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It first arose, the story goes,
in bats – or test tubes; there are those
who do, and those who don’t, suppose
its origin suspicious.
In any case, the thing emerged,
infections positively surged,
opinions radically diverged
and Covid grew more vicious.

As wise biologists had feared,
before a vax was engineered
the Alpha variant appeared,
contagious and morbific.
The WHO had picked its epithet
by turning to the alphabet
of Greek, as if to ease the threat
by sounding scientific.

And then came Beta, like a curse;
and Gamma, some would argue worse;
and Delta, even more adverse;
and Omicron, now spiking.
We likewise found the others –Zeta,
Epsilon, Iota, Eta,
Kappa, Lambda, Mu and Theta –
hardly to our liking.

The WHO skipped Nu (they thought it too
confusing, as it sounds like “new”)
and Xi (a bow to you-know-who).
From Tokyo to Toronto,
we don’t object if they ignore
some letters; who needs twenty-four?
We’re all on board to skip some more,
and reach Omega pronto.