The WHO skips forward two Greek letters, avoiding a Xi variant | Hacker News Reader

The WHO skips forward two Greek letters, avoiding a Xi variant

nytimes.com

21 pointsLogonType1012 comments

I wish the WHO could name things more consistently.

- They did not rename the Ebola virus the same way the renamed the virus first discovered in Wuhan (as COVID 19).

- And they are happy to keep the SARS backronym in SARS-CoV-2, since SARS was first discovered in Hong Kong SAR.

- Now they skip over the Xi variant, although the Delta variant (or the name Corona itself) did cause some confusion earlier.

If they want to be classy in naming, can they be more classy to people outside of mainland China?

WHO said it was because Xi was a common last name. But I can confirm Xi isn’t a common Chinese last name. It ranks 332 by population, https://zh.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/%E4%B9%A0%E5%A7%93

810k out of 1.4billion. 0.05%

I know their explanation is a weak one but 810K is a lot of people.

In China it's not.

I agree. But you can't deny it is still a lot of people who use Xi as their last name. There are nearly a million in China alone. But I agree that is a weak argument. If a surname is a problem, someone can use that logic to claim the name Corona virus was damaging to the Corona beer brand or the delta variant was damaging to Delta Airlines.

You make great points for the other Greek letters.

I meant it as a joke but it is a potentially slippery slope. However, I personally believe there is a simpler explanation: they wish to disassociate the virus from the country China and as a consequence, the racism Chinese immigrants have faced all over the world. This should not be okay irrespective of whether one believes the lab leak theory or not.

The Chinese last name Mu ranks 98 by population. We didn’t see WHO do anything about it. They simply knelt to dictator and found a stupid excuse

Of course, it is a lame excuse from the WHO.

Naming it “Nu” (pronounced “nee” but everyone will say “new”) would be confusing and stupid.

Naming it “Xi” would be as stupid as naming it “Biden” or “Putin.”

Trying to make a big deal of skipping over troublesome letters is also pretty stupid.

Because Biden and Putin are also common last names, right?

Because it is simply stupid to needlessly provoke powerful people who have superpower/super-economy status in this world.

Reply on news.ycombinator.com