Talk:2009 swine flu pandemic in the United Kingdom

See also: File talk:H1N1 United Kingdom Map.svg, File talk:H1N1 United Kingdom Map - Region.svg, and File talk:H1N1 United Kingdom Map - Region 2.svg

Requested move

Regarding the proposal to move this article to 2009 H1N1 flu outbreak in the United Kingdom (see top of this talk page), the matter has been debated extensively on the main article talk page (see 2009 swine flu outbreak#Article name) and if this ever resolves I would expect to follow that conclusion. In the meantime here is a summary of "official" sources, showing that from a UK perspective there is little official consensus on naming and consequently no urgent need to rename the page:

UK Official virus names

Organization	Name	Ref
WHO	Influenza A(H1N1)	[1]
ECDC	Influenza A(H1N1) and novel influenza virus A(H1N1)	[2] [3]
HPA	Swine Influenza	[4]
BBC	Swine Flu	[5]

—Teahot (talk) 10:18, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

'In the United Kingdom'. -- [[ axg ⁞⁞ talk ]] 10:24, 3 May 2009 (UTC)

Thanks, tweaked the link name above.—Teahot (talk) 08:08, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

As the main article has been moved to 2009 flu outbreak, presumably the UK page should become 2009 flu outbreak in the United Kingdom; any objections?—Teahot (talk) 20:51, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

Scrub that, it's been moved back to 2009 swine flu outbreak. No need to worry about it until the debate on Talk:2009 swine flu outbreak comes to a stable consensus.—Teahot (talk) 22:28, 4 May 2009 (UTC)

I have removed the requested move tag on this talk page as the discussion on the main talk page has been frozen for the time being. The conclusion being to wait.—Teahot (talk) 20:45, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Rate of increase/decline?

Cumulative Swine Flu outbreak chart

The article at present shows a snapshot of the current situation. Maybe a graph showing either the number of new cases and cases under investigation day by day, or maybe the cumulative number of confirmed cases and the number (not cumulative) of cases under investigation would give an idea of how the outbreak is developing? Pol098 (talk) 14:32, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

There was one for a while included on the main 2009 swine flu outbreak page but it was probably removed as original research; I have included it as a thumbnail image here... If you could find someone publishing and maintaining a UK version somewhere on the web, it would be interesting to include.—Teahot (talk) 18:09, 5 May 2009 (UTC)

I noticed that it's been back for some time on the main page, with a logarithmic version too. The data does not appear to include the UK (the spreadsheet is available on the Commons page for the chart).—Teahot (talk) 07:50, 12 May 2009 (UTC)

Table sources

The table lists many different sources for information on each region. Many of these are news items, so become out of date when there is a new case in a region. The BBC are publishing a map in their flu reports which seems to be updated (with a new URL) as new cases are reported. It would make sense to use the latest version of this map for all the information in the table so long as is is maintained by the BBC; the URL will change, but this single URL could be updated for the whole table. Here is the map current at the moment (with 28 cases UK-wide). If publishing the URL in this form is not acceptable, a link to the BBC report with the latest map would be OK.

This would involve removing all the individual references for the map, and adding a single one at the top. Hopefully adding up the numbers for the regions within each of the United Kingdoms could be done without it being considered original research? Pol098 (talk) 20:24, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

It is a good source of data, and I agree that a central source would work better. Though there is no guarantee that the BBC will keep such a map up to date and I can see that at some future point the breakdown of cases by county may be too unreliable to keep maintained here and only the figure for the countries within the UK would have to do (based on HPA or ECDC official figures). I would recommend a reference to a top level BBC news page such as http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk/8034260.stm as it is a better reference than the gif directly as the image is not actually dated as might be suspect as a source. As for the total figure, it would probably be best to stick to the latest published HPA or ECDC total for the UK rather than adding up the BBC figures by county as there are likely to be errors in reporting all cases at that level (for example some cases may reside in one county but be diagnosed in another or be diagnosed while travelling) and such a calculation, albeit a very simple one, probably would fall foul of WP:OR. Another small issue is that the BBC map does not consistently use county names but refers to towns and cities and this might be slightly confusing; considering the mention of "as it is presented" in WP:BURDEN.—Teahot (talk) 22:24, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

>at some future point the breakdown of cases by county may be too unreliable to keep maintained here and only the figure for the countries within the UK would have to do
- obviously the article will have to change if the outbreak continues; accurate numbers of cases will cease to be available
>reference to a top level BBC news page...not the GIF
- Yes
>As for the total figure, it would probably be best to stick to the latest published HPA or ECDC total for the UK
- Actually irrelevant, as the BBC displays the HPA total below the map, but HPA and ECDC are better as the primary sources for UK totals; it's the county figures I suggest are best single-sourced
>the BBC map does not consistently use county names but refers to towns and cities
- I don't think we need to worry unduly about whether a case is in Greater Manchester or in the next road in Cheshire. Pol098 (talk) 23:38, 6 May 2009 (UTC)

The BBC uses WHO information anyway (it says underneath tha maps on the pags). The UK map is no longer updated (or hasnt been for nearly a week when I last checked. I think that the BBC is also a less reliable source. Personally i would just use HPA. All cases reported as confirmed are actual laboratory confirmations and the data has been updated daily without fail since the first cases in the UK. HPA authority on the subject compaired to BBC is almost too obvious to bother mentioning. Wuku (talk) 16:31, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

References in templates

Is there any guideline for not putting references in templates where possible? I ask because I moved the details of a commonly used and edited reference (HPAinfo) to the first place in the article where it was used, which happened to be in a template. I moved it to the first use on purpose, as it makes it a bit easier for a future editor to find it by searching from the beginning of the file; I paid no attention to it being in a template. I've done this on other occasions; maybe I shouldn't? Whatever the outcome I'm not going to bother to move it again here, it's not important. Pol098 (talk) 21:31, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't think there would be any issue. If a reference was orphaned then someone probably renamed a reference that another reference called. I doubt that the problem was it being embedded inside an infobox. Logically it would make sense for the citation to be named on its first occurrence on the page but again, if it were not, this would still not cause an error.—Teahot (talk) 21:51, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

There was no question of error; it worked fine, and exactly the same before and after it was moved out of the template. But somebody saw fit to move the definition of the reference out of the template, commenting "Moving refs out of templates", and I wondered if there's a guideline or body of opinion. (The same edit also dealt with an orphaned reference, but it was totally unrelated to this point). Pol098 (talk) 23:21, 10 May 2009 (UTC)

AnomieBOT, a bot which fixes up orphaned references amongst other things, moves references out of templates unless there is
<!-- AnomieBOT: Don't move -->
anywhere inside the <ref></ref>. See the link for the reasoning behind this. Pol098 (talk) 15:22, 22 May 2009 (UTC)

Map up to date?

I have noticed that the map of UK flu spread has remained constant for a few days. Is the map up to date? If not how come? I have spotted one fault. North Lanarkshire is not shaded. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/North_Lanarkshire as far as i can tell the rest are good. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.243.253.113 (talk) 15:29, 13 May 2009 (UTC)

North Lanarkshire was shaded but the first couple where actually from the neighbouring Falkirk, It's hard to update the map now since most sources are no longer telling which county they are in but the region instead. So I was thinking about merging the map to regions instead. -- [[ axg ⁞⁞ talk ]] 16:49, 18 May 2009 (UTC)

Policy on listing reported cases

The detail of reported cases is looking a bit tired. It's impossible to continue to report the details of how many people caught flu, where and on what day. Apart from key events (such as a particular outbreak) I suggest the daily reporting idea is dropped and the section is reformatted into a summary only.

On a similar note, the table of cases by county is out of date and will probably stay out of date as the HPA is only giving figures by wider region. I suggest the figures are only retained for countries in the UK.

Any other suggestions?—Teahot (talk) 20:40, 14 May 2009 (UTC)

Map (May 23 update, etc) & confirmed cases

• 
• 
  number of cases map
• 
  standard map

Perhaps instead of adding numbers to the UK map, a second UK map should be created, like the US map. 70.29.208.129 (talk) 03:28, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Agreed, the current map is a bit garish compared to the USA graduated style map.—Teahot (talk) 07:58, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

I think that would be a better idea, I'll have a go. -- [[ axg ⁞⁞ talk ]] 10:32, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

I don't like it, change it back The C of E (talk) 10:58, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

I agree, changing the current map to a new colour scheme is unproductive, since it requires updates across many languages. Right now, legend keys are broken across several languages because of that change. That's why I said a second map should be created. Then you could choose to use the old colour scheme or the new one. 70.29.208.129 (talk) 12:17, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Right:

• 
• 
• 

-- [[ axg ⁞⁞ talk ]] 16:37, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

Use the origional one, its better than the current one The C of E (talk)

• Disregard my last comment, I didn't look at the page first The C of E (talk) 17:22, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

New Map

Seriously, this new map is rubbish Bring back the old one! you need to see the amount of cases per county for ease of understanding. The C of E (talk) 10:57, 24 May 2009 (UTC)

th old map is too far out of date. We only have up to date data for regions not counties! The new maps with larger regions are less precise but more accurate. The new map with pink/red scale should be used because it highlights how heavily infected a region is. Wuku (talk) 10:14, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

No no no. If the map is out of date then just update it but don't use the pink/red scale because we can't see which individual counties are infected. And we can see the amount of infections anyway on the cases by region box in the Detailed reports section The C of E (talk) 11:45, 25 May 2009 (UTC)

I added the regions map instead because the counties map would result in endless updating, it is way out of date and the HPA are reporting cases in regions, not in counties. Mirrorme22 (talk) 17:38, 26 May 2009 (UTC)

The regions map is useless at this stage. Everything apart from Wales and North-East England is one shade of red. It adds almost nothing to what the world map already tells you and that is that there are confirmed cases in the UK. Either revert to an out of date county based map, or move to a county based map with varied shading. You might as well as just have a single red coloured UK, pointless. (on the plus side this would negate the need to update the map at all from now).--Lexxus2010 (talk) 12:15, 28 May 2009 (UTC)