[asutekku]

There's a semantic difference with "X virus" and "Y variant". "X virus" denotes the virus was caused by country X and is behind it all, whereas "Y variant" denotes it was mutated in there but is not the root cause of it all.

[ALittleLight]

I don't think that's true. West Nile Virus wasn't caused by people West of the Nile, the Spanish Flu wasn't caused by Spain, MERS is called that because it was discovered in the Middle East, not because people in the Middle East caused it, etc. The form "X virus" does not at all imply that the virus was caused by X.

Then, of course, there is the very real possibility that China literally did cause the virus.

[Mountain_Skies]

Doubt the people in the countries who are associated with those variants appreciate your semantic parsing.

[krsdcbl]

I don't think there is so much, the distinction between "caused by" and "discovered there" escapes most people in casual use

Imho the reason this time it was different with terms like "China flu" is not that it's generally unacceptable to nickname an illness by it's region of first discovery, but that Trump was actively using this terminology to push an agenda

[nemo44x]

But yet “Havana Syndrome” is freely used everywhere.

[Seanambers]

Yeah, at a certain point back in 2020 it suddenly was very bad to have variants with geographic origin in the naming. Although that was how it had been done in many other cases.