-military-codes\/","title":{"rendered":"FACT CHECK: Is The Omicron Variant Named After Military Codes?"},"content":{"rendered":"<aside class=\"mashsb-container mashsb-main mashsb-stretched\"><div class=\"mashsb-box\"><div class=\"mashsb-count mash-medium\" style=\"float:left\"><div class=\"counts mashsbcount\">20<\/div><span class=\"mashsb-sharetext\">SHARES<\/span><\/div><div class=\"mashsb-buttons\"><a class=\"mashicon-facebook mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/sharer.php?u=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.conservativenewsdaily.net%2Fbreaking-news%2Ffact-check-is-the-omicron-variant-named-after-military-codes%2F\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Facebook<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-twitter mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/intent\/tweet?text=&amp;url=https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/?p=1103445&amp;via=ConservNewsDly\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Twitter<\/span><\/a><a class=\"mashicon-subscribe mash-medium mash-nomargin mashsb-noshadow\" href=\"#\" target=\"_top\" rel=\"nofollow\"><span class=\"icon\"><\/span><span class=\"text\">Subscribe<\/span><\/a><div class=\"onoffswitch2 mash-medium mashsb-noshadow\" style=\"display:none\"><\/div><\/div>\n            <\/div>\n                <div style=\"clear:both\"><\/div><\/aside>\n            <!-- Share buttons by mashshare.net - Version: 4.0.47--><div><\/div>\n<p>A post <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/lonnie.bauer\/posts\/10221843651825373\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">shared on Facebook<\/a> claims the omicron variant of the coronavirus is named after military codes.<\/p>\n<p><span><strong>Verdict: False<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The omicron variant is named after a letter of the Greek alphabet, according to the World Health Organization. It is not named after military codes.<\/p>\n<p><span><strong>Fact Check:<\/strong><\/span><\/p>\n<p>The omicron variant was first discovered in South Africa in November and has since spread to dozens of countries, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nytimes.com\/article\/omicron-coronavirus-variant.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">The New York Times<\/a>. It is now listed on the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention\u2019s (CDC) \u201c<a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/coronavirus\/2019-ncov\/variants\/variant-classifications.html?CDC_AA_refVal=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cdc.gov%2Fcoronavirus%2F2019-ncov%2Fvariants%2Fvariant-info.html#anchor_1632154493691\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Variants of Concern<\/a>\u201d list, along with the Delta variant of the virus.<\/p>\n<p>A post shared on Facebook claims the new variant is named after military codes, a combination of the code words \u201cODIN,\u201d another word for \u201cOmi,\u201d according to the post, and \u201cCRON.\u201d <strong><a href=\"https:\/\/checkyourfact.com\/2021\/11\/30\/fact-check-world-economic-forum-report-omicron-variant-july\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">(RELATED: Did The World Economic Forum Report On The Omicron Variant In July?)<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n<p>The post, however, is incorrect about the origin of the variant\u2019s name. In an attempt to simplify the names of the coronavirus variants and avoid the stigmatization associated with using their locations of origin, the World Health Organization (WHO) uses the <a href=\"https:\/\/web.mit.edu\/jmorzins\/www\/greek-alphabet.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Greek alphabet<\/a> to name the variants, according to the WHO <a href=\"https:\/\/www.who.int\/news\/item\/31-05-2021-who-announces-simple-easy-to-say-labels-for-sars-cov-2-variants-of-interest-and-concern\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">website<\/a>. The omicron variant is just the latest coronavirus variant named using the Greek alphabet. So far, the variants being monitored also include Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Epsilon, Eta, Iota, Kappa, Mu and Zeta, according to the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/coronavirus\/2019-ncov\/variants\/variant-classifications.html?CDC_AA_refVal=https%3A%2F%2Fwww.cdc.gov%2Fcoronavirus%2F2019-ncov%2Fvariants%2Fvariant-info.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">CDC<\/a>, all names that stem from the <a href=\"https:\/\/web.mit.edu\/jmorzins\/www\/greek-alphabet.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Greek alphabet<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>The words the Facebook post claims are military codes are also not used by the military. The U.S. military currently uses the International Radiotelephony Spelling Alphabet (IRSA) in its military operations, the same alphabet used by the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, according to <a href=\"https:\/\/www.military.com\/join-armed-forces\/guide-to-the-military-alphabet.html\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">Military.com<\/a>. <a href=\"https:\/\/www.nato.int\/nato_static_fl2014\/assets\/pdf\/pdf_2018_01\/20180111_nato-alphabet-sign-signal.pdf\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">IRSA<\/a> includes words like \u201cAlfa\u201d and \u201cDelta,\u201d but not \u201cOdin\u201d or \u201cCron.\u201d It also does not include the word \u201comicron.\u201d<\/p>\n<p>The post shared on Facebook implies the name of the new variant is connected to \u201cProject Odin,\u201d which it claims is an operation aimed at taking control of \u201call media, radio, internet platforms.\u201d&nbsp; This is also inaccurate. While ODIN is a real U.S. military program, it is focused on \u201cdeveloping biometric presentation attack detection technologies,\u201d according to a description of the program on the Office of the Director of National Intelligence\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/www.iarpa.gov\/research-programs\/odin\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer\">website<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>A post shared on Facebook claims the omicron variant of the coronavirus is named after military codes.Verdict: False The omicron variant is named after a letter of the Greek alphabet, &#8230;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":144,"featured_media":2315279,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mo_disable_npp":"","fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-1103445","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1103445","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/144"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1103445"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1103445\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2315279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1103445"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1103445"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.conservativenewsdaily.net\/breaking-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1103445"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}