FLiRT

The naming of Covid viruses seems to have become very confusing.  We started with the name of the virus COVID-19, arrived at by by taking bits of coronavirus disease and adding the year (2019) in which it appeared.  Then we named variants of the original virus according to the Greek alphabet.  So far so good.  Subvariants were identified by listing their ancestry in a letters and numbers coded form, so BA.4 was the 4th subvariant of BA, and BA.2.86 was the 86th subvariant of BA.2.  This is the Pango naming system with Pango standing for Phylogenetic Assignment of Named Global Outbreak.

There was an attempt to introduce an unofficial sub-naming system based on astronomical names, so EG.5 was Eris, BA.2.86 was Pirola. In all this there was a tug-of-war between a truly accurate identification and a name that the general public could remember. Now we have a group of subvariants deriving from a variant of the Omicron strain of the virus (called JN.1) which have been given the name FLiRT.  These sub variants, KP.1.1, KP.2, and KP.3, have mutations in the spike protein, including F456L, V1104L, and R346T.  No one is going to ask that we remember all that so they have conveniently selected the letters F, L, R and T, and arrived at FLiRT as a name.  I’m not sure how the name sequence progresses from there.  The next batch might be SMooDG, or PaSH, or CUdLE.