Even if it was to avoid the association with Xi Jinping, so what? The entire point is to have neutral names for variants that don’t malign specific countries and regions and let’s us discuss them without political baggage. Same with skipping Nu, it avoids confusion and ambiguity.
There’s no previously hard and fast rule or principle being broken here, nor is the world worse off because the Greek alphabet is merely being used as a source of neutral names rather than being followed exactly linearly.
I feel that anyone saying it’s a bad thing that Xi was skipped is probably doing so because they feel it would be edgy & funny or something China deserves, and not for any actual scientific credibility perspective.
And yet they didn't skip Delta despite the confusion with one of the US' major airlines. Given that people fear getting Covid from flying, there was a lot of potential for confusion that the airline had to combat.
> adding that the agency’s “best practices for naming disease suggest avoiding `causing offence to any cultural, social, national, regional, professional or ethnic groups.”’
The list does not include brands.
Also, there are different measures of confusion: "Nu" being confused with "new" is on a phonetic level and could make actual communication difficult. "Delta (the virus)" vs "Delta (the airline)" is semantic confusion and most people are quite capable of distinguishing those unless they deliberately want to be confused.
> "Delta (the virus)" vs "Delta (the airline)" is semantic confusion and most people are quite capable of distinguishing those unless they deliberately want to be confused.
While I agree, it still boggles my mind how the Corona beer (and other Coronas, like the game SDK) have been stigmatized just by sharing the same name.
I don't know their exact definition, but I'd assume something like all members of an occupation - e.g., a name like "pilot's disease" would probably fall into the banlist.
I mean the whole pandemic is dubbed the "Coronavirus pandemic" - and while that's not an officially designated term, the WHO frequently uses it.
If they had had any consideration for Corona the beer brand, they'd probably have made that known.
Was there really a strong likelihood that people were going to confuse Delta the variant with Delta the airline, to the point where it distracted from the global response? I don’t think so, and Delta seems to have suffered no specific harm from it.
It’s not about whether the names can be linked to a real world entity. That’s going to be true for all of these in some way. But about what causes severe enough confusion or controversy to hamper things.
Yet in that same article they admit they hadn’t seen any actual negative impact.
If you’re going to name your airline after the fourth letter of the Greek alphabet you can’t exactly claim ownership over the name or insist that nobody else ever use it for anything.
… I don’t know what to say to this comparison other than the brand “corona” beer is doing just fine and now profiting from joking about things.
One is a brand, the other is a world leader with nukes in a country our previous president was regularly stoking racism against. There’s also been a massive influx of Asian hate crimes since president Jyyynah & coronavirus.
I do not recall hearing many crimes against delta airlines because of any conspiracy theories involving them.
> in a country our previous president was regularly stoking racism against
No, Trump did not stoke racism against Asians. Seeking accountability from the CCP is not racist. Factually stating the origin of the virus is not racist. Stating something that inconveniences the CCP is not racist. Also names like “Wuhan virus” were in common broad use both in China and the US until it became a political tool to attack Trump. And also not everything is racist or xenophobic more generally. Such labels are applied inconsistently and selectively, especially in the case of Trump. For example consider how travel bans were allegedly racist and xenophobic under Trump but completely acceptable under Biden (https://www.foxnews.com/politics/flashback-biden-suggested-t...).
> There’s also been a massive influx of Asian hate crimes
I’m not sure where you live but the biggest fear of hate crimes against Asians has not been from something related to COVID. There is a massive spike in black on Asian crimes in the Bay Area (and a few other locations), which news media won’t even cover honestly (by either not running the story or not showing mugshots or not providing a description that includes race). Instead activist researchers have been gaslighting the Asian community with false studies claiming that the majority of hate crimes against Asians are from whites spurred on by COVID, based on those very news reports which often omit race when a black suspect is involved. Among the Asian community, these claims that white on Asian hate crimes are the majority are now seen as racist gaslighting.
Ahh, another day, another reminder that people on the internet simply can’t be reasoned with.
More than 2/3rds of my town have Trump related paraphernalia visible on their property.
Do you really want to tell me about what all Trump has stoked hate against.
The fact you mention gaslighting is just grand, lol.
Not directly related, but this comment reminds me of one of the last times I went to a movie theater in this area, whenever The Interview (Kim Jong-Un) came out. There was a group of… South Eastern Asians from their general appearance. Elderly owner of the movie theater who often does ticketing at night says, in one of the most fucked up tones of voices I’ve ever heard, “you aren’t all Koreans are you” to them.
It was pretty disgusting. Funnily enough, he has his entire movie theater plastered in Trump praise & signage, something something he’s constitutionally still the president.
You seem like you don’t understand the level of hate Trump has emboldened, or that you’re just one of the haters & want to troll.
Why be that specific? The WHO’s guidelines already made it clear why some names may be skipped. Referring to Xi Jinping directly would be counter-productive to their goal of depoliticising the name.
Are you really asking why we expect the WHO to be transparent and honest? Because they are an institution that has been given a lot of trust and power. Because their attempts to shape a narrative can harm important efforts like accountability for the virus’s origins and early reporting/containment (or lack thereof). Because people don’t like being lied to or propagandized by overt attempts to shape public opinion. Because an allegedly scientific institution should not play political games.
I agree, I wouldn’t want a variant with my name in it either. They’re just being nice, as far as I’m concerned. This isn’t about China controlling or influencing the WHO.
"'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’".
But it's significantly more common as a last name than any of the other greek letters. 席 is number 213. For context, Armstrong is the 213th most common surname in America. There are still many tens of thousands of people with that surname, it is clearly recognizable as common a surname, and you have definitely heard of at least one Armstrong.
Even if their conclusion is OK, the reasoning "'Xi' was not used because it is a common last name" is based on a lie. 'Xi' is not a common last name. It happens to be the last name of the largest dictator on this planet, but it does not make it a common last name.
Xi is absolutely a common last name. What are you on about? Just checked the white pages for Xi for San Antonio because I used to live there and there's pages upon pages of results. Same for every other bigger US city I've checked.
They didn't skip Eta, which is a common enough name if Xi is, especially given that Xi is pronounced ksʌɪ and, if we're focusing on Chinese (does it exist as a name elsewhere?) it's not going to be romanised and a child in grade school won't be aware anyway.
The popularity of the name Katrina was relatively stable in the 200-300 most popular range until Hurricane Katrina hit, at which point it declined into the 900s.
I think they would survive. If a kid gets picked on for their last name sounding the same as a Covid variant, they were probably going to get picked on for something anyway.
Bending over backwards to avoid offending people isn't good policy, because it just lowers the bar for what makes people offended.
I kind of hate people stating it like this, because when you point out as to why it would be fairly obvious not to use Xi, they'll call you out for pandering towards the CCP.
But Xi is a pretty common surname in China, and the virus has already caused enough hatred towards Asians in general, there's no point in fueling it even more.
There's quite a few variants that either sound like Xi, or look very similar. Even if the exact word "Xi" wasn't a common surname, it's a well known one, and will only fuel the ongoing hatred and racism.
Xiè is the 23rd most common name, Xià is the 65th most common one. There's plenty of others who are very similar, but the pronunciation will be much different, so I'm skipping those.
But when you just need to argue semantics to make your point, perhaps your point isn't that strong at all. And honestly, the spelling of "Xi" has indeed nothing to do with my argument, it was the deeper point that is at issue. I.e. the ongoing abuse towards Asians, naming the virus Xi simply would fuel it.
You’ve completely missed the point, and continue to argue semantics. Wether they’re different variants or not does not matter to your average non-Chinese speaker. You know my stance, I’ve explained it, I have no interest in continuing this argument with you.
I don't care about your other reasoning. I am just stating the fact. Xi is not a common name. I don't care about your other thoughts either. No point in arguing.
That's again one of those arguments, where it's been set up so that when you disagree, you're sucking up towards the CCP.
But, do you think that people who attack or racially abuse Asians because of the virus will care that it's not in the top 200. Xi is a pretty well known name because he's China's leader, and it will most definitely be used against them.
Think of it what you want, of course, but to me this is a sensible decision in order not to fuel the already ongoing racism and abuse people have to endure, just because they're from a certain continent.
> But, do you think that people who attack or racially abuse Asians because of the virus will care that it's not in the top 200. Xi is a pretty well known name because he's China's leader, and it will most definitely be used against them.
So the fact that a very small number of people may act in undesirable ways means that we all need to walk on eggshells and treat China specially even as the country’s leadership acted in irresponsible ways throughout the pandemic? In short you’re arguing that neutrality (in naming) and accountability (due to origin) are less of a priority because of a small number of bad people? Where does that end? It feels to me a bit like caving into the terrorists’ demands and its logical conclusion seems to be “don’t say anything negative about anyone because someone may do something bad with that sentiment”.
I don’t quite understand how you associate accountability with not naming the virus Nu or Xi. There needs to be accountability for sure, and I do feel like the WHO is trying to please China in other instances.
But in this case, I feel it’s sensible. I don’t think there was any other case where the naming could’ve been easily associated with a certain group of people.
It’s a sensible decision wrapped in disingenuous spin. The stated reason was that it’s a common name, but it is apparently not. Giving this as the reason rather the abundantly obvious reason is cause for reasonable criticism.
There are multiple names mapping to the Latin letters Xi, two of them in the top 300. With the population levels of china this can easily be more people then the most common name in <insert many countries here>.
Like some ad-hoc research at least >700,000+ people (in China), potentially more.
This is more people in place 20+ in the list of most common US names (in the US).
It's roughly as many people as the most common German surename (in Germany).
There are multiple Chinese surnames which map to the Latin letters Xi.
Just doing some ad-hoc lookup showed me that here are at-least over 700,000 People with "Xi" as the last name. Not including quite similar names like "Xié".
Sure that there is a certain very powerful person with that name, probably mattered in making them rethink if they should use it. Still there being over half a Million people with that name is a sound argument anyway.
The only rational thing to do is amend all the dictionaries so that the Greek letter has a different English spelling, and erase all evidence of the past. After this year, I expect nothing less.
The Greek letter “n” in Greek is actually called more something like “nee” and not how I understand English speakers pronounce it “nu” (“new”). Same with “m” that is pronounced as “mee”.
I assume this is because ancient Greeks spell the phonetic version of the letter as “νῦ”. The second of those letters is “υ” (upsilon) which in Greek sounds like “e” when put after a consonant.
WHO should have used Chinese characters, would have been more fun.
It would have been so much simpler using latin letters (since the basic name is already using latin letters) and have covid-19-a, covid-19-b etc.
Or numbers -v1, -v2 etc. Or semver (1.3, 1.4, 2, ...).
The current naming is not even pronounced currently (at least in France), omicron is prononced with o.n at the end (the English way) instead of the french way (on being a single sound). I have no idea why, given that everyone here loses their shit evertime English is nibbling on French.
This type of pandering to Xi and China is exactly what helped them escape accountability. I feel the virus should have continued to be referred to as the “Wuhan virus” or “China virus” alongside other names because the virus’s origin DOES bear relevance. I feel the reason these phrases were banned was simply to attack Trump as xenophobic and use it as a political tool in a contentious election year. But by black holing the location on the grounds it might offend or stigmatize, news media and the general public have turned a blind eye to China not reporting the outbreak to the rest of the world, not shutting down their ports, arresting journalists who reported on it, preventing a site visit for over a year, deleting data/records of their research, not upholding safety standards at WIV, and more.
Lastly, this notion that things that offend must not be spoken even if there is a rational reason for them (like just being the next in the alphabet) is a dangerous precedent. The political left will probably welcome it, because much of their social justice causes are built on this type of sentiment. But seeing trusted institutions practice the same ideology is creepy and a dystopian distortion of reality.
"Omicron" does sound fairly ominous. I wonder if that was part of the calculation? To make it sound like something scary that you should take seriously.
No, it was just the next letter in the alphabet after Nu (not used because of its similarity with Mu and the ‘Nu/New’ thing) and Xi (not used to avoid making the discussion about a political controversy rather than the variant.
It was never a science organization, it mostly a coordination and standardization organization that organizes medical responses. If a Xi variant wouldn't be called Xi variant in China that would just cause confusion. Better have a name everybody uses then sticking to the order of an ancient alphabete.
frankly, this topic has already been discussed in half a dozen threads (in other posts), and those have overwhelmingly been stupid & obvious memes and anti-china insinuations. the whole thing should just be flagged instead.
There’s no previously hard and fast rule or principle being broken here, nor is the world worse off because the Greek alphabet is merely being used as a source of neutral names rather than being followed exactly linearly.
I feel that anyone saying it’s a bad thing that Xi was skipped is probably doing so because they feel it would be edgy & funny or something China deserves, and not for any actual scientific credibility perspective.