Sturgeon’s Indian variant hypocrisy

With the Holyrood elections now over, Nicola Nicola Sturgeon has resumed her previous habit of fronting daily Covid press conferences – except, err, when it is convenient that she doesn’t appear. Beginning today’s briefing, Sturgeon referred to the ‘so-called Indian variant’ and declared she would call it by another name:

From now on, I will refer to that variant as the April-02 variant. In recent weeks, this variant has become quite established in many parts of the UK, including in Scotland, and we have reason to believe it might be even more transmissible than the Kent variant.

Curiously the First Minister Sturgeon felt no such need to rename the Kent variant – though Mr S can hazard a guess why. She then went on to refer to the ‘Indian variant’ several times throughout the rest of her briefing despite her pledge just moments prior. Baffled viewers were left asking why a variant discovered in India should be referred to in this way, given that its actual scientific name is B.1.617.