The criticism is not "off the cuff", see the "World Health Organization Best Practices for the Naming of New Human Infectious Diseases" (2015) PDF link: https:

The criticism is not "off the cuff", see the "World Health Organization Best Practices for the Naming of New Human Infectious Diseases" (2015) PDF link: https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/163636/WHO_HSE_FOS_15.1_eng.pdf https://apps.who.int/iris/bitstream/handle/10665/163636/WHO_... > Disease names may NOT include: Geographic locations > Examples to be avoided: Cities, countries, regions, continents Why this is not applied to “the $country variant” is a very good question.