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When did it get renamed to "Omicron"? Also, dammit, now it's a thing, and it's got its own little soundbite-able name instead of "B.1.1.529".
by 0des 5y ago
When did it get renamed to "Omicron"?
Also, dammit, now it's a thing, and it's got its own little soundbite-able name instead of "B.1.1.529".
- cole-k 5y agoThe answers address your question here: https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/52676/did-the-who-name-the-latest-covid-19-variant-omicron-skipping-the-names-xi-and https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/questions/52676/did-the-w...
- enlyth 5y agoThis answer does not address the why, only the 'did it happen'. Like other commenters have said, Nu was skipped because it sounded too similar to "New", and Xi was skipped because of Xi Jinping. It's not a conspiracy, it's to avoid political controversy, before someone starts a flamewar on here.
- dnautics 5y agoit's not a conspiracy, but it is lamesauce that the WHO said "it's a common surname" when Mu is a more common surname than Xi. They should have just said "it's the surname of a world leader" for honesty and transparency. Instead, they just discredited themselves.
- wallacoloo 5y agoseriously. i get that it’s different organizations doing the naming here, but if the average person actually cared about name conflicts, we wouldn’t still be naming hurricanes after common first names. it’s 100% because of a single, notable person being impacted. maybe more conscientious naming IS a thing we should be doing, but we should make that change because of an organic desire for it — not because of a single prominent figure being offended.
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- fastball 5y agoWHO was discredited at the very beginning of the pandemic when they said "nothing to worry about going on in China, we know because China says so".
- cole-k 5y agoWell, if you want to be picky, the parent comment asked > When did it get renamed to "Omicron"? which is neither "why" nor "did it happen". Regardless, it seems that the other commenters you're referring to are citing the same sources in the stack exchange thread [1] [2]. I'm not sure what additional clarification your comment has to offer, as there is already speculation on why Xi was skipped [1] [3]. [1] https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/a/52686 https://skeptics.stackexchange.com/a/52686 [2] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29374052 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29374052 [3] https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29373580 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=29373580
- deleted 5y ago[deleted]
- MadeThisToReply 5y agoThey skipped the Greek letter "Xi"; no prizes for guessing why.
- sudosysgen 5y agoBecause the WHO has a long-standing policy not to name disease after names.
- lab14 5y agoMu is more common than Xi, but we didn't skip that one.
- gre345t34 5y agoTell that to the Omicronians.
- MadeThisToReply 5y agoSo why didn't they skip "Mu", which as others have pointed out is a far more common name than Xi? Everyone knows the real reason they skipped Xi, you're not fooling anybody.
- sudosysgen 5y agoOccam's razor, no one mentioned that Mu was a common name at the time.
- glandium 5y agoWhen people realized that "Nu variant" sounded like "New variant"
- justincormack 5y agoAnd Xi sounds like the Chinese leader.
- mbg721 5y agoMore "looks like", in transliteration; John Q. Budweiser has no reason to try to pronounce it, and why should he? This was purely a butt-smooching move from the Western media.
- FPGAhacker 5y agoThe Greek letter pronounced more like Kai. But, yes, the anglicized written form of the Greek letter looks like the anglicized written form of the Chinese leader’s name. And I agree, I’m sure it was skipped in the interest of not being antagonistic.
- jason0597 5y agoIt's not really pronounced Kai, it's Xi. Ξύνω, Ξύστρα, Οξυγόνο, άνοιξε, ξένος, ξηρό, λέξη It's pronounced ξι, exactly. "ξ". Take it from a Greek ;)
- exegete 5y agoIPA English pronunciation: “zai” or “ksai” [0] 0. https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xi_(letter) https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Xi_(letter)
- exegete 5y ago“Kai” (chi / χ) is a different Greek letter than “ksai” (xi / ξ).
- 5y ago
- r721 5y ago>In a statement provided to the AP, the WHO said it skipped nu for clarity and xi to avoid causing offense generally. >“‘Nu’ is too easily confounded with ‘new,’ and ‘Xi’ was not used because it is a common last name,” the WHO said, adding that the agency’s “best practices for naming disease suggest avoiding ‘causing offence to any cultural, social, national, regional, professional or ethnic groups.’” >Those best practices were outlined in a May 2015 document issued by the agency. The organization said at the time that it wanted to “minimize unnecessary negative effects on nations, economies and people” when naming infectious diseases. https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-science-health-media-social-media-12fdc1fc3b922466be577d4dd0acc6de https://apnews.com/article/coronavirus-pandemic-science-heal...
- dhxybdj 5y agoXi is most definitely not a common last name, I’ve yet to encounter a single person with that surname in China besides Xi Jinping. Mu (穆) on the other hand is far more common and yet it wasn’t skipped. If you look at most common surnames https://www.wikiwand.com/en/List_of_common_Chinese_surnames https://www.wikiwand.com/en/List_of_common_Chinese_surnames then Mu is ranked at 188, whereas Xi is nowhere to be found. Xi was solely skipped due to Xi Jinping.