In Naming Omicron Variant, Authorities Skipped 'Xi' and 'Nu' (wsj.com) 237
WHO has been using the Greek alphabet to name coronavirus strains, but avoided two letters that presented problems. From a report: As health authorities around the world grappled with the emergence of a new strain of the coronavirus, virologists were struggling with a thorny question of their own: What should they name it? The World Health Organization has been using Greek letters to refer to the most widely prevalent coronavirus variants, which otherwise carry unwieldy scientific names. It had already gone through 12 letters of the Greek alphabet when a new variant called B.1.1.529 was detected. But the next two letters in the Greek alphabet, Nu and Xi, posed problems. The WHO said it had skipped them because Nu was too easily confused with "new," while Xi is a common surname. The body cited best practices for naming diseases that seek to avoid causing offense to any cultural, social, national, regional, professional or ethnic groups.
Xi ranked 296th last year among the most common family names in China, according to the government. The top 100 family names are used by about 85% of the population, official data show. The Xi surname is shared by Chinese President Xi Jinping. Until the practice of naming variants after characters in the Greek alphabet was adopted in May, new strains of the virus were commonly referred to by the country where they were first detected. The new system sought to avoid stigmatizing countries that discover new variants. And so what was known as the U.K. variant -- also the Kent variant after the English county where it was discovered -- became Alpha, while a strain detected in South Africa was named Beta. Another thought to have originated in Brazil was given the name Gamma, while Delta was one of the variants first found in India.
Xi ranked 296th last year among the most common family names in China, according to the government. The top 100 family names are used by about 85% of the population, official data show. The Xi surname is shared by Chinese President Xi Jinping. Until the practice of naming variants after characters in the Greek alphabet was adopted in May, new strains of the virus were commonly referred to by the country where they were first detected. The new system sought to avoid stigmatizing countries that discover new variants. And so what was known as the U.K. variant -- also the Kent variant after the English county where it was discovered -- became Alpha, while a strain detected in South Africa was named Beta. Another thought to have originated in Brazil was given the name Gamma, while Delta was one of the variants first found in India.
Delta Airlines seemed quite offended... (Score:5, Insightful)
Does Delta Airlines count as a "professional group"?
Re:Delta Airlines seemed quite offended... (Score:5, Funny)
Dude, it's Delta, this *improves* their brand.
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Omicron Airlines is now pissed.
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Omicron Airlines
Ah United finally went for a rename?
Re: Delta Airlines seemed quite offended... (Score:2)
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I thought his name was "Winnie"...?
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Does Delta Airlines count as a "professional group"?
Have you ever flown Delta? I don't think they even count as amateurs.
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Well, they count as professional acording to one of the definitions:
Professional:
-engaged in by persons receiving financial return
As they are presumably being paid.
But some others seem at best much more questionable:
-characterized by or conforming to the technical or ethical standards of a profession
-exhibiting a courteous, conscientious, and generally businesslike manner in the workplace
So it kind of depends on what definition of professional you use.
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Delta won't even sell snacks to the main cabin anymore. And offer them complementary to first class. I remember the old days when you'd get free almond, peanuts, or cookies on a domestic flight.
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Question (Score:5, Funny)
If they didn’t want to use “Xi”, couldn’t they have used either “Winnie” or “Pooh”?
Xenu (Score:3)
Clearly this is really about Sceintology and avoiding using any part of the evil god XeNu's name.
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We *all* need to spend more time singing, "Xinnie the Pooh" . . . in as many places as possible.
Preferably a stadium breaking in it when he visits . . .
"chubby little ChiCom all stuffed with fluff."
Re:Question (Score:5, Informative)
Re:Question (Score:5, Insightful)
The issue is more that the WHO believes it has to play to China's politics and facesavings or they would be kicked out. As many significant viruses originate from China today and official government epidemiology sources are untrusted, they are worried about losing a critical foothold. I do get that logic. On the other hand, if the WHO has to sacrifice their integrity for severely moderated access anyways, I question the value of the trade.
Re: Question (Score:2)
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Let's rephrase this... (Score:2)
WHO didn't use "xi" because of ignorant people who don't know how to differentiate between using the GREEK alphabet and their language.
Cool, then they should have skipped "gamma" because it sounds exactly like Spanish "gama" ("range"); "beta" because it sounds exactly like Spanish "veta" ("vernier"); etc. In fact, the last one can be also be written with "b", making them homographs.
And, of course, I know WHO will stop calling the 1918 flu "Spanish flu" because we all know it hurts Spain and start calling "U
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Huh? Everyone uses the term Spanish Flu, not just racists.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
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They didn't even skip Mu, which is used by about 50% more Chinese people than Xi. It's narrative that has nothing to do with reality. They simply need to justify kowtowing to their bosses to the masses, and this was a good enough lie to spin.
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I think you're wrong. If you ask most people, in the US at least, where the Spanish Flu originated from they'll say Spain instead of the United States where it was first discovered. People in Spain at the time called it the French Flu because they incorrectly assumed it came from France. People in the United States thought it came from Spain because Spanish journalists were reporting on it whereas, due to wartime censorship, American journalists were not reporting on it originally. People at the time were v
Re:Let's rephrase this... (Score:4, Interesting)
My wife is in nursing school right now, and mentioned the Spanish Flu in one of her classes. She was corrected by the professor that it was the " Flu Pandemic of 1918," not the "Spanish Flu."
So yes, some people have already stopped calling it the Spanish Flu, because reasons.
Re: Let's rephrase this... (Score:2, Troll)
No one is sure, no, but the evidence strongly points to the Americas.
Failure (Score:2)
Do: Name hurricanes after men and not just women.
Reason: Virtue signal whining
Don't: Name a variant after a dictator obfuscating and holding uncounted hundreds of billions in investments in his hand.
Reason: "In his hand"
What do both have in common? Failure to behave yields punching by government in ways it shouldn't.
Nu! So what?! (Score:2)
They should have gone with a more mathy label. Capital Xi-bar over capital Xi.
Nu's on first (Score:5, Funny)
Abbot: Did you hear about the Nu Covid variant?
Costello: There's a new Covid variant? What's it called?
Abbot: Nu.
Costello: Yes, the new variant. What are they calling it?
Abbot: W.H.O. is calling it Nu.
Costello: I'm asking you. Why are you asking me?
Abbot: They haven't gotten to 'Y' yet.
Costello: Who hasn't gotten to 'Y' yet?
Abbot: Exactly, they're still on Nu.
Costello: Who is?
Abbot: Exactly. W.H.O. is still on Nu.
Costello: What are asking me for? Geez.
Abbot: Not geez; Xi. That comes after Nu.
Costello: But then it won't be new anymore.
Abbot: Exactly.
Re: Nu's on first (Score:2)
Mod parent up
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WHO What Y Nu?
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Well played, sir, though the fruit was hanging low.
How is this dramatic at all? Who gives a shit? (Score:2, Informative)
Obviously they skipped it because of Xi, leader of China.
Okay? So? How is that unethical, misleading, or immoral? There were (and are) issues since the beginning of the pandemic with people calling it Wuhan Flu, China Virus, etc. for the explicit purpose of being edgy in an embarrassingly childish display of mild racism and right-wing virtue signalling. In some cases around the world, people were being assaulted for "being in a pandemic while Asian".
If they had named a new variant with the same title as the
Re:How is this dramatic at all? Who gives a shit? (Score:5, Insightful)
It is dishonet when they give bullshit excuses for the naming.
If they had just said that they did not want to name it Xi variant because of the dictator that would not have at least been dishonest or misleading.
Immoral on the other hand? That is more arguable, what is clearly immoral is the coverup that the Chinese authorities did at the beginning of the pandemic thus helping it spread.
They still are.The CCP reports 5K TOTAL CV deaths. (Score:2)
John Hopkins [jhu.edu]
Why the fuck does anyone believe a single word that comes out of China about literally anything? The CCP inhales/exhales lies - it's all about FACE [wikipedia.org](Optics/Perception/whatever word you want to use) and not the musical scale.
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The one thing I'd say is I personally would either have them not comment at all on why they skipped or admitted explicitly that it was because of the association with Xi Jinping. Instead they claim it's a "common" Chinese surname when it isn't common at all.
Other than that detail, I agree that people wouldn't be mature about it and in their abuse of the name Xi wouldn't stop at criticizing Xi Jinping the person or even just the CCP, but would disparage the entire nation and anyone that vaguely looks like th
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Re:How is this dramatic at all? Who gives a shit? (Score:4, Interesting)
There is absolutely nothing racist about "Wuhan flu". It's obvious to everyone that ordinary people of Wuhan were the first victims of communist thugs that let the virus lose (lab or wet market doesn't really matter, still criminal negligence) and covered it up until eradication was not an option. We should keep the name so that one day these government officials can be prosecuted for crimes against their fellow countrymen and humanity at large.
As for anti-Asian crimes, a good chunk of those are committed by non-white individuals for reasons that have more to do with defunding the police / pandemic unemployment / simple racial tensions rather than blame for virus origins. By all means, prosecute any perpetrators to full extent of the law, regardless of race and motives. But don't let CCP hide behind the victims and shift attention away from its own crimes.
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One of many stories [amnesty.org] of Wuhan doctors and reporters being prosecuted for trying to expose the outbreak.
China could have been open with the rest of the world as soon as the virus was found circulating and as soon as it was found to transmit through droplets rather than surfaces. They should have given full account of local lab research that quite possibly unleashed the virus. Instead they arm twisted WHO into recommending against travel restrictions [reuters.com].
With some luck, we could have contained the virus. Failing t
PC out of control. (Score:4, Insightful)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?... [youtube.com]
As a bonus... (Score:2)
Omicron sounds more menacing. If you're trying to scare people into getting their shots and staying home this Christmas season, it's better to have the new virus variant sound like a villain from a Transformers movie.
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Just wait for the arrival of omega variant...
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Omicronians (Score:3)
Apparently they didn't care about the poor Omicronians being singled out...
https://futurama.fandom.com/wi... [fandom.com]
"Common surname." Please. (Score:2)
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While I agree that the 'common surname' is BS, and that there is generally too much pandering to the CCP and Xi Jinping in particular, I don't think avoiding the name of the head of China is necessarily about him or the CCP, as I doubt the people that scream 'Wuhan Flu' would apply a lot of nuance and precision to limit their rhetoric to the leadership of China rather than apply to not only all of China, but also anyone who vaguely resembles ethnic Chinese.
Given the history of racially directed anger over t
Condescending Pricks (Score:5, Insightful)
If you want me to take you seriously, please don't insult my intelligence.
This shouldn't be a political issue so you can stop with the pandering. Save your patronizing bullshit for the idiots who think they're in charge.
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New names should be sanitized like brand names (Score:2)
Humans are not intelligent nor intellectual for the most part and that can never be different. We evolved to reproduce in millennia of savage combat and the creatures that evolutionary process built only exist to make offspring. They are hypersensitive and vicious and stupid. If you are one of the trivially few exceptions you understand this.
Use computers to generate syllable combinations without prior meaning and consider using alphanumeric names. There is only need for clarity (as much as practical, there
the greek letter is not named "new" (Score:3)
it is named "ni", as in nit, nib, nick
Re:the greek letter is not named "new" (Score:5, Funny)
But think of the poor Knights Who Say "Ni!" who would be traumatized by such naming.
Yet they still name wildfires Camp Fire. (Score:2)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
In 2018 there was a large fire in California that they named the "Camp Fire". Traditionally, California wildfires are named after roads that they're closest to.
Yet they'll also name fires that combine together as "complex" fires. However "complex" is most commonly in reference to housing complexes.
They weren't very creative w/ naming covid/sars-cov-2, they should just stick to the regular names.
Some people need to act like world leaders and not let petty things like this m
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WHO's director Tedros is Piglet. (Score:3)
This is 100% because of Xi Jing Pooh, The director of the WHO has his job because of Xi Jing Pooh. Mu was used as a variant name is a more common last name than Xi is. They're 100% full of shit as always.
Lol (Score:2)
The Slashdot editors saw an opportunity to troll the Russian troll-bots, their American victims, AND the COVID trolls, at the same time.
Re:What's wrong with Xi? (Score:4, Informative)
Xi is a common surname among people of Chinese heritage, inside and outside China.
One of the reasons they picked Greek letters was to avoid using people's names and the names of places.
The other problem with Xi is that it sounds the "the" (the variant with the elongated "ee" sound at the end).
Re: What's wrong with Xi? (Score:2, Flamebait)
All the more reason to name things by geography.
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Problem is what geographic location do you use? If you use the first place it was detected then you discourage countries from reporting new variants, lest they end up like South Africa.
Re: What's wrong with Xi? (Score:2)
Use rivers of the world in order of declining length. Nile, Amazon, Yangtze, etc.
Re: What's wrong with Xi? (Score:4)
Re: What's wrong with Xi? (Score:2)
There is no "South African variant" and yet they still got the travel ban. Thus geographic *naming* has jack shit to do with travel bans.
Re:What's wrong with Xi? (Score:4, Informative)
Baloney. Xi is not a common surname at all...inside or outside of China. Skipping it is just kowtowing to the CCP. Let's just call it what it is.
Best,
Re:What's wrong with Xi? (Score:4, Informative)
Xi is a very common name in China: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
You can see that Xi is number 23 on the list. But there are also a few others on the like that sound the same when spoken, such as multiple versions of Shi.
That's tens of millions of people in China alone.
Re:What's wrong with Xi? (Score:4, Interesting)
Interesting that this was modded troll. Cited information that contradicts the anti China narrative is trolling now.
Re:What's wrong with Xi? (Score:5, Informative)
Interesting that this was modded troll. Cited information that contradicts the anti China narrative is trolling now.
Perhaps it was unintentional, but your link actually contradicts your narrative, not the Chinese narrative, so you were likely modded Troll for misleading people about the contents of the article you were linking.
For instance, you claimed Xi was at #23 on the list, but #23 is instead Xie, an entirely different name. To provide a Westernized analogy, that's like confusing Sandwich for Smith; they're nothing alike. The vowel sounds are different (ia vs. ee). The typical consonant sounds are different (tch vs. sh). Even the number of syllables are different to a Westerner's ears (2 vs. 1). Likewise, there are a number of variations of Shi (#61, #83, #108), but those are each tonally distinct, and no more interchangeable with Xi than Tayler would be for Tyler or Hill would be for Hall.
And though you didn't make any specific claims regarding China's leader (at least so far as I've seen), Xi Jinping's version of "Xi" sounds fairly similar to the word "she" in English, in case you were curious, and doesn't appear anywhere on your list.
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Using your own link. #23 is Xie/Hsieh. Not even remotely the same if you speak Chinese. If you look at the columns that reflect the sounds of the names in Mandarin, Xi isn't on this list at all. If you want to pretend that Shi and Xi are the same (they are not), it's still way towards the bottom of your list which only goes to 112 top names.
Fail.
Best,
Re: What's wrong with Xi? (Score:2)
Name Game is Lame Shame (Score:2)
Why not just give them numbers rather than risk name collisions of any kind? Remember all the confusion Microsoft and Adobe created by using names for versions?
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Because, while make people on Slashdot are different and remember numbers better than names(like me), a large majority of people cannot remember numbers as well as names.
That is the reason why things have been traditionally named for public consumption.
Variant 13 vs omicron and most people will remember omicron much better.
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It does not matter how it is pronounced for that effect to happen.
Names, even hard to pronounce foreign names are easier for people to remember(approximately) than numbers.
People will still be able to say "I had covid Olicron/omikron/oimaikton/oilikton" or whatever as there is no Greek letter very close (Omega being closest) and most people will still know what variant you are talking about. And thus easily differentiate from say Delta or Lambda or whatever.
Re: Name Game is Lame Shame (Score:2)
Numbers are already used all over the naming. The virus is called SARS-CoV-2. The individual strains then use numbers anyways. For example, omicron is B.1.1.529.
They should have just named the damn thing the same way we've named every other disease and called it something like "the Wuhan cold".
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It is.
And it is right in the summary.
Being able to read make life much more easy.
Re:What's wrong with Xi? (Score:5, Insightful)
Xi is not a common surname at all...inside or outside of China.
Just saying it doesn't make it so.
Skipping it is just kowtowing to the CCP. Let's just call it what it is.
Let's call it what it is, a reflection that there are some people who would just jump on the fact that it's called Xi to make all sorts of wonderful new claims and push yet more misinformation and bullshit about a virus the racist fuckers already insist on calling the "Wu flu".
There is zero benefit to using the letter Xi and many downsides. Use your brain.
Re:What's wrong with Xi? (Score:5, Insightful)
Baloney. Xi is not a common surname at all...inside or outside of China. Skipping it is just kowtowing to the CCP. Let's just call it what it is.
Common sense?
The WHO naming guidelines [who.int] are all about trying to find neutral names to avoid stigmatization and cultural offence precisely because they don't want diseases associated with the place where they started (feel like a rafting trip?).
Having the variant share the last name with the leader of the country associated with the start of the outbreak is an obvious violation of these guidelines, a situation easily rectified by jumping to the next letter.
I notice no one complaining about them skipping "Nu" and kowtowing to all the English speakers who would confuse it with "New". Apparently skipping letters of the Greek alphabet is only disallowed when you want to offend China.
Re: What's wrong with Xi? (Score:2)
Re:What's wrong with Xi? (Score:5, Insightful)
And yet they named B.1.621 and B.1.621.1 as Mu
Rankings of how common surnames are:
Rank, Surname, approximate people
527, Mu, 1 028 966
708, Xi, 774 021
So why did they not skip the more common name Mu but skipped the less common Xi?
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Where did you get that data from?
I'm not suggesting that it was okay to use Mu either, I'm just interested in the data. FWIW there have been calls to move away from common names for destructive storms too.
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https://forebears.io/earth/sur... [forebears.io]
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Thanks. 11 million for "Shi". That's how it's pronounced, if not spelt. Interesting that their list is different from the Wikipedia one.
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Good question. Why aren't health experts more knowledgeable on the relative prominence of Chinese surnames? Sounds like it's worth a great deal of their time.
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So why did they not skip the more common name Mu but skipped the less common Xi?
Because Xi is the name of China's current leader, obviously.
Re:What's wrong with Xi? (Score:5, Informative)
Arguably it is not that common, as they noted it ranks 296th in the list of common surnames, with the 100 most common making up 85%. So of the last 15% of surnames it ranks 196th. If we extrapolate the results we get that the next 100 common surnames might make up 12.5%, saying that of the 200 most common surnames they make up 97.5%. To simplify the series a bit, we'll assume 296th and 301st are about equal, and using the same method we now have that the next 100 common surnames make up another 2.1%, for a total of 99.6%. Of this final 0.4% there may be approximately 0.1% outside, making up the tail. This would give Xi with less than 0.1% of the population.
In essence, it isn't about how common the name really is in China, it's solely due to their head of state having that surname.
Note: I may be wildly off by my calculations of this infinite series, but one would assume that later on in the list it curves down to smaller and smaller percentages, especially towards the end. For a more thorough handling of this we can look at the surname survival problem.
Re:What's wrong with Xi? (Score:4, Insightful)
In essence, it isn't about how common the name really is in China, it's solely due to their head of state having that surname.
I think it's more due to our head of state being a racist fuckwit who would jump at any opportunity to find a link between China and what he affectionately has tried to call the "Wu Flu" for the duration of his precedence of the pandemic. You know, anything to further attempt to blame someone else.
It's a fucking letter. There's zero benefits to using the letter Xi and no downsides other than a bunch of people getting butthurt ... which is actually quite an upside from where I'm sitting.
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According to this it's 26th. I think the confusion comes from the fact that there are 8 different names that are written as Xi in Latin characters but which are different in Chinese characters. So you have to count all of them.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
Note that the source of that data is the Chinese government.
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For those of you who want to see what a far left liar looks like, this is it. See this narrative? That "Name Xi is too popular"?
Mu was an actual variant named by WHO as a variant of importance. Name Mu is used by approximately 50% more Chinese people than name Xi.
This is a very typical form of far left lying. They tell you just enough truth to justify their point, and omit facts that utterly debunk their pretty, but completely false narrative.
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Xi is a common surname among people of Chinese heritage, inside and outside China.
But it's pronounced completely differently than the Greek letter. Xi, the Chinese name, is pronounced sort of like "shee" in English spelling. The Greek letter is pronounced like "ksi". They're not even remotely similar.
Also, the surname is not really even spelled "Xi". It's spelled in Chinese characters [hantrainerpro.com]. "Xi" is just the pinyin romanization without the accent marking tone.
So I think avoiding naming the variant Xi was unnecessary; nobody would reasonably mistake it for the name.
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The well was already poisoned by people calling it the Xi Virus.
Re: What's wrong with Xi? (Score:2)
Watching people argue their own mispronunciations of Greek letters with extreme confidence has been pretty hilarious.
"I'm telling you bro, I was in a frat, and it's pronounced KIE".
Re: What's wrong with Xi? (Score:2)
Re:They should have used cartoon character names. (Score:5, Insightful)
People also don't seem to grasp that Omicron is a good thing, if its reputation bears out (that is more communicable than delta, but less deadly). This is how pandemics recede; eventually a variant comes along that isn't as deadly and pushes out the deadlier varieties.
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I agree that it is a good thing if it is both more contagious and significantly less dangerous. (I add significantly because I think it is important - if you get 2x the cases at -10% problems per case, collectively it is a worse situation.) The jury is still out on Omicron.
However, I keep seeing people post that diseases inevitably get less dangerous. If so, how do you explain that smallpox remained a very dangerous disease for many centuries? It may happen that a variant shows up that is less dangerous and
Re: They should have used cartoon character names. (Score:4, Informative)
That was cowpox. Though cowpox was itself used as the very first vaccine, and was thus deliberately spread, which resulted in the decline of smallpox.
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Hmm...maybe it's because the US bought up SO much of the vaccines that don't appear to be effective with the new variants...maybe they're just wanting to use up the excess reserves while they can?
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Omicron sounds like Unicron's slightly less dangerous moon sized brother.
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Thank you Mr. Fry!!
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In which language does anyone have the surname "Alpha"?
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In the US, presumably English, in Africa, whatever language is spoken in the region, and in the Philippians presumably Tagalog.
https://forebears.io/surnames/... [forebears.io]
Not very common, but Mu is way more common than Xi, and was used, so it is all fake anyways.
https://forebears.io/surnames/... [forebears.io]
https://forebears.io/surnames/... [forebears.io]
Re: Alpha is a more common name than Xi (Score:2)
>> Xi was skipped because the WHO is ran by the Chinese dictatorship.
If true, so what. "The Bart the"