Coronavirus Variants Get New Names (reuters.com) 233
Coronavirus variants with clunky, alphanumeric names have now been assigned the letters of the Greek alphabet to simplify discussion and pronunciation while avoiding stigma. From a report: The World Health Organization revealed the new names on Monday amid criticism that those given by scientists to strains such as the South African variant -- which goes by multiple names including B.1.351, 501Y.V2 and 20H/501Y.V2 -- were too complicated. Since the pandemic began, the names people have used to describe the virus have provoked controversy. Former U.S. President Donald Trump called the new coronavirus "the China virus" and other monikers, raising concern he was using the names as a political weapon to shift blame to a rival nation. The WHO, which has urged people not to use language to advance COVID-19 profiling of people or nationalities, has also said people should avoid using country names in association with emerging variants.
The four coronavirus variants considered of concern by the U.N. agency and known generally by the public as the UK, South Africa, Brazil and India variants have now been assigned the Greek letters Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta, respectively, according to the order of their detection. Other variants of interest continue down the alphabet.
The four coronavirus variants considered of concern by the U.N. agency and known generally by the public as the UK, South Africa, Brazil and India variants have now been assigned the Greek letters Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta, respectively, according to the order of their detection. Other variants of interest continue down the alphabet.
Gonna run outta letters (Score:5, Interesting)
At least use an alphabet with more than 24.
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Re:Gonna run outta letters (Score:4, Interesting)
I've been thinking for a while they should choose human-style names for each virus variant, like they do for hurricanes. Anna, Blanche, Camille, Debbie, Eve, etc. When you reach Z you can start over with Arthur, Brendan, Chris.
But letters works well enough - once you use up the alphabet you can start over with "Alpha-2", etc.
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Are you kidding? If we can't affix stigma to the nation in which the virus or variant did originate (which is a factual thing to do), then how can we possibly stigmatize the Blanches and Debbies of the world? They truly are innocent in this matter. Unless the first infected person in China happened to be Blanche, in which the Blanche-China virus is perfectly accurate.
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But Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, the Spanish Flu, and the West Nile Virus are just hunkydory ??
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But Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, the Spanish Flu, and the West Nile Virus are just hunkydory ??
I hate Orange man as much as anyone, but the weird idea that assigning place of origin as being somehow racist is the product of a knee jerk reaction. If Trump called it "the China Flu" or the "Wuhan flu", then it must be opposed.
To the point that it became politically fashionable to deny it even came from there. At this point, we're looking in to it again. What will be interesting will be the far left's reaction if it is not only proven to have come from China/Wuhan/Bioweapons lab. They hung a fair amo
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I hate Orange man as much as anyone, but the weird idea that assigning place of origin as being somehow racist is the product of a knee jerk reaction. If Trump called it "the China Flu" or the "Wuhan flu", then it must be opposed.
It's not a knee jerk reaction, it's an existing policy not to name viruses after their place of origin [who.int]
Trump's naming is not only racist or xenophobic, but also inaccurate because it's not a flu and also not necessarily from China (that certainly not known at the time), and he absolutely did it to downplay the risk and shift any blame on the dirty foreigners. You must be underestimating how much a regular person hates the orange man, because you actually really seem to love him.
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Inventing names for it like "x flu" must be opposed because influenza virus is not the same as corona virus, and conflating the two stunts your comprehension of the differences. (And isn't that the intent?) Couldn't care what some washed-up reality TV star called it. The only people still paying attention to him are butthurt redcaps.
There is no one suggesting, in good faith, that it came from anywhere other than China. You can't cite one. (Patiently awaiting your link to a random YouTube channel devoted to
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I hate Orange man as much as anyone, but the weird idea that assigning place of origin as being somehow racist is the product of a knee jerk reaction.
Naming the disease after actual objects has caused problems in the past [wikipedia.org]. So although there were probably unfounded accusations of racism, it is worth avoiding anyway because you never know what some crazy person will do out of 7 billion.
My 2 cents.
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and the right is still wrong eventhough...they were right? how exactly does that work.... seems like you have to use some pretty hardcore mental gymnastics to convince yourself that the other side is the bad guy
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The difference is whether it's based on accurate information, or at least the best we can get. (And it should be bracketed with a degree of uncertainty marker.)
Too many people demand that things be declared either true or false in the absence of information. Often just so that they can find a scapegoat, which is a usually foolish goal.
P.S.: I'm not "fine with it coming from a lab", but if it did, then it did. Just claiming that it did, however, is either stupid or malign...I don't see any other options.
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The difference is whether it's based on accurate information, or at least the best we can get. (And it should be bracketed with a degree of uncertainty marker.)
You personally might be changing your opinion based on accurate information (with error bars), but "the left", "the right", "politicians", the media, and the public in general do not do that.
When was the last time you saw a news story about coronavirus with uncertainty markers?
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somehow trump had the left so insane that he wasnt given the same respect as literally every other president.
Respect is not something you are given, it is something you earn.
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Trump was, and continues to be, a habitual liar, in a way that no president in modern history was.
The left would have taken him more seriously if he didn't tell blatant obvious lies and falsehoods on a daily basis. These were lies in direct contradiction of the memory of anyone who can remember even a few years into the past. Practically the first thing he did at the beginning of his presidency was to lie about the size of the inauguration crowd relative to that of Obama.
consider: https://www.nytimes.com/in [nytimes.com]
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how many times do presidents tell us they have proof of X or Y, and we trust them on it even without showing us the proof?
I agree with your overall point, but it's been a long time since I trusted any president without seeing the proof. And the intelligence agencies are worse.
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the left was not ok with that when it was said for over a year.... now all of a sudden its ok because its someone who is not trump saying it.... and the right is still wrong eventhough...they were right? how exactly does that work.... seems like you have to use some pretty hardcore mental gymnastics to convince yourself that the other side is the bad guy
I loathe the depths to which the far right has sunk. But I do believe that the far left is just as bad, with remarkable powers of suspension of disbelief.
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I loathe the depths to which the far right has sunk. But I do believe that the far left is just as bad, with remarkable powers of suspension of disbelief.
So by the powers of whataboutism the far right should be excused by how much or what exactly do you want to say with that statement? Have other people brought up "far left" in the discussion so far? Or is it just your go-to conversation starter?
When we are at it: "far left" – what do you mean? Just curious since I doubt most people in the US know what the far left is. If you can point to a communist organization that wants to overthrow society through revolution, yes, that is definitely it. (A childho
Re:Gonna run outta letters (Score:4, Interesting)
Eh, if it does turn out to have come from a lab, the left is generally ok with that. One of the key differences between left and right is the right attaches to a narrative regardless of information, while the left changes their narrative as information changes.
Where did you get that little bit of QAnon wisdom? My position is that dumbasses who assign race to a geographic location are racist themselves, not that they support bioweapons research.
Which also means, even if it did come from a lab, the right is _still_ wrong because they were making assertions based off false information. Racists are kinda like psychics in that way.
So do you have the citations for that? My world has a certain ambiguity level for the source of the flu, with far left and far right taking typical positions. Waiting to see what the other person says so that they can be against it. Perhaps you have some intel accounts that show that.
If the source was a random sort of thing, then there is no blame to be assigned. If the virus was an escapee from a bio or bioweapons research facility, then it needs further scrutiny.
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We had a naming convention for years. If Trump goes against it to promote racism. Well that racist by definition isn't it.
I'm not certain how mention of a geographic place is racism, but I didn't go the the participation trophy schools either.
That Trump is racist is not arguable. He's one step short of wearing a bedsheet and calling himself the Grand wazoo inquisitor 10th rank.
Geographic places do not have racial connotations except when both sides of the place are racist in themselves.
Now let's take the Spanish Flu epidemic of 1918. Was that racist against Spanish people? In fact, because of wartime censorship, repor
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Examples of lies and misconceptions, sure.
Lasting stigma? Not really. The West Nile Virus I'm concerned about is in mosquitos in my backyard (nowhere near Africa.) Nobody is avoiding Spain because they're afraid of the Spanish Flu. I've never even heard of Rocky Mountain Spotted Fever, but hearing it now has no effect on my desire to move to Colorado.
I'm not sure trying to shield China from any association with the virus is a worthwhile torch to bare, either. In all likelihood it was the practice of unhygie
Countries: Not so factual (Score:2)
the nation in which the virus or variant did originate (which is a factual thing to do),
It's not so factual as you would think.
It might come to you as a suprise but we as a specie travel around a fucking lot.
Even in the middle of a global pandemic, when the scientific consensus is that you should reduce the amount of people you get into direct contact with (*), you'll still see people jumping around the globe in planes.
Case in point, it was not clear initially if P.1 should be called "Brazillian" or "Japanese", because scientist from both countries began noticing it. (Spoiler alert: it turns o
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Yes but only Sesame Street names.
Covid Beaker or Covid Elmo.
but of course not Covid Swedish Chef.
Re:Gonna run outta letters (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Gonna run outta letters (Score:5, Funny)
I did. She just can't stop bitching about it.
Re: Gonna run outta letters (Score:2)
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At least use an alphabet with more than 24.
Nah it's easy, after a letter we'll just add a period and start numbering them. If too many variants arise we could use software like Pangolin to divide them down even further.
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Re:Gonna run outta letters (Score:5, Insightful)
Well they won't if people just get Vaccinated.
The ones who get Vaccinated, often have a level of protection from the new variants, as well reduce the speed of spread. Plus with less overall cases, the virus has less of an opportunity to mutate, as it is isn't as widely populated.
I am sick of all the Q-Anon like conspiracy theories, they hold no weight, as well anti-vaxer logic, where you ability to assets risk is greatly hindered.
Get the shot, you get a sore arm for a few days, and perhaps 1-5 days of kinda feeling like you have a cold or flu, without much of the really bad stuff. But your chances of catching the Virus is much less, meaning the chance you will spread it to others is much less. Meaning there will be less overall viruses who can mutate.
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Re:Gonna run outta letters (Score:5, Informative)
Sorry, but no. It's just that the left-wing antivaxers got the media coverage. There have been conservative antivaxers since around the time cowpox was used to protect against smallpox. But the Hollywood anti-vaxers got the media coverage.
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The fact that people will not believe science isn't a function of a political stance. However the type of science they will not believe can be.
The Liberal folks have a hard time when science says something is Safe, Vaccines, GMO, some types of Plastics... They tend to be careful about things that they may not fully understand being safe, and would normally avoid it all together, or try to get it banned.
The Conservative folks have a hard time when science says something is dangerous. Global Climate Chang
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A Liberal will toss out all your tools that could seriously hurt you, and perhaps give you inferior ones. A conservative will take off all the safety features from your tools thinking it will make them work better, and give you that old tool that Uncle Stumpy use to use all the time. Either way all your tools are messed up after they get their hands on them.
Thanks, I will use that some time.
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I we get 25 or more variants I think we have more to worry about than what to call them. 8^)
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Try that again.
If we get 25 or more variants I think we have more to worry about....
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There's already a lot more than that.
What they talk about are major variants where communicablity or deadliness changes.
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You should definitely expect more than 25 variants. If you don't find them, you aren't looking carefully. The genetic code has LOTS of letter in even a viral genome, and some of the variants are functionally identical.
Now whether each variant is worthy of a separate name, rather than just a number, is another question. And how to draw the bounds around "which variations should be included within a particular name". (Because you won't be able to name each variant. You really won't. And "functionally id
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You could use a bijective numeral system [wikipedia.org] rather than hexavigesimal base. Like a spreadsheet system (or some rogue-likes): A-Z, AA-AZ, BA-BZ, ... ZZZ
some sketchy C code, use as CC0 or PD or BSD0.
/* this code uses C99, change if you do not have long long type */
static const char tab26[26] = "abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz";
typedef long long bi26_num_t;
int bi26encode(bi26_num_t n, size_t len, char *str) /* TODO: test how well 'len' prevents overflows */
{
char buf[16];
UK variants (plural) (Score:3)
One problem with using country names is that it's rather confusing when there are multiple variants originating in a country. The "UK variant" referred to in the summary is generally known to the UK public as "the Kent variant", and there's at least one other UK variant (the "Yorkshire variant" - no idea what Greek letter it's been assigned).
Re: UK variants (plural) (Score:3)
Beta release (Score:2)
Its like a software revision.
Well now we are going to have alpha versions, beta versions etc. so it just the same.
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That is as good of an argument as any, I have a traditional English pub near my home in the North Eastern US. founded by a guy from Kent England. The last thing I want is for it to get negative press, just because a viral mutation that happened in Kent England.
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That is as good of an argument as any, I have a traditional English pub near my home in the North Eastern US. founded by a guy from Kent England. The last thing I want is for it to get negative press, just because a viral mutation that happened in Kent England.
What I don't get is why the "Kent Pub" would get bad press from naming a virus after a place where it was first localized.
We all know exactly where the Covid-19 virus first popped up. Wordsmithing the locale away achieves nothing other than an appearance that something is being suppressed.
Even the exceptionally specious sounding explanation that this entire thing was started by a bowl of bat soup has a made up ring to it.
The concept of demands to de localize the first outbreak location removes a ver
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We live in a world where a non-zero number of people have stopped drinking Corona beer because they think it has something to do with the virus. If Smith Corona still made typewriters, some people would've stopped using them...
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Yes, but a lot of people have stopped getting products from China, because of fear of Covid, and hence why we have a supply chain issue.
We have a problem of a lot of Racist attacks on Asian people, and we are doing a lot of crap that we use to laugh at our medieval ancestors did during the plague, as just really stupid.
So while people realize that Corona Beer or the Company called COVID isn't related to the virus, knowing that someone is from one of these areas will indeed cause a trigger, even if they hav
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The concept of demands to de localize the first outbreak location removes a very valuable tool in limiting the impact and resulting deaths. Imagine if we could isolate new strains immediately.
Jesus you're full of shit.
You probably one of those retards who thinks the Spanish Flu originated in Spain.
Nope - it was just where it was first reported on, my precious little snowflake. If your ego is so fragile that a place can wreck it, consider counseling, for you are a weak person.
Location, not Country (Score:2)
One problem with using country names is that it's rather confusing when there are multiple variants originating in a country.
That's not a problem if you use location, not necessarily, country naming. If needed you can drill down to the level of an individual so you could have the Mr-Smith-42-Ebola-Road-Leeds-UK variant. You can make it as fine-grained as you need to distinguish the variants since it is - I hope - unlikely that one person will spontaneously mutate two variants. However, if you are Mr Smith I suspect you would have a strong preference for the greek letter system.
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If you're going to go down that route, geocoding it would be easier. Of course, potentially you might have two variations identified from the same spot, so then you could tack a Greek letter on at the end to distinguish them.
The Greeks must be furious (Score:2)
Why not take the Roman one?
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Pronouncing Roman letters is ambiguous: I is eye or ee (in which case E is eh), G and J swap pronunciations, and there are language differences in names for other letters. That is why phonetic alphabets were created, but using that might -- at least by your (I think facetious) argument -- suggest that NATO is responsible for the virus for its variants.
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The Gamma variant should be actually the Charlie variant, then?
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I is one, so no ambiguity at all.
Now we know it's man-made! (Score:3, Funny)
Beta was a pre-release test variant.
Stick with Greek Letters for VOIs (Score:2)
Go with Cthulhu Mythos names for VOCs.
Gamma-Gamma-Pi ... (Score:3)
Your virus sounds like a fraternity!
Marketing has notes. (Score:5, Funny)
I thought we had this settled: New Covid, Classic Covid, Diet Covid, Caffeine-Free Covid, and Covid Zero.
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I thought we had this settled: New Covid, Classic Covid, Diet Covid, Caffeine-Free Covid, and Covid Zero.
They tried rolling out "Covid with Lime", but orange juice and lemonade sales tanked as people hastened to abandon anything related to the disease, and soon scurvy deaths overtook Covid's, so policymakers rolled that one back.
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Diet Covid is known as Covid Light in Europe.
Simplifying the FUD (Score:2, Insightful)
"Former U.S. President Donald Trump called the new coronavirus "the China virus" and other monikers, raising concern he was using the names as a political weapon to shift blame to a rival nation."
Seriously...
Trump called it "the China virus" to shift blame to the nation that originated the virus. China. So... "the China virus" - nothing vernacular or dishonest about that. Entirely accurate.
The "lettering" of variants are the machinations of bureaucrats eager to simplify the delivery of FUD.
They're going to
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The problem isn't trump, and it isn't bureaucrats, and it isn't FUD. Naming variants by country of origin was fine... until... ...until deplorable US citizens started beating up other US citizens based on their ancestry matching the variant name.
Maybe, just maybe, US culture could stop being violent against anyone and everyone for each and every random available reason. Had it been called the mechanic-variant, you'd have started beating up car mechanics.
Solve that problem, and all of this nonsense goes aw
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Are you calling blacks deplorable (since they're responsible for most of the attacks)?
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I'm not in any need of distinguishing one US resident from another. You all look the same to us.
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Not to quibble extensively, but if you eliminate the countries with really small populations where even a few thousand deaths will exacerbate the per capita statistics, the USA is certainly in the top 10. We're 18th overall, but 4th if you look at only countries over 50M population and 8th if you put the limit at 10M. Yes, that threshold leaves out a lot of countries, but including small countries like Gibralter or San Marino or Montenegro just to be able to say we aren't the worst is really missing the poi
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I'm perfectly willing to say that America - with states handling many of the decisions of what to do in a health emergency vs. the federal government and a very mobile population - is in a difficult place to deal with any pandemic. We didn't do horribly. And no, politicians aren't to blame for viruses (unless their policies are to develop a bio-weapon and it gets away from the scientists - not saying that happened in this case - but politicians don't necessarily get a free ride).
But politicans at all lev
Let's see if, say, Slashdot supports the new names (Score:2)
Ask the WHO about Taiwan again... (Score:5, Insightful)
The WHO, which has urged people not to use language to advance COVID-19 profiling of people or nationalities, has also said people should avoid using country names in association with emerging variants.
Let's not forget this is the same WHO that flat out refused to answer questions about cooperation with Taiwanese doctors and then abruptly cut off a Zoom call when a reporter pressed the issue. If anyone thinks the WHO is in any way not completely in bed with the CCP, they're deluding themselves. Viewed through the prism of "what can the WHO do to cover up for its Chinese masters?" this renaming idea is perfectly in line with prior efforts. It does little or nothing to help with the virus but does lots in the propaganda department.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Just like "magic numbers"... (Score:3, Interesting)
Here in Indiana, they used to have the license plates where it was a number (1-99) for each county in alphabetical order, a letter, and a number (max of four digits). The initial number was 1-92, then when the more populous counties consumed their initial number, all of the digits for each letter of the alphabet, they'd give them another initial letter. They held onto that system for a long, long time rather than just biting the bullet.
Another good example: the hospital where I worked at one time had a massive rolodex system where they had an index card for the first admission of someone (and it went all the way back to when the hospital was founded in the 1800s) despite the fact they had a computerized system. When they decided to update the computer system with a newer system, one of the stipulations was that the powerfile (rolodex) had to be entered first, with each card representing the master record of the patient; they also required the first digit of the patient number to be a '0' if they were inpatient, '1' if they were an outpatient, '2' was an inpatient of a nearby sister hospital, etc. They blew that scheme away pretty easily.
In my 42 years in tech, I have yet to understand the fascination people have with "magic numbers" for the primary key.
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hmm (Score:4, Insightful)
Former U.S. President Donald Trump called the new coronavirus "the China virus" and other monikers, raising concern he was using the names as a political weapon to shift blame to a rival nation.
Like, er, the actual country it first appeared in?
Re:hmm (Score:5, Insightful)
WHO wants accurate metrics from participating countries. They want to remove any incentive for countries to falsify data, like a fast food worker trying to make their order delivery stats look good. Burying issues just means they are discovered much later, when mitigation is almost impossible.
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The Greeks Are Offended (Score:2)
Unicode support at slashdot (Score:2)
I seem to remember someone talking about this....
Pearl Clutching (Score:5, Insightful)
The minute we started talking about the "British Variant" all this crying about racism should have gone out the window. Am I really supposed to believe Americans are racist against British people now? It's a bunch bullshit, and always was. We often name things after the place they were discovered, we've been doing this for centuries across multiple fields. Deal with it. We need to stop pandering to these idiots who twist everything into some kind of grievance.
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Actually, there were few complaints with the “UK variant”. Only seemed to start after “Indian strain” and “Brazilian strain”, etc.
So WHO has decided they now need to do as they had done with the “Wuhan Coronavirus”: rename it.
Re:Pearl Clutching (Score:5, Insightful)
There's a massive and important distinction between someone stating of another person that "he's black" and that someone making a point of emphasizing "he's black". Listen to anywhere Trump called it the "China virus", and it's clear that Trump was doing the latter. Really, history has shown us two things:
1) What may start as a factual statement is easily twisted into a racist one. Stating as fact that it's a "Chinese" virus because it originated there is one thing, but people with agendas, biases, or prejudices will take that fact and twist it into something for their own purposes.
2) People are idiots. If you call it the swine flu, pork sales that have nothing to do with the virus will tank. If you call it the West Nile virus, tourism to Egypt will tank, even if you're more likely to get it at home than in Egypt. If you call it the China virus, racism against virtually anyone of east Asian heritage will erupt, even though they had nothing to do with it. If you call it the UK virus, nothing may happen in the US, but in nations with an antagonistic stance towards the UK, racism and sentiments shift against anyone from the UK.
Does it always happen? No, but this isn't just idle pearl clutching. Surely you've heard about occasional outbreaks of violence in the US taking place against people merely thought to be from China...or really anywhere in that part of the world, be it Korea, Japan, or even Vietnam and the Philippines.
Which is to say, it's rarely a good idea to name things as such.
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Blaming a country is not racist.
Stating the source of a virus is not inherently racist, but that doesn't mean it isn't ever racist. That's the distinction I was trying to draw between "he's black" and "he's black". It's one thing to talk matter-of-factly about a source of a virus. It's something else entirely to use the source of the virus as a way to besmirch an entire group of people. The fact that the former can easily be twisted into the latter is why it's advisable to avoid naming things according to the former.
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Sounds good to me, what's your beef?
Nothing about that grates on me at all. Meanwhile the China virus was the cause of all this and the India virus is a real regional threat that may kill tens of millions.
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Why not version numbers? (Score:2)
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The Chinese alpha tested it at home, then released the beta test to the world? Greek letters are ideal!
while avoiding stigma. (Score:2)
I thought that was a Greek letter, like a 6 that fell over..
I don't see how anyone can be against this... (Score:2)
If someone isolates and identifies a new strain with different properties we DON'T want them (or their superiors) to weigh the pros and cons of publicizing important information and having your country/identity tied to it.
I'm confused, there's more letters after that?! (Score:2)
As a Star Trek fan, my knowledge of Greek letters is limited to Alpha, Beta, Gamma and Delta.
Re: I like how geographic naming was perfectly fin (Score:5, Insightful)
I really love this bit: "[...] he was using the names as a political weapon to shift blame to a rival nation."
It came from China. There is no blame to shift. TDS continues to this day and Trump still lives inside their heads, rent free.
Re: I like how geographic naming was perfectly fi (Score:3)
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More disinfo from WHO.
The BS4 was locked down for 3 weeks in October. Anybody is free to confirm the satellite imagery for themselves. Then there's the matter of ZC45/ZXC21 sharing an E-protein with the S-strain, which rapidly mutated in the wild.
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We have findings of the virus (in stored sewage waters) form late September, early October: in Italy.
For people who are interested in that topic: it is by far not confirmed that the virus "originated" in China. Only the first known "outbreak" is confirmed to have happened there.
Re: I like how geographic naming was perfectly fin (Score:4, Insightful)
Americans already have a pretty good track record for shifting blame for a pandemic to another nation. Watch them squirm and squeal when you point out it's very likely the so-called "Spanish Flu" originated in Kansas.
Re: I like how geographic naming was perfectly fin (Score:5, Interesting)
I don't know about Kansas, but it is a fact - not just very likely - that the "Spanish Flu" originated in USA.
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There is more than one way to shift blame (Score:3, Insightful)
Ah, the "Starving kids in China" argument (Score:2)
Bide would have followed the pandemic plan written by Epidemiologists that he left Trump Trump ignored in an effort to keep the economy strong in the short term so he could win reelection. We know this because while Trump was privately telling Woodward how dangerous COVID was he was telling the public it was "just a flu".
As for Trump's vaccine rollout, he botched it. As just one example he gave half a billion dollars to a campaign bu
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So Trump never used the pandemic as a political tool?
Hmmm, interesting. Thanx for pointing that out.
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It came from China. There is no blame to shift.
It came from China, but was funded by the US. It was a joint project.
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It should be a big issue— superpower countries should be shamed when they unleash a pandemic.
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We don't call the flu beta-gamma-whatever, we call it the flu, regardless of strain.
Aren't you full of knowledge? No, you ain't. Flu Nomenclature [cdc.gov].
And by the way, in countries where the population has reading skills they do use this nomenclature in the newspapers.
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