The World Health Organization (WHO) has explained why it skipped the Greek letters “nu” and “xi” in naming the new COVID-19 variant Omicron. “Two letters were skipped—Nu and Xi—because Nu is too easily confounded with ‘new’ and Xi was not used because it is a common surname and [the] WHO best practices for naming new diseases … suggest avoiding ‘causing offence to any cultural, social, national, regional, professional, or ethnic groups,'” the United Nations agency said in a statement to The Epoch Times on Saturday. The WHO best practices for naming new diseases was developed in conjunction with the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) of the U.N. and the World Organisation for Animal Health (OIE) in 2015. Prof. Jonathan Turley, a criminal attorney and professor at George Washington University, speculated that the WHO “is again avoiding any discomfort for the Chinese government” in skipping the “Xi” letter and naming it Omicron. “The new variant was expected …