The World Health Organisation moved very quickly yesterday to declare the recently-discovered B.1.1.529 strain of Covid-19 as a variant of concern, renaming it Omicron.
The Delta variant (B.1.617.2) - a term with which we are all now all too familiar with - emerged much more quietly in the Indian state of Maharashtra in October 2020.
It wasn't until the following April, that India experienced a massive wave of infections peaking at close to 400,000 daily cases in mid-May.
Only then did the World Health Organisation declare it as a variant of concern on 11 May. One year on - as the Omicron variant makes headlines around the world within just weeks of its emergence - scientists have already expressed concerns that is the most worrying