Omicron: WHO Names South African Coronavirus Strain
The emergence of a new COVID-19 variant endemic to South Africa has evoked waves of concern throughout our nation, as well as internationally. The World Health Organization (WHO) designated the newly emerged variant with a ‘Greek letter’, indicating it’s severity to America.
The South African coronavirus strain, B.1.1.529, was renamed by the World Health Organization (WHO), who skipped Greek letters “Nu”, and “Xi”, deeming the potentially vaccine resistant variant “Omichron1.” The name comes from Greek alphabet Alpha, Beta, Gamma, Delta, Epsilon, Zeta, Eta, Theta, Iota, Kappa, Lambda, Mu, Nu, Xi, Omichron, Pi, Rho, Sigma, Tau, Upsilon, Phi, Chi, Psi, Omega.
Reuter’s Fact Check2 investigated these claim of the World Health Organization’s choice to name the new variant. The Who responded to the new outlet, confirming the claim, stating,
“The WHO told Reuters by email that the letters were indeed skipped as, ‘‘Nu’ is too easily confounded with ‘new,’ and ‘Xi’ was not used because it is a common last name.’
“‘WHO best practices for naming disease suggest avoiding ‘causing offence to any cultural, social, national, regional, professional or ethnic groups’, the statement added.”
Is America at risk? The Omichron variant is said to spread faster than the “Delta” variant, and could prove to be an even more deadly strain of COVID-19. The next variant, in time for Winter 2021, could have America be facing another lockdown. After almost two years of American citizens fighting an increasing authoritative state, many citizens now rely on instruction from the federal government or official institutions more than themselves to make everyday decisions.
“This variant [Omichron] has a large number of mutations, some of which are concerning.” warned the World Health Organization (WHO)
The World Health Organization’s website states,
“Based on the evidence presented indicative of a detrimental change in COVID-19 epidemiology, the TAG-VE has advised WHO that this variant should be designated as a VOC, and the WHO has designated B.1.1.529 as a VOC, named Omicron.”
“As such, countries are asked to do the following:”
“enhance surveillance and sequencing efforts to better understand circulating SARS-CoV-2 variants.”
submit complete genome sequences and associated metadata to a publicly available database, such as GISAID.
report initial cases/clusters associated with VOC infection to WHO through the IHR mechanism.
where capacity exists and in coordination with the international community, perform field investigations and laboratory assessments to improve understanding of the potential impacts of the VOC on COVID-19 epidemiology, severity, effectiveness of public health and social measures, diagnostic methods, immune responses, antibody neutralization, or other relevant characteristics.
Individuals are reminded to take measures to reduce their risk of COVID-19, including proven public health and social measures such as wearing well-fitting masks, hand hygiene, physical distancing, improving ventilation of indoor spaces, avoiding crowded spaces, and getting vaccinated.
For reference, WHO has working definitions for SARS-CoV-2 Variant of Interest (VOI) and Variant of Concern (VOC).
A SARS-CoV-2 VOI is a SARS-CoV-2 variant:
with genetic changes that are predicted or known to affect virus characteristics such as transmissibility, disease severity, immune escape, diagnostic or therapeutic escape; AND
that has been identified as causing significant community transmission or multiple COVID-19 clusters, in multiple countries with increasing relative prevalence alongside increasing number of cases over time, or other apparent epidemiological impacts to suggest an emerging risk to global public health.
A SARS-CoV-2 VOC is a SARS-CoV-2 variant that meets the definition of a VOI (see above) and, through a comparative assessment, has been demonstrated to be associated with one or more of the following changes at a degree of global public health significance:
increase in transmissibility or detrimental change in COVID-19 epidemiology; OR
increase in virulence or change in clinical disease presentation; OR
decrease in effectiveness of public health and social measures or available diagnostics, vaccines, therapeutics
Statements
Paul Nuki, Senior Editor Global Health Secutiry and Telegraph stated that the WHO skipped two Roman numerals writing on Twitter,
“A WHO source confirmed the letters Nu and Xi of the Greek alphabet had been deliberately avoided. Nu had been skipped to avoid confusion with the word ‘new’ and Xi had been skipped to ‘avoid stigmatising a region’, they said.”
“All pandemics inherently political!”
Senator Ted Cruz Tweeted his distrust for the Chinese Communist Party3
“If the WHO is this scared of the Chinese Communist Party, how can they be trusted to call them out the next time they're trying to cover up a catastrophic global pandemic?”
Conclusion
Is the Omichron variant enough to justify another direct sabotage to the U.S. economy, small business owners, and the working class, many of which are still struggling to recover from the first wave of total lockdown? Many left the major cities in droves, leaving behind the place they once knew in search of access to their civil rights. Those who stayed behind, now live in a place unrecognizable to them, a mutation of the place they once remembered. If the potentially vaccine resistant Omichron is enough to shut down American cities, small businesses, and public resources, should Americans have the freedom to continue to operate their industries despite potential hazards of a virus?
The federal government and the state utilizing variant strains of COVID-19 to enforce authoritative shutdowns, has forced many citizens to become more reliant on the federal and state funding. This leads Americans unknowingly closer to a socialistic economy, ultimately and historically in all cases leading to communism, or total [forced] reliance on the state for all aspects of human existence, and tyrannical oppression. Being a citizen of America provides the one the equal right to separate their personal life decisions, within legal means, from the state. This privilege is often taken for granted, as many Americans seek to advance society thru increased government funding, encouraging the government to invade into all aspects of society. Others, seek to defund that system to prevent the inevitable control and oppression of American free will, which in many aspects has already begun infecting our nation.
Was the World Health Organization’s decision to skip “Xi” influenced by the hesitation to offend Chinese Communist Party’s (CCP) leader Xi Jinping? How will Omichron effect America’s supply chain? Has the coronavirus become politicized and weaponized against the freedoms of the people, and is omichron just a further iteration of that?
https://www.who.int/news/item/26-11-2021-classification-of-omicron-(b.1.1.529)-sars-cov-2-variant-of-concern
https://www.reuters.com/article/factcheck-variants-alphabet/fact-check-who-skipped-letters-of-greek-alphabet-while-naming-covid-19-variant-omicron-idUSL1N2SI07K
https://twitter.com/tedcruz/status/1464340689655844869?s=20