According to WHO, they skipped ‘nu’ because it’s easily confused with the English word ‘new’, and they skipped ‘xi’ because it’s a very common Chinese family name.
@JimBeam Yes, I thought about asking New Zealand Federated Famers or America’s National Audubon Society, but WHO seemed to be the ones to ask, because they’re the ones who named this and all earlier variants.
As a side note: An Indian couple gave birth to twins during the pandemic and chose the name Covid for their baby boy, and Corona for their little girl (sigh)
