Didn't Want To Offend China? Why Did WHO Skip Nu, Xi To Name New COVID-19 Variant As Omicron

The WHO has officially named a new strain of COVID-19 (B.1.1.529) aka Botswana variant as 'Omicron'.

The name came as a surprise to many including some scientists and science journals who had already started calling it 'Nu'.

The @WHO has named B.1.1.529 Omicron, a Variant of Concern [O, not Nu)

¡ª Eric Topol (@EricTopol) November 26, 2021

That is because, right from the start the WHO, instead of naming new variants of the COVID-19 virus based on the country where it was identified, was naming them after Greek alphabets.

Representational Image

The names of different variants identified so far have been Alpha, Beta, Gama, Delta, Epsilon, Kappa, Lambda and Mu.

This is only the 5th Variant of Concern since the pandemic began: Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, and now Omicron.
That it was not named as a Variant of Interest is interesting and raises concern ;-)
There have been thousands of uninteresting #SARSCoV2 variants

¡ª Eric Topol (@EricTopol) November 26, 2021

The next letter in the Greek alphabet is Nu followed by Xi, before Omicron, and on Friday for some yet to be explained reason WHO went straight from Mu to Omicron, skipping Nu and Xi.

But, why?

Some have speculated that the WHO did it to avoid confusion between 'Nu' and 'new'.

Kudos to the WHO for skipping over the potentially confusing Nu and Xi names and going straight to Omicron. https://t.co/fa4q66VOjL https://t.co/9w5f4yIU8p

¡ª Ben Zimmer (@bgzimmer) November 26, 2021

There are also others who argue that since it is a very common surname in China, it was avoided to prevent stereotyping.

On the one hand¡­ ? agree¡­ but¡­

As a letter enthusiast, I feel sad for Nu and Xi not getting their moments. I get it, but it¡¯s still a bummer.

¡ª ??nobody important (@malakhstudios) November 26, 2021

But the internet being the internet has its own versions. And according to some WHO did it, because it didn't want to offend China, whose all-powerful leader is one Xi Jinping.

News of new Nu variant, but WHO is jumping the alphabet to call it Omicron, so they can avoid Xi. pic.twitter.com/UJ4xMwg52i

¡ª Martin Kulldorff (@MartinKulldorff) November 26, 2021

WHO's relations with China

Adding fuel to this claim is how the WHO has been accused of not acting against and even shielding China when it comes to COVID-19.

In the early days of COVID-19, when the outbreak was limited to China, the WHO had repeatedly played down its severity and failed to warn the world until it was too late.

The WHO also went with the COVID-19 for the outbreak instead of naming it after where the outbreak began like in the case of the previous coronavirus which was called MERS (Middle East respiratory syndrome).

WHO

Several countries around the world including the US and Australia have repeatedly argued that the WHO has failed to hold China accountable and conduct a fair investigation into the origins of COVID-19.

WHO is also accused of not recognizing Taiwan, which is independent of China, but Beijing considers as a renegade province.

The most embarrassing and evidence for this was in March 2020 when a senior advisor at the WHO hang up on a journalist who asked about Taiwan¡¯s response to the pandemic, and then did not answer further questions because they had ¡°already talked about China¡±.

During a video-conference interview, the official initially pretended like the question was inaudible when asked if the WHO would reconsider Taiwan¡¯s membership, before hanging up the call.

He did it once more when the call was re-connected and the same question was repeated.

When the call was connected again, the official was asked about how Taiwan has done so far in terms of containing the virus and his response was 'Well, we¡¯ve already talked about China," before quickly ending the interview.

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