You probably spent much of yesterday figuring out how to say "Omicron" and cursing yourself for continuously spelling it "Omnicron" (apologies to our editors).
What you may not have known is that the World Health Organization had two other choices for naming the new COVID variant but they skipped right over them because...well, you know:
The World Health Organization appeared to skip two letters in the Greek alphabet when it announced Friday the name for the latest coronavirus variant, which was first identified in South Africa...
Nu and Xi were apparently the next letters in the Greek alphabet that have yet to be used for a variant, according to data on their website.
Internet pundits and politicians speculated that the group skipped Nu to avoid confusion with the word "new" and passed on Xi because of its written similarity to the name of Chinese leader Xi Jinping
Numerous reports yesterday appeared to put that "speculation" to rest: the World Health Organization really did forego "Xi" out of deference to Communist China:
Ahhh yes, we wouldn't want to "stigmatize a region." Good thing they take that into consideration with every single variant name, right?
