I agree. But you can't deny it is still a lot of people who use Xi as their last name. There are nearly a million in China alone. But I agree that is a weak argument. If a surname is a problem, someone can use that logic to claim the name Corona virus was damaging to the Corona beer brand or the delta variant was damaging to Delta Airlines.
I meant it as a joke but it is a potentially slippery slope. However, I personally believe there is a simpler explanation: they wish to disassociate the virus from the country China and as a consequence, the racism Chinese immigrants have faced all over the world. This should not be okay irrespective of whether one believes the lab leak theory or not.
- They did not rename the Ebola virus the same way the renamed the virus first discovered in Wuhan (as COVID 19).
- And they are happy to keep the SARS backronym in SARS-CoV-2, since SARS was first discovered in Hong Kong SAR.
- Now they skip over the Xi variant, although the Delta variant (or the name Corona itself) did cause some confusion earlier.
If they want to be classy in naming, can they be more classy to people outside of mainland China?