WHO skipped “nu” & “xi” from the Greek alphabet when naming its COVID-19 variant
Sen. Tom Cotton of Arkansas stated in a Saturday tweet, that the World Health Organization is more concerned with protecting the Chinese government’s “feelings” than public health.
This tweet was sent after WHO confirmed that it did not use the Greek letters “nu”, “xi” when naming its COVID-19 variant. However, it is unclear if Cotton’s tweet was referring to the choice of the organization’s variant names.
Cotton stated that the WHO was a joke. Cotton said, “They care more about the feelings and health of the Chinese Communist Party then they do about public health. Without reform, President Biden shouldn’t have resumed funding for this corrupt puppet of CCP.
Another Saturday tweet: The Arkansas Republican stated that Chinese President Xi Jinping was “defensive” about being connected to the virus unleashed by the Chinese Communist Party on the world.
Fox News was informed by a WHO spokesperson that the WHO skipped the Greek letters “nu” and “xi” in Saturday’s statement. “Nu is too easily confused with “new” and “xi is not used because it’s a common lastname.”
The spokesperson stated that the WHO best practices for naming diseases recommend avoiding offense to any cultural, socio-cultural, professional, or ethnic group.
According to WHO’s website, WHO recommends that you use Greek letters in order to simplify the process of virus naming. Variants being monitored are alpha (B.1.1.7, Q lineages), beta, (B.1.351, and descendent linesages), Gamma, (B.1.525), Iota, (B.1.617.1) and Zeta, (P.2), which is the last letter after nu, followed closely by xi, and omicron.
This move was not unnoticed and praised by politicians and pundits on social media.
Ted Cruz (Republican from Texas) also criticised the WHO, stating that the WHO is “scared” of the Chinese Communist Party in a tweet.
Rep. Ken Buck (R-Colo.) said that “the new virus should now be called the Xi variant” because China lied to spread COVID. Tweet Saturday
China and WHO have been criticized for their pandemic response. China prevented WHO investigators from entering Wuhan in 2020 for several months. They finally arrived in January 2021, and published initial findings one month later.
The first cases of coronavirus were discovered in the Chinese city of Wuhan in December of 2019.
According to a May Wall Street Journal Report, some Wuhan Institute of Virology employees fell ill in 2019, requiring hospital care. This is what some call the “lab-leak hypothesis.”
In February, the organization said that its initial report to China on the origins of the pandemic was “extremely unlikely” and recommended “future research.”
The WHO released a July statement acknowledging that the laboratory-leak was not so unlikely.