Govit-19: Why the “Omigron” choice to mark the new variant is less harmless than it appears

Omigron variant – cases found in Great Britain, Germany About sixty passengers were under surveillance when they first arrived in Amsterdam, Italy, Belgium.South Africa… This Saturday, November 27th there was growing concern in Europe towards something new Variation Omicron Of Corona virus, And the world continued to isolate South Africa.

As for the name of this variant, now on everyone’s lips, the World Health Organization (WHO) seemed to have omitted two letters of the Greek alphabet when it announced its name on Friday.

Nu and Xi are the next letters of the Greek alphabet that have not yet been used to name the variant of the corona virus.

Politicians speculated that the WHO had boycotted the Nu to avoid confusion over the word “new” because of its written resemblance to the Chinese president’s name. Xi Jinping.

Senator Ted Cruz retweeted, author of Paul Nuki Telegraph, Citing WHO evidence that Xi was ignored “to avoid tarnishing an area”. “If the WHO is so scared of the Communist Party of China, how can it be trusted the next time it tries to cover up a catastrophic disaster?” Ted Cruz asks.

Avoid staining

The WHO actually excluded Nu and Xi for two reasons. As interviewed by a spokesperson New York Post: ”(To) nu, because people would be confused not knowing if it was a name or a new variant. And since Xi is a generic family name, we agreed to rules that prevent the use of place names by people, animals, to avoid stigma.

Linguistic columnist The Wall Street Journal, Ben Zimmer praised the WHO for “ignoring the confusing names Nu and Xi and going straight to Omicron”.

The Omigron variant is of the fifth type Should be classified as a concern by the WHO, Which also gave the name to alpha, beta, gamma and delta.

See also The HuffPost: Omigron variant: Emergency departure at the airport in South Africa