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>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
by 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.