WHO bows to China, skips ‘xi’ COVID variant name to ‘not offend’ China

News Snapshot:

Over the weekend, the World Health Organization (WHO) was accused of protecting the Chinese Communist Party after naming-sars-cov-2-variant-of-concern) the latest COVID-19 variant “omicron,” skipping over the next letters in the Greek alphabet: “nu” and “xi.” The president of China is Xi Jinping and WHO said “xi” was passed over to avoid “causing offense to any cultural, social, national, regional, professional or ethnic groups.” While the Greek letter “xi” and China’s president’s name are pronounced differently, WHO’s decision to avoid the name prompted criticism that the organization is shielding China from any links to the virus that was first identified in...