Petition · past parliament

Restrain calling the B 1.617.2 as Indian Variant

Rejected 19 signatures

What the petition asks

WHO named the novel corona virus as COVID 19 to avoid any regional stigma ; The same principle should be extended to the corona virus variants too. So calling the new variant (B 1.617.2) as Indian variant is not right.
Kindly restrain the media from calling the B.1.617.2 as Indian variant and call it in a region agnostic name.

Why it was rejected

It asked for something that is not the responsibility of the UK Government or Parliament.

This is a matter for individual media organisations and journalists, not the UK Government or Parliament.

You could start a petition calling on the Government to only refer to the 'India variant' as B.1.617.2 in all Government communications, including press briefings, if that is something you'd like to see happen.

If you do start another petition, please ensure you include your full name as we can't accept petitions started with just a forename.

Timeline

13 May 2021 Petition opened for signatures
21 May 2021 Rejected by the Petitions Committee

Key facts

Signatures 19
Status Rejected
Rejected 21 May 2021

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Source: the official petition page. Last checked 15 Jul 2026.