The World Health Organization (WHO) has explained why it skipped the Greek letters “nu” and “xi” in naming the new COVID-19 variant Omicron.
“Two letters were skipped—Nu and Xi—because Nu is too easily confounded with ‘new’ and Xi was not used because it is a common surname and [the] WHO best practices for naming new diseases … suggest avoiding ‘causing offence to any cultural, social, national, regional, professional, or ethnic groups,'” the United Nations agency told The Epoch Times in a statement on Nov. 27.
The WHO best practices for naming new diseases were developed in conjunction with the Food and Agriculture Organization of the U.N. and the World Organisation for Animal Health in 2015.
Professor Jonathan Turley, a criminal attorney and professor at George Washington University, speculated that the WHO “is again avoiding any discomfort for the Chinese government” in skipping the “Xi” letter and naming it Omicron.
“The new variant was expected to be Nu but any ad...