[catalogia]

> "There is evidence that this was what happened due to pandemics traditionally being named after where they originated."

Related aside, 'Ebola' might have been 'Yambuku' instead, named for the village where the disease was first noticed, but Peter Piot decided to name it after the nearby Ebola River instead, to avoid damning the small village's name.

[viklove]

He definitely didn't name it 1976 Virus though. Oh, and would you look at that -- the precursor to the Ebolavirus we know today was called "Sudan Virus," turns out it's not racist, it's just how these things are named!

[danek]

Sometimes. Depends. Did it already have a name that everyone was already using and then you went out of your way to call it “China virus”, when your personal brand also just happens to be based on racist dog whistles and stoking xenophobia? Is so, it’s probably racist!