It was split in two.
1. Calling it "the china virus", as the former president was wont to do, was labelled racist/bigoted/nationalistic by those who did not simply agree with anything he said.
2. The claim that it originated in the Wuhan lab was viewed as unlikely, and there was (is) an alternative biological origin story which at the time seemed credible and more likely.
While the racist violence that happened was deplorable, it is entirely amusing to me that we are fine with calling it UK/Brazil/South African/Indian variant but not call it the China virus/flu.
The same publications like Guardian which did not use the term China virus/flu because it was considered racist had no problem in using Brazil/Indian variant as the names of the variant. They are still doing it even after WHO came up with different non country based names for each variants.
> The claim that it originated in the Wuhan lab was viewed as unlikely, and there was (is) an alternative biological origin story which at the time seemed credible and more likely
Wuhan lab leak being shot down so easily was the thing I found non convincing and the fact that so many journalists didn't cover it was surprising. While we might be able to ascertain that the virus is natural or man made easily, but a natural virus leaking out would seem high on the probability list to me as there is conveniently a lab at the same place where the outbreak first happened; and it was doing research on the same thing.
It's the WAY Trump et al said it + their political motivations & bias. Context is very important.
"ChiNe A", almost the verbal version of slanting your eyes with your fingers.
And the more obvious 'kung flu.'
For what it's worth I've read that there has been attempts to reframe virus names from using state names as to not cast blame (though 'blame' is muddled in this case if it was leaked or worse GOF->leak).
"Spanish Flu" for instance likely didn't even originate in Spain
Fair point on the media, since variants do have actual scientific names. But I don't think the context there is the same. But they should be using consistent scientific names imho we knew H1N1 we can do that again.