Talk:COVID-19 pandemic

Greater China map

Nguyen QuocTrung

• Taiwan is not part of China. The so-called greater China is the concept invented by People's Republic of China.
• Such image is not verifiable.
• No reference directly identifies the prevalence of Wuhan Virus in such PRC-invented concept.
• That section is talking about global prevalence not PRC alone.

--Discern irony (talk) 19:59, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

I don’t care about politics because this article is about a virus, I’m only care why you removed an image just because it conflicted your ideology. Nguyen QuocTrung (talk) 20:07, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Such image is not supported by any reference and it doesn't fit in the section of global prevalence. --Discern irony (talk) 20:18, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

Go to talk to another editor who reverted your edits and explain this to them. I’m not talking to a person who deleted my reply just because he don’t like it. Nguyen QuocTrung (talk) 20:24, 23 January 2020 (UTC)

• Note Please see prior discussion above on image of map. Thanks. PenulisHantu (talk) 02:55, 24 January 2020 (UTC)
• I changed to a map of (Mainland) China showing the confirmed cases by province. I think it is more relevant to the epidemic.--Jabo-er (talk) 17:47, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

That’s okay. The user that posted this was blocked for being a sock puppet so the Greater China Map can go back. It is also clearly the more appropriate one as every state in Greater China had confirmed cases.--Ratherous (talk) 00:16, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Jabo-er, stop changing map without consensus.--Ratherous (talk) 00:38, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

For the record, Re: The so-called greater China is the concept invented by People's Republic of China. Given the sourcing on the history of the term, this conspiracy-theory-like, outlandish claim itself is a fabrication indicative of a hyper-partisan, racist, ultra xenophobic pan-Green-ite mindset. CaradhrasAiguo (leave language) 19:42, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

See above discussion: Why aren't Mongolia and Vladivostock in this map of 'Greater China'? Geographyinitiative (talk) 00:48, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Geographyinitiative, I was refuting the absurd-on-face-value claim made by the sockpuppet. CaradhrasAiguo (leave language) 04:04, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Taiwan has been placed under administration of Chinese government since 1945, Hong Kong since 1997, and Macau since 1999. Change of regime within a certain country will not affect its territories; for example, can you say since Benghazi is not currently under control of Libyan central government in Tripoli, Benghazi is not part of Libya? Or Abkhazia not part of Georgia; Transnistria not part of Moldova, for that matter? Taekhosong (talk) 21:12, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Casualties Table

I think that there should be a row for the entirety of China, as recognised by the United Nations (incl. mainland, Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan). This would include a total figure for all regions of the PRC. There could be sub-rows underneath China which detail the figures for the mainland, SARs and self-governing Taiwan. Thoughts? 07:04, 24 January 2020 (UTC)JMonkey2006 (talk)

I don't think so, as these jurisdictions have their own health systems, immigration and reporting. It may also give a biased political point of view. We do not have to follow the political bias of WHO/UN. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 07:56, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Keep them separate: they have their own health systems, Taiwan is under a different administration, and we have separate figures to report. Bondegezou (talk) 08:16, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Something like this is what I have in mind.

Country Confirmed Cases

China	                 1 995
   Mainland China	         1 982
   Hong Kong	                     5
   Macau	                     5
Taiwan	                     3
Thailand	                     7
Australia	             4
Malaysia	                     4
Singapore	             4

Please ignore display issues.

--JMonkey2006 (talk) 03:47, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Erm. No. Thanks for the effort though. This may truly start a political debate of whether Taiwan is part of China or not. Let's just treat CN, HK, MC, MO, TW as separate territories alongside with other countries and territories like we always do. robertsky (talk) 10:36, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

well isn't taiwan officially controlled by the republic of china? 39cookies (talk) 12:28, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Why was the table removed? Quvsn (talk) 12:19, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Bring back the table!! GoofyNoah (talk) 13:05, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

What happened to the table Nickayane99 (talk) 14:09, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

No flags in infoboxes

MOS:INFOBOXFLAG states, "Generally, flag icons should not be used in infoboxes, even when there is a "country", "nationality" or equivalent field: they are unnecessarily distracting and give undue prominence to one field among many." It continues, "Flag icons should only be inserted in infoboxes in those cases where they convey information in addition to the text." We've had flags added to the infobox, removed and re-inserted, most recently by Ratherous. The Manual of Style is not some optional extra: this is a basic Wikipedia guideline that all articles should follow. We should remove the flag icons in the infobox and keep them out. This is not somewhere where we can establish a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS: we should follow standard practice across Wikipedia, as described in the MoS.

Flag icons don't add any information: we have names already. We already have a lot of political arguments in this article about China vs. Taiwan vs. Hong Kong etc. Flag icons just complicate matters further, they raise hackles and unnecessarily politicise an issue that should be about epidemiology, not politics.

In addition, use of the Hong Kong and Macau flags violates MOS:FLAGRELEVANCE and WP:SOVEREIGNFLAG.

Let's have an article about medicine, not flag-waving. Bondegezou (talk) 13:41, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Specifically because the article mentions the different states of Greater China, the flags really help distinguish the regions further. They genuinely help visually receive the information as there are a lot of numbers involved and it is easy to get lost with the data. In lists like that flags are often included as this is more like a list than just an info box. Many lists of nations with a lot of data on Wikipedia do include flags to help visually simplify the information.--Ratherous (talk) 14:28, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

We have the names of the countries/regions. They are very clear. We don't need more. There are not "a lot of numbers involved": it's a straightforward table with four columns. The flags make the table harder to read, because the first thing you see isn't a word.

MOS:FLAGRELEVANCE and WP:SOVEREIGNFLAG are pretty clear that we shouldn't be using the Hong Kong and Macau flags, not least because they are unfamiliar to most readers. You need good reasons to go against the Manual of Style and you haven't presented any.

This is an infobox. There are specific guidelines for this situation. Flags do not visually simplify: you are adding visual clutter. The Manual of Style explicitly explains this. The Manual of Style is a considered document that has been developed over many years. We should give it more weight than the views of one editor. Bondegezou (talk) 16:09, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

Just look at the many lists of countries there are on Wikipedia. They do indeed use the flags in most cases. It makes it a lot clearer. This case is not any different. --Ratherous (talk) 18:05, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure how much discussion took place in the other articles, but I'd like to note that the MOS is not strictly followed across all articles regarding diseases, and if following the MOS really should be followed, then there is some work ahead.

The following use flags:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polio_eradication#2016

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015%E2%80%9316_Zika_virus_epidemic#Epidemiology

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kivu_Ebola_epidemic

The following do not use flags:

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndrome#History

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Western_African_Ebola_virus_epidemic

An oddball is this article which features infoboxes with and without flags

* https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2009_flu_pandemic_by_country

The 2009 flu article which serves as a summary has no country-specific infobox but has continent/region-ish infobox. Since no continent other than EU (which also doesn't really cover all of Europe, nor is all of EU representing only Europe) has a real flag obviously it has no flags.

I'd like to note that MOS:FLAGRELEVANCE talks about political sensitivity, and is also used as part of WP:NPOV. However, there is no specific policy or discussion on MOS on health-related issues. Of note, Taiwan remains a politically sensitive topic but this has not been relevant thus far.

Personally I think that flags are not 'clutter.' I can agree with WP's need of NPOV, but from a design perspective icons are much more universal and are shorter than names. Llanfairpwllgwyngyllgogerychwyrndrobwllllantysiliogogogoch should represented with a flag if it has one. Real examples with similar sounding names include Australia and Austria, Togo and Tonga, Sweden and Switzerland, Slovakia and Slovenia. The flags refer to regions in a much quicker way than names especially so for Austria in Europe and Australia by itself or Oceania. Xenmorpha (talk) 18:55, 24 January 2020 (UTC)

As with Mexican states, Chinese provinces do not have their own flags. kencf0618 (talk) 04:20, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Xenmorpha argues that flags are shorter than country names. However, the choice here is not between flag or country name, it's between flag-AND-country name or just country name. Clearly flag-AND-country name is longer. Flags are also less well known by the readership than country names. Togo and Tonga might have similar looking names, but very few people know what either country's flag looks like. (Without looking it up, do you know what Togo's flag is?) Likewise, very few people know what Macau's flag is, so we're just confusing readers by using it (MOS:SOVEREIGNFLAG).

Xenmorpha also says, "Taiwan remains a politically sensitive topic but this has not been relevant thus far". This is mistaken. There have been at least two discussions on this Talk page already about Taiwan's status: should it be listed separately to China, and how is China represented on the map in the infobox. As per MOS:SOVEREIGNFLAG and MOS:FLAGRELEVANCE, we should not have flags for Hong Kong or Macau, and WP:NPOV would suggest avoiding the issue by not having a Taiwanese flag versus a PRC flag.

Xenmorpha thinks that flags are not clutter. S/he is welcome to take that view, but Manual of Style guidance on the use of flags has been worked on by a large number of editors over many years. It's an agreed consensus. If you want to change it, go to the Talk page for the Manual of Style and make your case. Until then, we're meant to follow it. WP:ILIKEIT carries no weight here.

There are other violations of the Manual of Style, so, yes, we should fix those too. WP:OTHERSTUFF doesn't carry any weight either.

We are meant to follow Wikipedia policies and guidelines. I have cited multiple policies and guidelines. Xenmorpha and Ratherous want their personal tastes to stand instead. That's not how Wikipedia works. Bondegezou (talk) 09:39, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Xenmorpha lists three cases that use flag icons: two of these are not infoboxes (2015–16_Zika_virus_epidemic#Epidemiology and Polio_eradication#2016), so they are not relevant to whether the infobox here should. So that's only one infobox example using flag icons and the majority do not. Bondegezou (talk) 09:42, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

PS: 2009 flu pandemic by country, as mentioned by Xenmorpha, also does not have flag icons in its infobox. (It does have other tables with flag icons.) Bondegezou (talk) 09:44, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Bondegezou Re: Macau's flag: I think you'd need more than just stating that people don't know Macau's flag to make it true. Stating it does not make it fact. There seems to be some Chinese interest in this topic, so readership proportion might be quite unlike that of general Wikipedia readership.

Re: Taiwan: Discussion on Talk page is for improving WP's pages. It does not reflect WHO's mission, China's (either, one, both, etc.) mission, health objectives and/or public health outcomes thus far. A counterexample to this is Yemen, which has a problematic political situation and its health outcomes exacerbated by geopolitics.

Re: WP:ILIKEIT - It's a lot more relevant when discussing deletion of articles and provable facts (i.e. answering if there exists a prime smaller than two). It is less meaningful in subjective uses of preferences in a subjective capacity. Unfortunately, user design IS subjective and you do need reader/writer opinion. Obviously both you and I have meaningless opinion, and a much larger group of averaged opinions would be more concrete which is the arguably the MOS.

Re: WP:OTHERSTUFF - It is with regard to deletion of articles, so I don't see why you use it.

I have already stated that MOS has no direct mentions of health incidents. I think it is difficult to talk about "representation of different subjects is pertinent to the purpose of the list or table itself. " - are people representatives of their country? It seems that much discussion relate to the nationality of the people involved, but I do see a slant of the policy referring directly to ministries and government organisations, both of which (of different countries, obviously) also feature extremely heavily in the whole crisis.

In any case, I am not here to participate in any edits regarding flags, nor have I made any flag-related edits. Naming or pinging me will not do anything. Currently it appears that you changed Zika's page with no objections, but I have yet to see the flags go without someone putting it back. Clearly some moderation and/or arbitration would be helpful though I hope not necessary. Xenmorpha (talk) 15:56, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Re: Macau's flag: I think you'd need more than just stating that people don't know Macau's flag to make it true. I referenced a Wikipedia guideline. That is how we are meant to settle disagreements, with reference to policies and guidelines.

user design IS subjective and you do need reader/writer opinion. No, we can use the settled opinion of the Manual of Style, as I have referenced. I am glad you concur that the MoS is more concrete here. Can I take it that you are withdrawing your objection to removing the flag icons?

Re: WP:OTHERSTUFF - It is with regard to deletion of articles, so I don't see why you use it. WP:OTHERSTUFF is commonly referenced more generally. The point is that poor behaviour elsewhere is not an excuse to repeat it.

I have already stated that MOS has no direct mentions of health incidents. No, it's a general guideline, applicable to all articles, including therefore this one.

Naming or pinging me will not do anything. It's polite when quoting someone on a Talk page to ping them, but I will not ping you in this discussion as that is your wish. Bondegezou (talk) 18:35, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Any word on getting any arbitration here? Adding and removing flags doesn't help anyone and it keeps happening. --Colin dm (talk) 19:36, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

RfC on map of infected cases

Which is better, a map of Greater China or a map of Mainland China?--Jabo-er (talk) 01:07, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Per discussions above (#Image of Map and #Greater China map), I have replaced the map of "Greater China" with one of Mainland China, and my edit got reverted. Let me explain why I think a Mainland China map is more appropriate here:

• "Mainland China" is a clearly defined and commonly used term, while "Greater China" is a vaguely defined and a less commonly used one, and not without disputes.
• "Mainland China" is itself in the table of confirmed cases, so a Mainland China map can be seen as a breakdown by first-level administrative divisions. "Greater China", as its articles suggests, is an informal term used to refer a geographic area that shares commercial and cultural ties dominated by Han Chinese. A commercial and cultural concept is not quite relevant to an article concerning a epidemic.
• If the rationale to use "Greater China" over "Mainland China" is because Taiwan is infected too, then there is no reason to exclude South Korea, Thailand and Vietnam since those countries report confirmed cases too. It would be good to have a map that shows the first-level administrative divisions of the respective countries so that we are comparing apples to apples, i.e. Incheon, South Korea: 2 compared with to Hubei, China: 1096.

User:Ratherous kept reverting my edit without ANY explanation, so I am requesting a Request for comment to avoid embroiling myself in an unwanted edit war. IMHO a Mainland China map is clearly more relevant to the ongoing epidemic outbreak.

• 
• 

--Jabo-er (talk) 00:49, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Jabo-er, you were editing without any consensus. That discussion was originally started by a sockpuppet account which was then banned, so not many people took it seriously to begin with however you did not attempt to reach any consensus whatsoever. These reasons that you are giving would be a lot more appropriate for the original discussion section rather than here. Plus I’m not sure why you keep saying i was reverting without explanation as I clearly have a very specific explanation as to why your edits were reverted. Stop edit warring to POV push and reach consensus. --Ratherous (talk) 00:55, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Maybe you can try to give your arguments rather than attacking a blocked sockpuppet. That would be more productive to the discussion. --Jabo-er (talk) 01:06, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Please note that your second map has already violated NPOV as stated in #Image of Map: Indian controlled disputed land is in exactly the color of India in that map while PRC-administrated disputed land are in a different shaded color, thus unbalanced.

For the issue you mentioned, Greater China has no such ambiguity - few people (I've never heard any) would call South Korea a part of Greater China. Please give some source about the ambiguity you mentioned. --173.68.165.114 (talk) 10:55, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

I agree with you on the Indian controlled dispute land - the updated map is neutral on this part now. Thank you for pointing it out. On the other hand, since "Mainland China" is in the table of confirmed cases, readers can refer to a Mainland China map for a breakdown by provinces in Mainland China, where most cases are reported. A map of Mainland China + Macau + Hong Kong + Taiwan does not serve a clear purpose here, because "Greater China" is a coined term that serves economic and cultural purposes. If a map of all infected areas is expected, then a map of East Asia ( Mainland China + Macau + Hong Kong + Taiwan + Thailand + Vietnam + South Korea + Nepal) would be preferred over one excluding some countries. --Jabo-er (talk) 16:34, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

No one can explain why a map of Mainland China + Macau + Hong Kong + Taiwan (but not + Thailand + Nepal + Vietnam) makes sense. It is only here because no one else has produced a more proper one.

Sadly, I have also removed File:2019-nCoV Confirmed Cases Animated Map of China.gif, which is itself a very good animation, for violating NPOV as it depicts Taiwan as part of China rather than a claimed territory. On the other hand, counting the cases by province in Mainland but by the whole country of Taiwan is an inappropriate comparison - only the infected Taiwanese cities (Taipei, Kaohsiung; first-level administrative division in Taiwan) should be coloured.

• 

--Jabo-er (talk) 00:52, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

• FYI the reason why Mainland China + HK + Macau + TW makes more sense than Thailand + Nepal + Vietnam is the former four all claims to be China themselves, and all countries (including the UN) in the world recognize one of the four as a representative of all the four, which is part of the definition of a sovereign nation in international law. While Thailand + Nepal + Vietnam don't have that property. If you are so enthusiastic, you can actually make a map of Novorossiya + Northern Cyprus + Islamic State + Saharawi + Somaliland, but it simply doesn't make sense. --173.68.165.114 (talk) 09:56, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

• • That is only true about TW. Macau and HK do not claim to be all China, only Taiwan does.

• How about a map of "East Asia", including the subdivisions of Chinese provinces (or other national subdivisions) depending on the data available? This would bypass the territorial NPOV issue. A viral epidemic doesn't care much about territorial claims: it's enough for one carrier to pass a border and propagate the infection. Boud (talk) 06:36, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

• I would go for either a map of China broken down by province and a map of East Asia or just a map of China broken down by province. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 06:57, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

• The animated map in question does not even mention China, it is merely a colored version of an existing Wikimedia Commons map (standard/latest go-to blank province map of China) and has been restored. It took a lot of work to produce and does not make any political suggestions. prat (talk) 09:26, 27 January 2020 (UTC)
  • Please be advised that the original map had Taiwan drawn in a different outline color. This was not visible under the previous coloring. With the new coloring (see image talk page) as requested, it is more visible. I believe this matter can now be fully put to rest. prat (talk) 11:18, 27 January 2020 (UTC)
    • Dear prat, I really appreciate the great effort that you have made in creating and updating the animation and taking actions in response to feedbacks — despite the inappropriately threatening tone in the message you left on my talk page. I hope more Wikipedians can work to resolve disputes like what you did. That said, I still propose a map of Mainland China by province or a map of East Asia would be more relevant and NPOV choices that bypass the irrelevant territorial disputes, as User:Boud suggested above, and look forward to a community consensus on this issue. --Jabo-er (talk) 14:53, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Including Taiwan violates NPOV. Ythlev (talk) 15:14, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

• Replace map remove File:2019-nCoV Confirmed Cases Animated Map of China.webm as it is POV (like why does the PRC map also show Taiwan without any explanation?) It also doesn't serve a purpose as the grouping is arbitrary. For statistical purposes, mainland China is represented separately with provincial level number. I prefer having one map of mainland China (divided by provinces) and another map of the standard world/territories with numbers in each.--DreamLinker (talk) 05:05, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

• The problem is: Mainland China + HK + Macau + TW all claims to be China themselves, and all countries (including the UN) in the world recognize one of the four as a representative of all the four, which is part of the definition of a sovereign nation in international law. --173.68.165.114 (talk) 10:08, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

• Thats wrong in so many different ways... At this point your contributions are starting to feel more tendentious than here to build an encyclopedia. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 12:12, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

• Would you please point out in which way is that wrong? It is just a routine universal practice applied by the international communities, such as sovereign states, international organizations, etc. --173.68.165.114 (talk) 12:42, 28 January 2020 (UTC)
• Your practice, by separating all provinces of China, sounds also good. But that needs major works to be done. However, separating all provinces sounds a bit China centered, as the only other practice I've found is maps published in the US which separated all US states by treating them equal as sovereign states. --173.68.165.114 (talk) 12:46, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

• Mainland China is relevant as it has the highest cases and is the origin. For the rest, a world map with country/territory is sufficient. On Wikipedia, we follow how major news reports are reporting it (like maps at [1]). The term Greater China is a political term like Greater East Asia Co-Prosperity Sphere. It's not useful for defining geographical boundaries.--DreamLinker (talk) 16:38, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

• Mainland China is probably more relevant as long as this is mainly in PRC and Taiwan is de-facto governed separately. But I don't think either way is a big issue, if there is a better map (up to date, graphics) with or without Taiwan with a license, then inclusion or exclusion of Taiwan is a minor issue in relation to the map being up to date. I also suspect a China specific won't be relevant for long as this is spreading world wide and fast.--Eostrix (talk) 08:53, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

• I wonder what the detailed Wikipedia policy about de facto governance: is Northern Cyprus included in a Greater Cyprus map? Is Islamic State drawn differently from Syria? Could you please quote the corresponding Wikipedia policy concerning this issue? --173.68.165.114 (talk) 10:08, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

• I don't know if there is. But even if there is policy for geopolitical issues, I don't think it is relevant for health and epidemics. Viruses don't respect borders. We should be illustrating on a map according to what demonstrates the epidemic best. If Taiwan is part of the epidemic and illustrates the point, it should be in. But the same is true for North or South Korea. Xizang (Tibet) so far has been so far not so affected, so inclusion on the map is not so important. This is about health and people, not politics.--Eostrix (talk) 13:20, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

• Replace with map of East Asia divided down to top-level administrative regions – the underlying locus of this dispute is the political bias that is brought by the choice to use Greater China rather than Mainland China, which could imply endorsement of the PRC's territorial claims over Taiwan. Using a map of East Asia would not require that much of a zoom-out and would retain the benefit of also knowing what's happening in Taiwan. Jancarcu (talk) 20:05, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

• This whole discussion is nonsense. First, if the concern is Taiwan NPOV, then fix the reference map I reached for when creating the visualization on commons instead of hassling people who are contributing to current articles with high levels of effort. Second, it appears there is already a consensus in that design to render Taiwan differently, a difference which is visible on the current version of the animation after the colors were enhanced. Third, the map doesn't say anything about being China, it's just a square-looking area around the epicenter. The frame of reference is the caption, which currently reads "... in China" but did not yesterday. That is a quick fix. prat (talk) 20:41, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

  Can you post the map you used as a reference? Its entirely possible you just started with a bad map. You have to be careful with images on commons as they aren’t required to meet high standards of accuracy or verifiability. On a side note given that the map's title is "2019-nCoV Confirmed Cases Animated Map of China” saying that the only place "being China" is mentioned is in the caption is disingenuous. The description also states "Animated map of confirmed 2019-nCoV cases spreading across China from 2020-01-25.” Wouldn’t you have written both those things yourself? Horse Eye Jack (talk) 20:57, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Lockdown of 10 Chinese Cities

Should the lockdown of the 10 Chinese cities have its own page? This is unprecedented in history, with at least 32 million people cut off from the world. See https://www.voanews.com/science-health/least-10-chinese-cities-lockdown-830-confirmed-coronavirus-cases-across-country

I would think this is an extraordinary event which deserves a article of its own. Seloloving (talk) 04:16, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

As the situation in Hubei becomes more complex I think having a page dedicated to lockdown would be useful. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Colin dm (talk • contribs) 04:25, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Virtually every subsection could. kencf0618 (talk)

Go ahead! The present version of this article is 143,078 bytes in size. The only question is a descriptive choice of name. I would tend to go for wikt:quarantine which makes sense here for the medical situation, rather than wikt:lockdown, which could obviously refer to locking down 1-2 million Uighurs in the Xinjiang re-education camps or tens of thousands per year who are locked down and surgically sacrificed for involuntary Organ harvesting from Falun Gong practitioners in China. On the other hand, "lockdown" is a claim that the PRC government is authoritarian, which is overwhelmingly supported by sources, and an implicit claim that the quarantines are going way beyond what is epidemiologically justified ("evidence-based"). So I guess "lockdowns" would be acceptable too. Probably best try for a quick poll here to reduce the chance for a rename war. Suggestions:

• 2019–20 Wuhan coronavirus city quarantines
• Wuhan coronavirus city quarantines (so far a unique occurrence, doesn't need the date)
• Wuhan coronavirus city-wide quarantines
• 2019–20 Wuhan coronavirus city lockdowns
• Wuhan coronavirus city lockdowns

My idea is not to limit the lockdowns/quarantines to the PRC in the title - other authoritarian countries might try the same thing too. 20 cities now per Al Jazeera English. I think I would go for Wuhan coronavirus city quarantines. Boud (talk) 00:50, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

PS: I just saw that the section title is City-wide quarantine measures - I wrote the above before seeing the section title... Boud (talk) 00:53, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Suspected cases in indonesia

https://www.thejakartapost.com/news/2020/01/24/result-will-be-out-in-2-days-indonesia-puts-2nd-suspected-coronavirus-patient-under-close-observation.html TheMarsian (talk) 05:29, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Confirmed not NCOV-2019 [2] Ckfasdf (talk) 01:33, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Chinese state media propaganda video as content on Wikipedia

In the Confirmed cases > Hong Kong section there is a video file from China News Service titled 'File:香港确诊两宗新型肺炎个案 机场火车站加强体温筛查.webm'. It's enough to take a glance at the lead of the China News Service article to see that it's a PRC state owned media company run by the United Front Work Department of the Chinese Communist Party. Why does Wikipedia relay propaganda content from a media outlet of an authoritarian party? I understand that the Creative Commons license is enticing enough to grab every piece of content from the Internet, but where is the critical approach? This is highly questionable, especially when Wikipedia is very critical about which US news sources it accepts are reliable/trusted. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.2.87.212 (talk) 08:27, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

I moved the content because it appeared to be a report about the cases diagnosed in Hong Kong. I don't speak Chinese, and posted a note on the Chinese talk page of this article asking anyone who can to provide captions for the video so that it can be translated and understood by others. My intent was not to propagandize. If the report is not of value, or counter to value, please remove it from the article. I did say the source of the news report in the thumbnail under the video so that it is clear who had produced it. Victor Grigas (talk) 13:12, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Putting this upfront: I understand, read and write Chinese, as a byproduct of the education policies of Singapore. I am a Singapore citizen and have no affiliations to China. I have watched the video. The content is purely a news piece on how populace in Hong Kong is dealing with the onset of the virus in the society: More people are putting masks on; Station crew disinfecting the areas where a suspected infected was moving about; Measures which authorities have adopted to detect suspected cases, i.e. temperature screening at arrivals; People comparing this to SARS and previous epidemics, and them saying that lessons learned will be apply for this event; Some also expressed confidence in the Hong Kong government in the dealing of this matter; How masks are being sold out at pharmacies and where there are stocks, there is a markup of prices with about HKD30 increase in the prices for masks. If there are propaganda in here, I would say that it is simply portraying how optimistic the Hong Kong residents are at this early stage of epidemic (in the Hong Kong society) in dealing with the virus. robertsky (talk) 16:21, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

This is exactly what we need: someone who knows the territory. Thanks! kencf0618 (talk) 18:48, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Whether or not this particular video is factual or not doesnt really speak to the larger point that China News Service cant be used as a citation for anything other than the opinion of the Government of China. Its not anywhere near a reliable source. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 08:32, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

There was a reliability discussion about Chinese news sources in general, and there was no consensus that they should or should not be a reliable source. At this point, in my opinion, CNS can be used as a source, but we editors, especially those who can read Chinese, would have to help to see if the article referenced is a factual piece, or a propaganda spin. robertsky (talk) 09:47, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

The question asked there was "Are Chinese state media sources like Global Times, People's Daily, China Daily, Xinhua News Agency, China Central Television or China Global Television Network reliable sources on the Chinese government perspective?” which is a lower standard than general reliability. There is consensus Chinese sources are unreliable because they have no editorial independence and therefore cant ever be WP:RS, if you think you can make an argument for China News Service having editorial independence go ahead and make it. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 11:21, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

And where states the consensus? robertsky (talk) 06:41, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

There is no requirement that I provide anything of the sort, you however are required to demonstrate that China News Service is a WP:RS if you want to include it as proposed. As I said before good luck establishing editorial independence as required by Wikipedia:Verifiability. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 13:04, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Page size

This page already has 146,969 bytes of markup; we need to trim a good deal of content, or split sections off into new articles. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:13, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

WP:RPS is just 41 kB, so well under WP:SIZERULE. – Finnusertop (talk ⋅ contribs) 14:44, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

SIZERULE doesn't say what you think it does. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:35, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Now increased to 157,630 bytes in a touch over our hours. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:38, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

@Pigsonthewing: This is a mistake that I had made with another 'bloated' article before. As you have noted, the history of the article is now 157+ kB. However, this includes stuff like wiki markups, HTML markups, etc. WP:SIZERULE states that "These rules of thumb apply only to readable prose and not to wiki markup size". Making use of Shubinator's DYK tool as suggested in the same size rule section, the current readable prose size is 42527 characters or ~43kB, which places it between "May need to be divided (likelihood goes up with size)" and "Length alone does not justify division". That being said, we should start looking at how to spin sections of content out given that the readable prose size had increased by 1-2kB in a matter of hours. robertsky (talk) 17:54, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Yes, but SIZERULE is not the determining factor. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 17:57, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Care to clarify? robertsky (talk) 17:59, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Yes; the top of Wikipedia:Article size says "There are three related measures of an article's size, and lists them as "readable-prose", "wiki markup size", and "browser-page size". SIZERULE, a subsection of that page, is concerned only with the first of these, and has nothing to say about the other two. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:35, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

From my understanding of the article, the other two are more to do with whether our browsers can handle the large size. In If you have problems editing a long article section, it had indicated clearly that if your browser cannot handle the large wiki markup size, either upgrade your browser (consequentially, laptop/desktop/device as well) or edit the page in sections. As for the browser page size, nothing is indicated in the article, which I suspect is not of our concern here. robertsky (talk) 19:04, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Where did I say anything about having a problem with my browser? Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:17, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Apologies if my words are being misconstrued. When I typed 'your', it was in a more generic sense of anyone's, not specifically yours. robertsky (talk) 19:27, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

After another 24 hours, now 196,145 bytes. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:13, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Superfluous information

Most of the reporting of suspected cases, in countries where there are also confirmed cases, is cruft. Consider, for example:

On 25 January 2020, the Malaysian Ministry of Health confirmed three cases of 2019-nCoV. All three patients have had close contact with the first case in Singapore. Earlier on 23 January, a tourist from China has been placed in isolation ward at Queen Elizabeth Hospital in Sabah for suspected infection of the virus. They and three other suspected patients comprising one from Sabah and two from Selangor were later tested negative for the virus; one was diagnosed with Influenza A virus symptoms. Eight Chinese nationals were quarantined at a hotel in Johor on 24 January after coming into contact with an infected person in neighbouring Singapore. They tested negative for the virus.

The entire second paragraph is unnecessary. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 18:32, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

I have done a rearrangement of the content for Malaysia. Feel free to downsize it further. robertsky (talk) 19:04, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Thank you, but as I said, that was an example. The problem is far more wide-ranging. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 19:17, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Indeed. I was actually staring at that section wondering if it should be break out into its own article. Especially if other editors begin to add more details on each country's response plans as requested in Talk:2019–20_Wuhan_coronavirus_outbreak#Adding_more_content. robertsky (talk) 19:27, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

I find the details of reported cases in every new region uninteresting. Should be moved to a separate article and a summary table kept. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 18:30, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Should we move 2019–20_Wuhan_coronavirus_outbreak#Countries_and_regions_with_confirmed_cases into a separate article? Suggest moving country response and suspected cases as well.   Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 18:42, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

References

Done. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 21:36, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

References

Flags in the table

Hello there folks! I believe that we should put the flags back in the information table, since they don’t only make it more aesthetically pleasing, but they make for a faster way of recognition of where the virus has spread to (I believe they do). 2JWE (talk) 22:17, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Fully approve. The list is getting long enough that the flags provide for a faster way to recognize countries. One or two users seem to be consistently removing the flags, but the consensus seems to be that it's better to keep them (see previous post in the talk page) Pie3636 (talk) 22:20, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Oppose as WP:FLAGCRUFT and per WP:INFOBOXFLAG EvergreenFir (talk) 22:28, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Absolutely agree to reinstate the flags. The list is honestly hard to follow now with so many countries. A lot of lists of countries on Wikipedia use flags to make the data easier to read and understand. The info box on this page is genuinely a different case than to what is described in WP:INFOBOXFLAG, as it includes a large list of countries within itself. If a couple of users are that seriously against putting flags in the info box then I would propose to move the list out of it entirely so that the flags can be put in. --Ratherous (talk) 23:50, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Plus in this case WP:FLAGCRUFT doesn’t apply as it is indeed relevant information to see the national citizenship of the fatalities and the people diagnosed with the virus. --Ratherous (talk) 23:53, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

@Ratherous: There is no proof that any the numbers reported correspond to nationality / citizenship, especially in the case of PRC expats returning to their non-Greater China homes. CaradhrasAiguo (leave language) 00:10, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

a case’s country is counted by where the case is, not the person’s nationality. in this case flags help to identify the country in which the virus hasn’t spread to — Preceding unsigned comment added by 39cookies (talk • contribs) 00:15, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

UTC)

It’s less about their citizenship and more about the number of people infected in each country corresponding to actually population data from nations. This isn’t about what WP:FLAGCRUFT talks about. This doesn’t in any way make nationalities an issue, but rather corresponds to relevant data. Flags genuinely help this list. --Ratherous (talk) 00:17, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Also agree with keeping the flags. When it comes to long series of data, the flags only benefit reading comprehension. ApocalypticNut (talk) 02:02, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Color me suspicious of all these new accounts wanting flags. What is the benefit of these flags? Suggesting that small graphics, some complicated designs, would aid a casual reader? I'm concerned some people want to use them as "badges of shame" or something. EvergreenFir (talk) 02:14, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

@EvergreenFir: That's quite an odd conclusion to draw, I don't really understand how the addition of a flag would 'shame' anyone. One of the primary uses of a flag is as a signalling device. If I were to give you a list of countries in a seemingly random order and ask you to find a given country, I'm sure you would find it easier with a symbol (flag) to draw your attention. Multiple methods of recall aid reading comprehension. It is true of course that not everybody would recognise every flag, but I don't think that detracts from the previous point. To touch on your point of 'new accounts'; everybody is new to something at some point and, whilst I can only speak personally, creating an account now doesn't mean that I haven't been actively using Wikipedia for many, many years. All that said, I'm open to your ideas of course. ApocalypticNut (talk) 16:49, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

MOS:INFOBOXFLAG is clear that we shouldn't have flag icons in infoboxes. There is more leniency on flag icons elsewhere, but they are still discouraged in most cases. The claims that they support reading comprehension were rejected when the Manual of Style guideline was written on this. If you wish to dispute that, go discuss the matter at the Talk page for MOS:FLAG, but we're meant to follow the Manual of Style, as all Wikipedia guidelines. We're not allowed to form our own WP:LOCALCONSENSUS: Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale.

Compare other articles in Category:2010s medical outbreaks and Category:2000s medical outbreaks. They nearly all avoid flag icons in infoboxes, although some use flag icons in other tables. Bondegezou (talk) 17:46, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

I've just checked and there's not a single flag icon used for any article in Category:1990s medical outbreaks, Category:1980s medical outbreaks, Category:1970s medical outbreaks or Category:1960s medical outbreaks. Bondegezou (talk) 17:50, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

@Bondegezou:, so I read the talk page you referenced, and noted that the claims regarding reading comprehension aren't so much rejected as disputed. In addition, on that page there is a lot of discussion regarding the use of flags within national elections, which I agree is unnecessary, however I still firmly believe that they do aid comprehension when you have data from a large number of countries. In fact, you yourself quote 'The allowed examples in MOS:INFOBOXFLAG are generally situations where multiple countries are involved, e.g. FIFA World Cup.'; what is this if not a situation involving multiple countries?

Furthermore, I checked the categories you mentioned: from all four categories (1990s, 1980s, 1970s, and 1960s) there were zero pages covering international outbreaks of disease. In contrast, looking at the 2000s and 2010s, there were five pages covering international outbreaks of disease with a comparable table, of which three do have flags accompanying their respective countries (somewhat ironically Severe_acute_respiratory_syndrome, as well as Global_spread_of_H5N1, and 2015-16_Zika_virus_epidemic; the two that did not were Middle_East_respiratory_syndrome and Western_Africa_Ebola_virus_epidemic). I believe this shows that the rules you're proselytising are in fact contentious at best for this particular scenario, and are not often enforced.

The fact that this article references a number of different countries with distinct, well-known flags, and not something akin to national elections with lesser known flags such as those for specific states or counties, makes this a very good example of an allowed exception. I appreciate that you seem to have a strong view on this topic, and I mean no disrespect, but to say that 'The claims that they support reading comprehension were rejected when the Manual of Style guideline was written on this' is incorrect, and to cite a number of categories with no comparable pages again isn't reasonable justification to oppose flags in the infobox. You often cite the idea of overruling MOS:INFOBOXFLAG as an example of WP:IDONTLIKEIT, but I think you're being quite hypocritical there. ApocalypticNut (talk) 21:04, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

My input. Bougz is right. No flags is part of Wiki's Manual of Style. That's not a "maybe", it's a "rule". One we have to follow. I remember an old Wikipedia rule of thumb which said "if you're bothered by the colour of the fence than the location of the fire exit, you're doing it wrong." Flags are NOT important in this article: death counts, quotes, medical information all are. If something is only included for looking pretty, then it's nothing to do with the article, it's just pretty colours. So as per Wikipedia's own MoS, and therefore as part of the guiding editorial principles, there must be no flags on the table. doktorb _words^deeds 21:27, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

It's a rule, with exceptions as Bondegezou has himself pointed out in previous discussions of the topic. However, as my edit was removed by the administrator @EvergreenFir:, I am content to defer to their judgement on the topic. I do still believe that, as in the other pages I mentioned previously, the addition of flags has a positive effect on comprehension. ApocalypticNut (talk)

I've made an ANI post requesting outside input from admins and experienced editors: Wikipedia:Administrators'_noticeboard/Incidents#Flags_on_2019–20_Wuhan_coronavirus_outbreak EvergreenFir (talk) 21:39, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

• I oppose the flag icons and think that this article should conform to the Manual of Style. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 22:54, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

When editors are reverting flags, would they please refrain from also deleting the country links beside them? Jw 193 (talk) 23:55, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Connecticut student put into isolation.

CT student put into isolation.

https://fox61.com/2020/01/25/wesleyan-student-being-evaluated-for-possible-coronavirus-was-traveling-in-asia/

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.177.16.114 (talk) 22:34, 25 January 2020 (UTC)

Better get semi-protection back

I've seen several anonymous users manipulating the counter for confirmed cases with unreliable sources (they don't even read the comments) or some other stuff you'd expect an anonymous user would do such as this, this, this, and this. What those IPs did are mostly minor changes in numbers instead of chunks of new content to the article, and I suppose autoconfirmed users could make those minor changes as well, maybe just a bit slower. We still have editprotected for IP users if they want to add something. @Acroterion: I think we need to reconsider semi-protection. --Techyan（Talk） 00:17, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

In addition many of these edits did not reflect that spelling use in that page that using British English. While is acceptable to use ise and ize interchangeably, but not for other spelling with exception of proper name such as US CDC which use Center and many place in China that use Center. I suggest that editnotice regarding WP:Reliable source be applied to this article same as Chinese Wikipedia in addition to spelling ones.

Requested on WP:RFPP. Darylgolden^(talk) Ping when replying 02:01, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

 Done EvergreenFir (talk) 02:22, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Shouldn't this article use Hong Kong English, as the relevant dialect of English? It is not exactly the same as British English, and it is the local English language variant that is native to some part of China, where this originated, and the first/only English speaking jurisdiction with some form of state of emergency. -- 67.70.33.184 (talk) 06:22, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

The question is then what is Hong Kong English? China (along with most of East Asia) uses American English but will primarily read information in their own languages. The English-speaking countries in the region speak "Commonwealth English" but younger people lean towards "American English" and most people write in whatever English they are exposed to through media (especially true in places such as Hong Kong or Singapore) which can often be American English. The international English spoken in East Asia will be a sort of American English as well. Tsukide (talk) 07:04, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

{{Hong Kong English}} / {{Use Hong Kong English}} -- Hong Kong English is the form of English used in Hong Kong, such as in legislation, schools, literature, media, and we have templates to handle that case. Same as {{Singapore English}} and {{Use Singapore English}} -- We should not be discriminating against all Englishes that are not British nor American. Your statement makes it seem that there are only two Englishes in the world, but the same statement with inpection, results in "what is British English or American English" (they are not static either) and not really separate then (afterall, "football" is changing in American to cover 'soccer', just look at MSL team names and media reports concerning the MSL; or the increasing use of Americanisms in Britain). This event is not something that is highly affecting the U.S. or UK, so neither of these Englishes are particularly tied to the event. -- 67.70.33.184 (talk) 02:54, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Canada "presumptive" confirmed case?

How should we treat the "presumptive" confirmed in Canada? List it as confirmed or under suspected case? Afaik, a lab confirmed the case in Canada, while in order to be definite and official confirmation a second lab has to confirm the case?Hariboneagle927 (talk) 03:24, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

As far as i know, it's not confirmed, Canada is expert on strange things as a "presumptive" confirmed case... On public tv, the MD are stating they are sure at 95 % that this is this virus wich make news thinking it's 100 %... --Eric1212 (talk) 03:32, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Even so, the map of Confirmed and Suspected Cases put Canada as a Confirmed Case. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.250.33.28 (talk) 09:58, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

That means the map needs to be corrected. Daniel.z.tg (talk) 15:57, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

There seems to be a confirmation now. Daniel.z.tg (talk) 16:21, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

There isn't, unless the National Microbiology Lab in Winnipeg release the results confirming the validity of the presumptive case, the Canadian case is essentially a suspected case with a very high probability to be the Wuhan coronavirus. Note that news sites often ommit "presumptive" from the headline or worst ommit the fact that a confirmatory test is to be conducted.Hariboneagle927 (talk) 03:00, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Now that Canada has confirmed the initial presumptive case, Canada has now at least one officially confirmed case. That said, the problematic term of "presumptive cases" will continue to generate confusion regarding the number of confirmed cases in the country.Hariboneagle927 (talk) 22:52, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Why is Turkey "confirmed" on the world map?

The patient who came to Turkey was never tested/confirmed. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Colin dm (talk • contribs) 03:48, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

That change was reverted at 04:03, so you may wish to refresh your browser if the image is showing wrongly. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 04:29, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

If that doesn't work, see Wikipedia:Bypass your cache and WP:PURGE. It can be complicated although generally a little better if logged in. Nil Einne (talk) 11:24, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Why should the article be written in British English?

British English isn't widely spoken in the Asia-Pacific region. The official languages all use varieties of Commonwealth English while unofficially American English is the lingua franca.

• China, along with most of East Asia, uses American English. These people aren't likely to seek information in English however.
• Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore, the only regions in East Asia that use English officially, use a mixture of American English and Commonwealth English due to the influence of US media. India is also in a similar situation as well.
• Canada, Australia and New Zealand are closely liked to China but all three have adopted a similar position to Hong Kong in terms of how American spelling is used.

I suggest that anyone who is able to understand the medical terminology used in this article would also be able to understand the differences between American English and British English. The locals would probably use whatever form of English they come across the most, meaning that there will be a mixture of spelling norms that lean towards American English.

Therefore the article should use whatever English norms that they naturally use, whether British or American or Commonwealth.

Tsukide (talk) 07:17, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

The simple answer is that there are many zealous promoters of British English on Wikipedia, and few people who care enough and have the ability to oppose them. jej1997 (talk) 07:25, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

The real answer is that this is Wikipedia policy. Whatever the article starts with, then that is what we use. It is lower quality if it is mixed. Don't be too stressed if you don't know how to write in British English, as the zealous will fix it. See WP#Langvar with the section labelled "Consistency within articles" Graeme Bartlett (talk) 08:54, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

The first edit where a language variant can be noted is here [3]. In this edit the American date format is used. However, the first edit where a spelling variant is evident is this one [4]. Here, we have "travelling" as opposed to "traveling" (some of my American colleagues actually use "travelling" - not sure why). However, does it matter? I think not. There are very many articles on Wikipedia where AmE is mandated for no good reason. It doesn't matter what version of English they use in China. In that country they don't speak English and they have their own Wikipedia. Also, it's good that Wikipedia (or is it Wikipaedia) supports and encourages English language variants; it highlights the issue of variants to younger readers and hopefully gives them a more global perspective of life. For this article - I suggest it's just left as it is. 31.52.163.28 (talk) 13:45, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

"In that country they... have their own Wikipedia." To be clear; no they do not. There is a Chinese-language Wikipedia, not a China-country Wikipedia. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:53, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Correct. My mistake. Excellent pedantry, by the way. 31.52.163.28 (talk) 14:30, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Vote we get rid of the British English Zealots and just use the more common English. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 14:45, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Don't drag Singapore, Malaysia, Hong Kong and India, please. We adopt UK spelling for 99% of the time. At the very least for Singapore centric articles, many of our articles are declared EngVarB. Personally, I am flexible as to which variants to use. However, I am conditioned to default to UK variant. robertsky (talk) 14:52, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

@Robertsky Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore use Commonwealth English and increasing saturation by US media means that usage of American English is widespread and common especially in Hong Kong. India probably retains more of the British English but they've also got a large amount of native vocabulary and are more exposed to American media than Commonwealth media.Tsukide (talk) 16:36, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Agree. I'd rather take the WP:DATETIES and WP:TIES view on the primacy of those than the opinion of an IP on nebulously to conflating to a tangential alignment with British English, which WP:LANGVAR, by the way, does not unambiguously support as claimed. As the national dating format appears to be Y-M-D, the dating format will be changed to reflect the M-D style at the very least. Other reversions may come hereafter. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Sleath56 (talk • contribs) 17:34, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Am I that IP to which you refer? Surely you don't consider the opinion of an IP to be any less important than that of an anonymous user, do you? Regardless, this article is fundamentally about China. To quote WP:DATETIES "Articles on topics with strong ties to a particular English-speaking country should generally use the date format most commonly used in that nation" (my emphasis), so it would seem not to apply here. As for the British English zealots, yes, let's git rid fo them, as long as we also git rid of the American English zealots. 31.52.163.28 (talk) 18:10, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

• I think that ultimately the article is comprehensible enough to anyone who understands either British or American English. Perhaps this article is suitable for a thorough translation into the otherwise rather scrawny Simple English article on the virus to allow for folks who don't fully understand English to be able to get important information from this article. Aqua817 (talk) 03:53, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Talk page archive

Since there are many discussions here, should we uses the talk page archive? Mariogoods (talk) 09:07, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

I support. --Eric1212 (talk) 10:56, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Already in hand. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 13:54, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

The auto archive script has been in place for a while. Just a ton of people commenting.  EvergreenFir (talk) 19:44, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Just take out 'suspected cases' from the world map

It is distracting, alarmist, 9/10 times inaccurate, and has no informative value. Every country is going to screen suspected people at some point and most times they are going to come out negative. Just look at Brazil. It's been colored as suspected since the start of the epidemic. If there was a real case it would have been confirmed already, so it's probably not, but negative results make fewer headlines in English than suspicions and positive cases.Menah the Great (talk) 13:41, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

I agree, and as the virus spreads it will become more difficult to even keep up with the confirmed cases, let alone suspected ones. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Colin dm (talk • contribs) 16:37, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Thank you! Wuhan2019 (talk) 01:03, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Criticism section

2019–20 Wuhan coronavirus outbreak#Criticism What do you think of the criticism section? There was an edit to demote it from level 2 to level 4, in other words to bury it. I think the section is of much interest and should not be buried.   Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 17:38, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Information on the subject seems scarce (not a surprise), but because of how important this is and China's record with covering up diseases, I think it should stay. --Colin dm (talk) 17:47, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

"other words to bury it." Let's keep this within WP:GF.

It's wholly inadequate and there used to be a comment flag regarding its critically underdeveloped status before that was removed. On its own, as the criticism is wholly laid onto the Police and Government authorities, it fits under Domestic Response as I've appended unless criticism further develops past that Jan 20 declaration. Unless criticism reaches far more substantive degrees, which may become the case in the future, some Weibo commentators and an incident of withholding camera footage feels like WP:UNDUE to merit its own top level section. The governmental response under that heading along with the potential for insertion of contrary views, such as that by the WHO in praising transparency (https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-who-idUSKBN1ZM1G9), will create a clumsy read under such a heading.

Reorganizing the section will keep it in line with cases such as:

• See Ebola virus disease#2013–2016 West Africa
• See 2009 flu pandemic
• See Kivu Ebola epidemic

Sleath56 (talk) 18:06, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

I first started this section and I will definitely expand it. It may not have a lot of content right now but it will certainly expand. Beyond censorship on the press and social media sites, there have been tons of criticisms on insufficient medical supplies and patients overhauling hospitals. Colin dm said information in this section seems to be scarce because here's China, and of course it would be scarce - but the truth is the exact opposite. Most criticisms are in Chinese and a surprising amount is from Chinese media. I suppose I'm the only Chinese speaker here so the real problem is, souces are already here but no one writes about it.

Censorship is important but for some reason, most western media have become too full of it. I suppose half of the NYT's coverages are about censorship and mismanagement from the central government's level instead of things like face masks shortages and skyrocketing food prices. I will keep working on Chinese sources in the coming days as foreign outlets seemed to have suffered from a kind of ridiculous-sounding difficulty, which is to send correspondents on-site - I can tell that the BBC failed from a video they made, and several have scaled back or moved to their regional headquarters in Beijing instead of staying in Wuhan, as the authorities locked the city and they probably don't want to die in China themselves. There are many quality journalism produced by Chinese media, especially after censorship eased these days.

Speaking of English sources, Caixin and Sixth Tone are good sources as they are relatively liberal, and they are subsidiaries of credible Chinese media, although no one heard of them. Xinhua is the go-to source for official stuff, Global Times is nationalist and conservative, China Daily is more neutral. CGTN remains close to the government yet its TV programs are relatively liberal as well. Be aware that official Chinese English-languaged media also use Xinhua's news pieces a lot. The South China Morning Post, despite having China in its name, is a Hong Kong-based newspaper, did a lot of good stories on China, and doesn't care about China's censorship. Plus, people in Hong Kong criticised their government a lot as well. These are all good sources to start with.

--Techyan（Talk） 20:05, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

@Techyan: Appreciate the response and editorial initiative. My issues with the section remain nonetheless. As it is now, it is hard to claim the section maintains WP:NPOV as an top level section. One, while media criticism of authority actions should be absolutely documented here provided it passes WP:UNDUE. The caveat is that in an developing situation like this however, it’s easy to find plenty of voices with a variety of such allegations and concerns and WP:PROPORTION fall into mind here to not bloat such a section.

Titling criticism as a top level section bears validity if such views are largely predominant or unanimous. This is not generally the case in epidemic articles, as official response is rarely so inept it attracts universal condemnation throughout the whole process without any contrary views. As it stands, there are many RS that hold positive commentary on elements of the authorities conduct in the matter, in particular from voices of medical authority. Such RS include that by WHO, which is far more relevant for WP:RS/MC than any ordinary media allegations, such as I’ve provided here: 1. Additionally to demonstrate the point of contrary reactions are political commentary such as those by Germany, who approve of the authorities’ ‘rapid management.' and 'praised their transparency'. 2. With the existence of such RS/MC, it is inappropriate to dedicate a section wholly under the title of “Criticism”.

These situations are largely reactive, the meaning can be demonstrated through the new point you've added on the Wuhan festival is definitely of far greater merit than anything yet documented in the section. The criticism directed to that event is worthy of documentation here, but the subsequent governmental response in closing further festivals as the epidemic developed should also be narrated as a follow-through case. This makes for a very clumsy section if inserted into the current state.

The solution as often adopted by other associated epidemic pages as cited, has been to file such reactions under a “Response” section, often a top level section. This allows for the capacity to add RS/MC responses (whose addition would be a priority in any circumstance), like WHO’s which indeed have not been of criticism, to balance concerns of WP:UNDUE and also satisfy WP:NPOV.

I see two means by which this can be achieved:

• 1) As this current page has already developed its own Responses sections, it would be appropriate to organize this through that direction as a result. I believe this is the most feasible and efficient manner.
• 2) Reorganize the sections to accommodate for a top level Responses section. While this may act as a compromise and indeed bring this page to equivalent styles in other epidemic articles as I've cited, the concern I hold is that the 'Prevention and Management' top section is already well developed to a degree that transporting away the Response sections from there may damage that area's coherency.

Sleath56 (talk) 06:23, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

It is very important to be highly critical of ourselves, because it will help improve our responses to re-occurrences. This will save lives and potentially billions of dollars. This is a higher priority than concerns about NPOV. From the Central Political and Legal Affairs Commission:

anyone who deliberately delays and hides the reporting of cases ... will be nailed on a pillar of shame for eternity.

Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 15:12, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure to what you are exactly referring. It may be of benefit to reiterate what Wikipedia is not. Wikipedia is not a place for advocacy. See WP:NOTADVOCACY. We document non-original information that satisfies relevance and notability utilizing secondary and reliable sources. Eschewing WP:NPOV as a secondary priority is a false proposition as that policy is one of Wikipedia’s WP:5P and is not a suggestion for editors but compulsory. It is “non-negotiable, and the principles upon which it is based cannot be superseded by other policies or guidelines, nor by editor consensus.” Sleath56 (talk) 20:26, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Let me restart that then. NPOV concerns should be addressed within the section rather than burying. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 22:26, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

The discussion I had with Techyan, which you’ve responded to, lists the issues of the titled section in its current top level form. You’re welcome to fully engage in that discussion directly. Sleath56 (talk) 00:30, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Another tidbit to express my opinion: We are all this together. It benefits all to be highly critical. Bringing up NPOV seems arbitrary. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 02:00, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

The second paragraph in the section is ignorant at best, and possibly with intentional conceal of information in itself. One most likely reason for observing infections outside China but not in other provinces within China is because between province travelers do not receive the same level of medical checks/control as between country boarder travelers do. In fact there was no body temperature motoring when you travel across provinces, just like traveling between states in the US or traveling between countries within Europe. Why did I say this second paragraph itself is intentionally concealing information? Because the above explanation was already given in a reference cited within the paragraph, yet it was not mentioned at all. And now even the reference has been deleted (reference link: https://www.hk01.com/議事廳/424736/武漢肺炎-坊間調侃-愛國病毒-地方有否-瞞報-疫情) 193.54.67.94 (talk) 10:23, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

That is good info. Should add it as a counter. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 15:03, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Who keeps deleting the flags?

Keep the flags on the table, with more cases being confirmed, flags are easier to identify with. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kaisersauce1 (talk • contribs) 17:48, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

See the talk page above about the topic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Colin dm (talk • contribs) 17:54, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Flags must be removed as per WP:INFOBOXFLAG doktorb _words^deeds 21:33, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Incubation etc (comments)

• Article starts with “after people developed pneumonia”. Should it be “cluster of people”? Should we be more precise eg two-thirds of original cluster linked to the market rather than "a majority"?

• The incubation period in the lead is quoted as “ time from exposure to developing symptoms) is about two weeks", with an inline citation to a source saying "Incubation is likely 5-7 days, but may be up to 14 days”

However, The Lancet says the incubation period (not exactly known yet) is 3-6 days [5]. This information comes from two recent Lancet papers: [6] where it says “the incubation period was estimated to be between 3 and 6 days” [7]. Another 5-6 day incubation is quoted in [8]. These papers are cited in news too. statnews says where it got its information from.

• The article says “(rate of infection) appeared to escalate in mid-January”. Partially correct I think. It is more accurate to say that the detection rate increased. The more you test, the more you will get a positive result.

• There are increasing articles in peer reviewed journals and are probably preferential to a news article, where possible. Whispyhistory (talk) 18:59, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

*I would prefer to be more specific but the text is constantly changed back to simplify the article.

*It's important to keep in mind that this article is mainly about informing readers about an epidemic that could affect them, without resorting to Simple English Wikipedia standards. The two weeks is currently the maximum incubation period suggested and generally the safer option to state. I am not opposed to rewriting it as "incubation period is up to two weeks".

*It was the increase in cases reported that led to the article getting onto the front page and the incident gaining widespread attention. There's no evidence to suggest that it was due to better detection, especially in terms of its spread to other countries. A number of news outlets have stated that officials were worried about the "transmission rate" ballooning due to the new year travel season, which suggests that the term is used to refer to an increase in cases reported rather than just the rate that the virus transmits biologically. The point of the sentence is to describe the increasing number of infections that is causing this issue to be on the front page of Wikipedia and generally be considered an epidemic. Tsukide (talk) 19:34, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Re Whispyhistory, I agree we should use the shorter incubation time if that is now published in the peer-reviewed medical literature. ETA: Latest WHO situation report [9] states 2–10 days. In general, medical journal sources should always preferred to news, but it's hard to keep hold of an article like this. (I must admit, I tend to sit back and wait for the editing frenzy to die down.) Espresso Addict (talk) 23:25, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

Tsukide, all the news outlets are not exactly virologists. I think you missed the core of what I said yesterday; Everywhere the virus is tested, it is found. The odds that this virus is just a pretty normal and non-relevant mutation of the common coronavirus as to be taken seriously. The H1N1 flu probably alone killed over 1000 people while we were counting the 56 CONFIRMED deaths of this new coronavirus, but no one care because by now everyone consider the H1N1 as a normal strain. The same thing is highly likely to happen with this coronavirus that may as well been around since 2018 undetected. 67.68.202.134 (talk) 02:53, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia isn't a medical journal and this article is aimed at informing regular people. I think the more medically specific details can go in the main body or the actual virus article, whereas this lead should be more cautious at explaining how long the virus might linger in the body before showing symptoms. Several academic publications still list the 14 day incubation period:

• http://campushealth.tulane.edu/health-center/primary-care/infectious-disease-care/coronavirus-2019-ncov (14 days)
• http://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/about/symptoms.html (2 to 14 days)
• http://www.ecdc.europa.eu/en/european-surveillance-human-infection-novel-coronavirus-2019-ncov

I can understand that the shorter estimates should be used in medical literature and even the body of this text, but don't you think that the lead should provide safe advice?

Tsukide (talk) 05:31, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Should in be use UTC time

Indonesian Wikipedia now have discussion about should it update the cases reported in UTC time in Indonesian talk page. The statement stats because there are many complexity to update many cases because of different time zone for example China use UTC+8, France use UTC+1, etc. I know because there are many time zones to reported the cases. Should it agree to use UTC in id-wiki, English wiki should be also UTC time for update the cases. Any thoughts?

Things should be in UTC, otherwise we will get confusion between countries what day it is. Earlier in the talk there was full support for use of UTC. Events in a country could be their own local time though. But for stats, maps, charts, general statements we should use UTC. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 00:22, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

China mainland

I believe China mainland infection is not counted right. In BNO news update, Macau, Hong Kong, and Taiwan are included in China. Please note this. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Luke Kern Choi 5 (talk • contribs)

You're right that it included those, I've manually subtracted them as the comment in the source suggests. Thanks for pointing it out. Chapatsu (talk) 23:54, 26 January 2020 (UTC)

"Countries with confirmed and suspected cases and country prevention" Article?

Why was this created? I don't remember a talk page being created or a consensus reached on the topic? — Preceding unsigned comment added by Colin dm (talk • contribs) 00:00, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Discussed here: #Page_size   Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 00:41, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

RfC on whether or not to include the flags in the infobox

The issue of including flags in the infobox describing which areas have been affected has led us into a situation with personal attacks on both sides with editors being blocked for edit warring. We need an RfC to resolve this issue and create a consensus.

Should the infobox in the article that provides numbers on areas that have been infected by the coronavirus include flags or not? Chess (talk) 00:14, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Support (Include flags in infobox)

• Support, The list is getting longer and flags are good way to quickly recognize a country. Hopefully this doesn't happen but, if the list got 50 or 100 countries long, trying to find a country in a non-alphabetically sorted list would take a while and flags can make that easier. --Colin dm (talk) 00:24, 27 January 2020 (UTC)
• Support - Informative. I'm unaware of downside, if someone wants to point that out. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 00:28, 27 January 2020 (UTC)
• Support per reasons listed by Colin dm. Paintspot Infez (talk) 00:45, 27 January 2020 (UTC)
• Support as RFCs can override decisions expressed in other guidelines. MOS is not a policy and so it can be varied. The reason to include the flags in this position is that it makes it much easier to locate an entry. This is a service to our readers. We are writing for our readers, and not just to comply with rules. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 00:53, 27 January 2020 (UTC)
• Support for exactly the same reasons as Colin dm, namely easily recognizing countries. Pie3636 (talk) 00:55, 27 January 2020 (UTC)
• Support - I'll throw my hat in the ring again, for all the points I listed in the above discussion. It benefits readability, it is not the first instance of flags being used for disease outbreaks that span multiple countries, and there are allowed exceptions in MOS:INFOBOXFLAG for topics covering multiple countries; there is in fact a lot of contention on that very talk page over the issue. ApocalypticNut (talk) 00:59, 27 January 2020 (UTC)
• Support because I genuinely find it useful for quick identification at a glance, and the purpose of Wikipedia is to provide accessible information for readers and not to arbitrarily follow policies. Darylgolden^(talk) Ping when replying 04:14, 27 January 2020 (UTC)
• Support. The flags is useful for quick identification because it has many countries in it, similar to flags in infobox templates for military conflicts. Hddty (talk) 05:52, 27 January 2020 (UTC)
• Support because while I was initially against the change I've changed my mind. The easiest way to recognize countries at a glance is with flags, and while there are issues with flags due to political issues with respect to China and in general I believe the pros outweigh the cons here. In addition, MOS:INFOBOXFLAG doesn't really apply here because the point of not having flags in infoboxes is to avoid an unnecessary emphasis on national origin as described in WP:FLAGCRUFT. It also raises issues when dealing with "Irish" or "Chinese" people as using a specific flag could be construed as endorsing a certain point of view.

In this case, the entire point of the infobox is to focus on national origin and so doesn't actually fall under the intention of the MOS:INFOBOXFLAG policy. It's even more clear that this shouldn't fall under the infobox flag policy when one looks at the two stated exemptions, military related articles and international competitions. In those cases we actually did want an emphasis on nationality in the infobox, which is why it was decided to be alright to include flags. Grognard Extraordinaire Chess (talk) Ping when replying 05:54, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

• Support for visual clarity and intelligibility --Charsum (talk) 06:22, 27 January 2020 (UTC)
• Support but move the table out of the infobox As more cases arise it will look ugly to have a big table inside an *infobox*. We can simply move the table to a specified section of the page and in the infobox link to the section with "see below" or something like that. I can open a separate discussion if needed. Edit: I just did. Admanny (talk) 07:25, 27 January 2020 (UTC)
• Support it's easier to check if there are any new countries affected. It might not work for those who aren't familiar with flags though. --Hamingjusamur (talk) 12:43, 28 January 2020 (UTC) Haminju
• Support This is a no-brainer. Global Cerebral Ischemia (talk) 16:22, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Oppose (Disallow flags in infobox)

• Bondegezou summarizes it well by reminding everyone that an MOS item, built by community consensus, is not to overridden by local consensus. There already is a global map (File:2019-nCoV Outbreak World Map.svg) depicting the global incidence of confirmed and suspected cases, which is far better a visual than any zoo of flags would ever be. CaradhrasAiguo (leave language) 00:25, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

• This isn't unprecedented, here are some disease outbreak pages that use flags:

• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Polio_eradication#2016
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2015%E2%80%9316_Zika_virus_epidemic#Epidemiology
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kivu_Ebola_epidemic
  < — Preceding unsigned comment added by Colin dm (talk • contribs) 00:37, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Colin dm, none of those examples are infoboxes. We are discussing what happens in the infobox, with reference to the Manual of Style guidance on infoboxes. Bondegezou (talk) 10:39, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

• Unless you're trying to suggest WP:IAR, the MOS is clear on this. The flags do not add any more information that is not present in the text already. EvergreenFir (talk) 00:30, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

I personally believe that flags will be appropriate if it ends up getting to 50 or so countries as it's getting hard to tell the difference. Grognard Extraordinaire Chess (talk) Ping when replying 00:43, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose per MOS. robertsky (talk) 00:39, 27 January 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose per MOS and established processes. Flags do not offer anything constructive to a very busy, very detailed article about a very significant and serious current event. Sometimes it seems easier to deal with flags than, say, sources, and that's the opposite of how good editors should think. The flag of China is not going to add anything constructive to this article: a quote from the WHO will. In any case, the MOS is on our side: no flags in infoboxes. Clear. doktorb _words^deeds 00:51, 27 January 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose per the clear project-wide consensus expressed in the Manual of Style. Cullen³²⁸ Let's discuss it 01:22, 27 January 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose the entire point of functionality of community-established mandates like the Manual of Style is that they hold primacy over local page level consensus. Any disagreements with the MOS are welcome, but they should be brought over there for discussion, not on a local talk page. Sleath56 (talk) 02:34, 27 January 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose due to MOS and also the severity of the situation; with the deluge of information, only vitally important information should be kept. If someone wants to know what the flag of Hong Kong looks like, they can easily find that information on Wikipedia elsewhere. I would not mind making the lists sortable, however. Aqua817 (talk) 03:46, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

• The purpose isn't to teach people what flags look like, the purpose is for quick identification of countries for those who know what those flags look like. --Colin dm (talk) 04:30, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose per MOS. If the problem is the list being hard to navigate, then fix the list by alphabetizing it. The table is already sortable so if someone is looking for a specific country, they can make it alphabetical and find it; or just skim the list since it's only about 15 items. Cluttering the infobox with tiny flags that are useless to most readers is why the MOS recommends against flag icons. They're also making the formatting inconsistent with some country names on the same line as the flags and others on a separate line, so it's actually harder to scan the list with the flags. — Wug·a·po·des​ 05:17, 27 January 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose. We are meant to follow the Manual of Style; we are not allowed a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS (Consensus among a limited group of editors, at one place and time, cannot override community consensus on a wider scale.). MOS:INFOBOXFLAG is clear. Moreover, WP:SOVEREIGNFLAG and MOS:FLAGRELEVANCE also say we shouldn't be using the Macau or Hong Kong flags. We need very good reasons to deviate from the Manual of Style and some people liking little flags isn't a good reason. The claims that flags aid comprehension are explicitly contradicted by the Manual of Style (they are unnecessarily distracting) and the Manual of Style, as a community-wide consensus document, clearly takes precedence over individual editors' personal opinions. This article has repeatedly run into geopolitical complications with disagreements over how to represent Taiwan vs. China or what map to use. Part of the reason for avoiding flag icons is because it complicate the geopolitics. Let's focus on medicine, not flags. I have reviewed every Wikipedia article in the outbreak categories and nearly all of them obey the Manual of Style on this matter. Bondegezou (talk) 10:47, 27 January 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose This is a very clear MOS item. Additionally the addition of flags presume that people can identify flags by sight, most people do not know the world's flags and as a result it doesn't help with identifying and locating countries and just adds additional visual clutter and poor formatting on some screens. Canterbury Tail talk 13:21, 27 January 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose per Canterbury Tail and per the MOS. Ealdgyth - Talk 15:42, 27 January 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose. These flags serve no purpose; the map and list of countries are sufficient. Kablammo (talk) 17:10, 27 January 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose per the MOS, and because the flag is redundant to the name of the country it is next to, too small to be useful on many screens, and visually distracting. --Jayron32 18:37, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Discussion

Some editors above (Colin dm, Chess) raise the issue of what happens if the list of countries gets to 50-100. (Let's hope it doesn't.) If the list gets that long, it shouldn't be in the infobox. That would be unwieldy and violate MOS:INFOBOX. The infobox could just focus on numbers per continent at that point. If the list comes out of the infobox, MOS:INFOBOXFLAG clearly does not apply. Bondegezou (talk) 10:50, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Chess argues that The easiest way to recognize countries at a glance is with flags. I see no evidence for that. Most readers are not familiar with flags of all the countries of the world. Are most readers outside Taiwan familiar with the Taiwaness flag, or outside Vietnam familiar with the Vietnamese flag? Some flags are confusingly similar (Malaysia and US). The Manual of Style explicitly argues that many flags are unfamiliar and that they can be a distraction. Bondegezou (talk) 10:59, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

I also don't see evidence for Most readers are not familiar with flags of all the countries of the world. Are you really assume that the average readers are that dumb? Hddty (talk) 15:25, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Could you tell me right now what the flag of Togo is? Or of Anguilla? Most people don't know every flag. But the point here is that these issues have been considered by many editors over many years, and that led to the community consensus that is MOS:FLAG. The agreed conclusion of MOS:FLAG is that no reader is familiar with every flag, and many flags differ only in minor details. If you disagree, debate the matter at MOS:FLAG, but we can't just set up our own WP:LOCALCONSENSUS. Bondegezou (talk) 17:18, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

I don't think it's productive to imply that other editors are calling readers "dumb". Most people aren't familiar with flags and there's nothing wrong with that. Not being knowledgeable about certain subjects doesn't make one unintelligent. Grognard Extraordinaire Chess (talk) Ping when replying 19:13, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

The list of countries has now been moved out of the infobox. Should this RfC be closed as now moot? There is a question over the use of flag icons in the table in the text, where we are still acting contrary to the Manual of Style, but in a less significant manner. That, however, can be discussed separately. Bondegezou (talk) 12:20, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

I think that looking at how this is spreading and reaching more and more countries, the infobox probably won't be the place to list countries. Maybe continents. This will probably be moot.--Eostrix (talk) 08:55, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Different total confirmed Cases figures

I seem in English wiki, the confirmed Case totaled at 2,809. but in Chinese (and possibility Indonesian) Wiki, the Cases totaled at 2,802. Where is the correct number? If 2,809 is true, which country that confirmed 7 Cases? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 36.76.226.238 (talk) 04:38, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

I suggest that we should waiting for further information. Mariogoods (talk) 07:15, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Numbers are much larger than what Chinese censorship allows to publish.

So why is it not back at the top? Maplesyrupcan (talk) 17:07, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Move the table out of the infobox and into section "Countries with confirmed and suspected cases and country prevention"

The table as it currently stands inside the infobox is already cluttered and has formatting issues. As more countries and sources pile up it will be a matter of time before it becomes a disorganized eyesore. Thus I propose moving the table to section "Countries with confirmed and suspected cases and country prevention" as currently that section has nothing but a main article link to a separate article detailing each country's specific situation with maps and whatnot, so I think this would be extremely fitting, as the table would serve as a quick rundown of each country and it's right next to a map of the world. Should users want to see more, they can click the main article link. As for the infobox, we can simply link to the section with a "See below" type of comment. Edit: I have made a demonstration edit to show what this might look like. Admanny (talk) 07:57, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

That looks like a good idea to me. The table is (sadly) getting longer and longer. Moving it out of the infobox would be sensible.

However, I note that infoboxes are not meant to have "see below" comments as per MOS:INFOBOXPURPOSE. That's what the Table of Contents is for. Bondegezou (talk) 10:54, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

The infobox should certainly have the total number of cases and deaths included, even if there is no list of countries there. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:25, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

They should be included back in the total. The first case was on the list yesterday when it was still at the top of the page where it belongs. Maplesyrupcan (talk) 17:06, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Having a grand total in the infobox seems sensible to me. Bondegezou (talk) 17:10, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

NZ suspected cases

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=12303690

There are suspected cases, as three tour members are hospitalised: "It comes as three members of a tour group of 19 have been assessed at Rotorua Hospital out of concern they may have become infected with the deadly novel coronavirus infection." ~From the article's URL above Lord A.Nelson (talk) 08:00, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Links to Countries

I'd like consensus or discussion here if possible, as I find MOS:OL (do link other MOS parts if applicable) difficult to interpret with its list including 'countries' and 'locations.' What I think means is that for general Wikipedia articles, it does not make sense to link to China. It also does not make sense to link to China for the Infobox. Unfortunately for this event, locations don't just matter, but they matter to the point of deciding on policy and administration on human lives. The MOS also writes on duplicate links, which I generally agree with. Concretely, I think

• Infobox countries/regions should be ALL linked. This means Mainland China but keep location as Wuhan, Hubei, China.
• Countries/regions in the lead untitled section should ALL be linked, EXCEPT China. This means the following:
  • Thailand, South Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Macau, Hong Kong, the United States, Singapore, Vietnam, France, Nepal, Australia, and Malaysia.
  • I do think this list of countries is 1. too long (use larger regions?) 2. weirdly sorted (I can't see the order)
• I also just noticed that the country-by-country breakdown has been moved to its own article, but if they stayed in this article, that the regions/countries not be linked but possibly each region's Ministry of Health or equivalent be linked, though I'm not sure about this.

This linking is independent of whether there should be flags for each region. Xenmorpha (talk) 08:21, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

I just noticed a move of the table, and I do agree with the move. Eitherway, my view is that in either the infobox or the table by itself under the section, that each country or region be linked. Xenmorpha (talk) 08:26, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

@Xenmorpha:, feel free to chip in on the discussion a couple sections above. Admanny (talk) 08:30, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Replace sentences

Please replace word "Origin: Wuhan, Hubei, China" to just "Wuhan, Hubei, China" in infobox location because in Indonesian version of this article, (id.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wabah_koronavirus_baru_2019–2020) they doesn't including word Origin (Asal in Indonesian) which the term was ambigous (Former form:Asal:Wuhan, Hubei, Tiongkok; current form:Wuhan, Hubei, Republik Rakyat Tiongkok). Placing word origin with name of cities was confusing because they already know what the origin of the cities. Word "Origin" should be removed in order to easily navigate the virus origin. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 36.76.226.238 (talk) 08:27, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Technically "Location" would be "worldwide" but since the definition of "location" is ambiguous in this context I suggest keeping Origin. However, I do feel now that "Location: Origin: Wuhan..." sounds wrong so I've temporarily changed it to "Originating from". Admanny (talk) 08:37, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

"Confirmed and suspected cases" table placement.

I think it's better to place the table beside the infobox and move the maps of China somewhere else (as it was before), since the infection has international status and the very presense of this table at the top of the article allows for a quick analysis of the international situation and severity of the outbreak, which are, probably, the main two things people expect from reading this article in those times of ambiguity and showers of press reports. -- Nicholas Velasquez (talk) 12:26, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Agreed, that table is the selling point of this article. It is compact, alarming, and fully referenced. People come here to look at it, so it should be in the top of this article. Tuanminh01 (talk) 12:32, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Definitely agreed, the table is the first thing people look for.--Colin dm (talk) 16:30, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Canada

We now have two cases in Canada, yet the first one was removed from the casualties total. Maplesyrupcan (talk) 12:40, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

No cases have been officially confirmed in Canada yet. Strongly suspected yes, but not officially confirmed. Should happen today. Canterbury Tail talk 13:24, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Two cases are confirmed now. "The Chief Medical Officer of Health confirmed that the wife of the province's first case of Wuhan novel coronavirus has tested positive for the virus at Ontario's public health laboratory."[10] Xenagoras (talk) 16:17, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

I know people are harping over Canada's use of 'presumptive positive', however they have positive sequencing matches for both cases, which is the same criteria all other countries are using to report positives. Canada however has decided to be ultra-conservative and require a second independent lab verification. These are positive cases by the standards being set by other countries.Tezakhiago (talk) 16:30, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Xi Jinping's title

User:嘉傑 and I have been changing Xi Jinping's title back and forth for several times (like this and this), so I think we'd better get this sorted in this thread. I prefer calling Xi a "Chinese President" while 嘉傑 prefers "General Secretary of the Communist Party of China" and "Chinese Communist Party general secretary."

I do understand being a "President" in China practically gives no power to the "President" himself, while being the General Secretary of the Communist Party is what actually makes Xi powerful. However, most English-languaged media (expect Chinese state-run ones) do prefer to call Xi a "President" instead of the Party's "General Secretary," as it would be confusing for most English readers without prior knowledge to how Chinese Communist's system works. People naturally expect the "President" is the head of a country, but not the "General Secretary."

--Techyan（Talk） 13:44, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

China is a one-party communist state, similar to the Soviet Union. People should know Stalin, Khrushchev, Brezhnev, Andropov, Chernenko, Gorbachev, and their positions. Recently, Cuba is another example that Raúl Castro is First Secretary and Miguel Díaz-Canel is President. Raúl Castro is the current supreme leader of Cuba, but not Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel.

According to the Constitution of the Communist Party of China, the meeting of the Political Bureau is convened by the General Secretary, not the President. The meeting decided to set up a leading group to oversee the work of prevention and control of the novel coronavirus outbreak under the Politburo Standing Committee, the highest decision body headed by the General Secretary.

We can use "President and General Secretary" instead of President or General Secretary individually.

Official news: Xi Jinping, general secretary of the CPC Central Committee, chaired the meeting. (People's Daily) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 嘉傑 (talk • contribs) 02:00, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

--嘉傑 (talk) 14:15, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

http://www.china.org.cn/china/node_7180944.htm "Chinese President Xi Jinping's..." Tsukide (talk) 15:42, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Reliable sources generally use "President". We follow reliable sources. Bondegezou (talk) 17:08, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

I'd say General Secretary is more technically correct, but I think most English-side readers would recognise the word 'President' instead. I think there is a plausible split in opinion due to growing China Chinese interest in this topic, but if this article follows general English Wikipedia population statistics, I would use the word 'President'. Xenmorpha (talk) 17:16, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Comment, Chinese state run media (well all media in China actually except HK where there is some independent media) almost exclusively refers to Xi as President in english as does most international media. A serious discussion needs to be had about this at some point, but this isnt the place to do it. I would note however that in Mandarin Chinese state run media doesn't refer to Xi as President unless its in a very specific context, the whole “President of China” as Xi's general styling exists for an international audience. User:嘉傑 also makes a very good point that there are specific situation in which there isn’t an argument and we must use General Secretary because thats the hat thats being worn for a specific purpose, but in general President of China is ok for now. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 23:49, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 27 January 2020

First case in Canada. Source Sesved (talk) 13:59, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

@Sesved: When using {{edit semi-protected}}, please provide the exact text that you wish to be added, removed or changed. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 14:19, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Canada confirmed 1

https://news.ontario.ca/mohltc/en/2020/01/ontario-confirms-second-presumptive-case-of-wuhan-novel-coronavirus.html As cited here, 1 person is positive(second case)Luke Kern Choi 5 (talk) 14:24, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

OK I'll add it to the table--Colin dm (talk) 15:47, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

And Canada was removed again. 170.225.9.141 (talk) 17:23, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Canada confirmed two cases, not one. The map should be updated too.--180.129.83.227 (talk) 17:29, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

First coronavirus confirmed case in Sri Lanka

It's on island tv Channels as a breaking news Nickayane99 (talk) 15:37, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

OK I added it to the table --Colin dm (talk) 16:23, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 27 January 2020

Specialty hospitals

China is building at least four coronavirus hospitals in a desperate bid to curb the spread of the life-threatening disease. Two of the urgent projects are in Wuhan, one in nearby Huanggang city and one in Zhenzhou in central China's Henan Province.

Source: https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-7933719/Incredible-footage-shows-Chinas-1-000-bed-coronavirus-hospital-taking-shape-four-days.html Rebelbear (talk) 18:56, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Daily Mail isn't a proper source Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard/Archive 220#Daily Mail RfC --Colin dm (talk) 19:21, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 27 January 2020

Change confirmed cases in Mainland China to 2863 because Jiangxi province is reporting 24 new cases. Here is the source: http://hc.jiangxi.gov.cn/doc/2020/01/28/137758.shtml

For more updates you can follow my spreadsheet at -> https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1fgSAvyLrLSaV5bkRl8Ju7Xc0bdoXJu1yKMhVVLjYLpM/edit?usp=sharing CryticalOG (talk) 20:02, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Hong Kong medical experts call for ‘draconian’ measures in city as research estimates there are already 44,000 cases in Wuhan

Can this be included? Source: https://www.scmp.com/news/hong-kong/health-environment/article/3047813/china-coronavirus-hong-kong-medical-experts-call – NirvanaToday^t@lk 20:23, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Depends on where it would be included. You would probably have to name the doctor and provide the quote with more context.--Colin dm (talk) 20:25, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

"University of Hong Kong academics on Monday estimated that the number of patients in Wuhan had reached 43,590 by Saturday" This is a much bigger number than Mainland China's reporting. I'm wondering if it could be sourced as alternative facts. – NirvanaToday^t@lk 20:45, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Sounds a good idea. Scarlett 04:34, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 27 January 2020

There are now 2 cases in Canada not 1. 142.55.0.13 (talk) 20:46, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

I'll update to 2 cases in Canada. (Source: https://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-health-canada/wife-of-canadas-first-coronavirus-patient-tests-positive-19-under-investigation-idUSKBN1ZQ1NS) – NirvanaToday^t@lk 20:54, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Repatriation of [insert country]] citizens in China

With each country commencing repatriation of its citizens from China, are we going to include those? Example: http://www.adaderana.lk/news_intensedebate.php?nid=60459 – NirvanaToday^t@lk 20:50, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 28 January 2020

Could we please make the footer on the table "Wuhan coronavirus outbreak by country" fixed by surrounding the fields by "!" so the sort function will not also sort the bottom "Total" line?

Maybe also add a total of the number of "Country/region"? This list has been growing and it would be helpful to see the total number of Countries with confirmed cases.

Thank you to our community of Registered Users. Cjager Cjager (talk) 01:13, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Cannot make a total number to "Country/region", as this includes Hong Kong and Macau which is not formally considered a country. Admanny (talk) 01:43, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

and i added total, having needing to rework the table. Admanny (talk) 07:19, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Idea: Deaths chart?

Todays update has shown this disease is, unfortunately, likely not slowing down. A death chart would be a decent way to measure deaths and a quick glance of rough mortality rate by day.--Colin dm (talk) 01:54, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

• I'd say hold off until if/when the disease becomes more global. Right now, the only deaths occurring are in China. Aqua817 (talk) 06:08, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

• I'd like to see deaths graphed by age to see if it continues to be the elderly primarily affected. http://www.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3047399/wuhan-virus-killing-mostly-elderly-those-previous-health

Semi-protected edit request on 28 January 2020

This is really just for a one-letter typo I noticed. Under the photo captioned "People queuing outside a Wuhan pharmacists to buy face masks and medical supplies", the word "queing" should be spelled "queueing". I've been noticing a lot of minor typos and grammar issues lately on this article, so I guess just be careful y'all. Blank2nowhere (talk) 02:00, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

i'll fix. Admanny (talk) 02:55, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 28 January 2020 : May I add this plot

Log-linear plot of confirmed cases and deaths to 27 January with linear fits.

Strongly suggest epidemic remains in exponential growth.

Logarithm plot of confirmed cases and deaths indicates the epidemic is in an exponential phase.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by Galerita (talk • contribs) 03:39, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Galerita (talk) 03:42, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Can we also add a note to the graph caption that confirmed cases almost double every two days?--وسام زقوت (talk) 11:32, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Is this slipping into WP:OR? Have reliable sources interpreted the data in this manner? Bondegezou (talk) 17:15, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Do we have any information that suggest that the amount of tests is not the cause of this ? 67.68.202.134 (talk) 19:53, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

More criticism surfaced of handling by local authorities and incompetence of top provincial officials

TheGuardian.com ran a live blog on 27 Jan reported that Chinese users on twitter (twitter is blocked in mainland however obviously some of them managed to squeeze through the Great Firewall of China) has spotted the Hubei governor Wang Xiaodong during live streaming of a press conference, misspoke the number of face masks produced in Hubei on no less than three occasions. It's not a quite edifying scene. Some of the comments from Chinese users on twitter pointed out that for a province of 60 million people, 1.08 million masks produced in a whole year are only sufficient for 1/10 of the population of Wuhan (the capital, population of 11 million) to wear all the masks for a single afternoon. Swoopin swallow (talk) 04:39, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

• Thanks for contributing. While the page is in need of reorganization in that section, (any interested contributors are welcome to participate in the ongoing discussions at "#Criticism section" here above), this reads out, as far as the Guardian reports it, more as just a gaffe and not particularly relevant for addition on its own merit unless the story later develops further. Sleath56 (talk) 04:58, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

• Thanks for the clarification. As to the incompetence of the press, CCTV news reports (local time 18:55, 28 Jan) the first confirmed case in Germany as a German national who worked in Shanghai, recently returned to Germany, infected by the virus and tested positive back in a Bavarian hospital. While in the TheGuardian report , the German worker, according to the head health officer from Bavaria, did not travel to China; he was the first confirmed case of human to human transmission in Europe. The 33 year old German worker on 21 Jan attended a lecture by a Chinese colleague who arrived in Germany on 19 Jan, the woman left for China on 23 Jan. The Chinese woman felt ill and sought medical treatment after landing in China but soon afterwards she was tested positive. It is the German worker's woman colleague who works in Shanghai not himself. Handling of information by both the state TV and government officials does not seem to stand up to scrutiny. Swoopin swallow (talk) 15:25, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

References

Chart for those Healed

Let's add a section on the chart for the people who have healed, as far as the information that we can find allows (perhaps provide an asterisk which states that the information about who's been healed has been collected given the most available information). We have a column for those who have been infected, those who have been killed, but what about those who have been healed? There is legitimate data out there that depicts this information, and I think that to include it in the chart would desensationalize the situation, by including a section for such occurrences alongside the causalities and the general afflicted. Or perhaps the healed column should be omitted, because this is a serious disease and people shouldn't sleep completely easy on it? People should read Wikipedia and not see any available information about those who have been healed, and this should spread a kind of pathos up the chain of command to whoever's job it is to find a cure or take the right precautions? I do not think that's the general function of Wikipedia, to spread ethical propaganda? — Preceding unsigned comment added by YelloJello33 (talk • contribs) 06:24, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

I agree with this and was about to set up a talk section about this. So far the stats for those who have recovered are only on the Timeline/Chronology article. It is extremely unfair and biased to leave out this information on all related articles, especially on this main one. Nebakin (talk) 07:07, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

I strongly disagree with this idea. It has been brought up here numerous times before, but in my opinion the "healed" category is inherently dubious, abstract, and lacks the multiple sources necessary to support its creation. A 'healed' category has also never been used in previous epidemic pages on this wiki. It seems most proposals for this idea stem from the "healed" category on the primary Mainland China source- DXY. It's inclusion there seems suspect and almost seems like a PR tactic. --Charsum (talk) 07:32, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

It is present on another article and should be listed here as well, the source is actually from CGTN too, which has been widely used in all Wuhan virus outbreak related articles. In fact, the recoveries are not only present in China itself but also Thailand and/or Japan and was reported by their respective medias. Nebakin (talk) 11:33, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Yeah the "healed" category, you can call it something else if you think that the word "healed" is too abstract or something, but I was relaying the idea.

YelloJello33 (talk) 19:35, 28 January 2020 (UTC)YelloJello33

section / information on Bio chemical labs in Wuhan ?

Will it be pertinent to add information on Wuhan National Biosafety Laboratory and Wuhan Institute of Virology and suspicion raised by relevant people in the field on possibility of a program gone wrong in one or both of these labs . Obviously with npov and reliable sources ? Source: https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2020/jan/24/virus-hit-wuhan-has-two-laboratories-linked-chines/ , https://www.outlookindia.com/newsscroll/coronavirus-may-have-origins-in-chinas-biological-warfarelab-in-wuhan/1717828 , https://www.nature.com/news/inside-the-chinese-lab-poised-to-study-world-s-most-dangerous-pathogens-1.21487 ? I thought of taking an opinion upfront. Devopam (talk) 07:06, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Seems more like conspiracy theories or demonising of China.Nebakin (talk) 07:10, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

While an accidental release of a virus from a virus research laboratory cannot be ruled out, this is highly unlikely and the source is dubious: "The Washington Times reported the link with China's biological weapons quoting an Israeli biological warfare expert." Additionally, the source of the virus apparently are wild animals sold at a Wuhan livestock market. Xenagoras (talk) 10:40, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Is the "National reporting advice" section relevant?

I don't think it's encyclopedic material. --RaphaelQS (talk) 09:26, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

I think people enjoy reporting it minute-by-minute as if this is going to be the end of civilisation. Sure it's a bad virus that's killed a lot of people but it won't wipe out the whole planet so we don't need by-the-minute coverage of what every country is saying on it. In the last few weeks more people have died of Flu but there's no major outcry about that. 80.169.132.92 (talk) 11:36, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Image overcrowding the right side

Please help around. The right side is overcrowded. (I'am doing a part). Yug (talk) 11:15, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

 Done, kinda. First push. Added several galleries and moved stuff around. Yug (talk) 14:01, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

New places reported ! Keep data updated

Updated November 3, 2024.

COVID-19 pandemic by location

	Location	Cases	Deaths
	World	776,695,852	7,072,496
	European Union	186,241,416	1,265,093
	United States	103,436,829	1,205,461
	China	99,381,002	122,367
	India	45,044,081	533,652
	France	39,023,328	168,091
	Germany	38,437,756	174,979
	Brazil	37,511,921	702,116
	South Korea	34,571,873	35,934
	Japan	33,803,572	74,694
	Italy	26,826,486	197,542
	United Kingdom	25,006,869	232,112
	Russia	24,547,989	403,508
	Turkey	17,004,728	101,419
	Spain	13,980,340	121,852
	Australia	11,861,161	25,236
	Vietnam	11,624,000	43,206
	Argentina	10,105,599	130,693
	Taiwan	9,970,937	17,672
	Netherlands	8,644,223	22,986
	Iran	7,627,863	146,837
	Mexico	7,622,259	334,764
	Indonesia	6,829,668	162,059
	Poland	6,755,185	120,875
	Colombia	6,394,306	142,727
	Austria	6,082,821	22,534
	Greece	5,724,778	39,606
	Portugal	5,669,374	29,018
	Ukraine	5,541,734	109,923
	Chile	5,403,559	64,482
	Malaysia	5,316,630	37,351
	Belgium	4,888,331	34,339
	Israel	4,841,558	12,707
	Canada	4,819,055	55,282
	Czech Republic	4,807,669	43,660
	Thailand	4,803,135	34,733
	Peru	4,526,977	220,975
	Switzerland	4,466,918	14,170
	Philippines	4,173,631	66,864
	South Africa	4,072,813	102,595
	Romania	3,566,466	68,899
	Denmark	3,442,484	9,919
	Singapore	3,006,155	2,024
	Hong Kong	2,876,106	13,466
	Sweden	2,764,353	27,928
	New Zealand	2,650,294	4,435
	Serbia	2,583,470	18,057
	Iraq	2,465,545	25,375
	Hungary	2,235,887	49,084
	Bangladesh	2,051,455	29,499
	Slovakia	1,883,245	21,247
	Georgia	1,863,615	17,150
	Republic of Ireland	1,750,342	9,900
	Jordan	1,746,997	14,122
	Pakistan	1,580,631	30,656
	Norway	1,523,402	5,732
	Kazakhstan	1,504,370	19,072
	Finland	1,499,712	11,466
	Lithuania	1,398,560	9,847
	Slovenia	1,359,672	9,914
	Croatia	1,347,441	18,774
	Bulgaria	1,337,252	38,743
	Morocco	1,279,115	16,305
	Puerto Rico	1,252,713	5,938
	Guatemala	1,250,392	20,203
	Lebanon	1,239,904	10,947
	Costa Rica	1,235,662	9,374
	Bolivia	1,212,149	22,387
	Tunisia	1,153,361	29,423
	Cuba	1,113,662	8,530
	Ecuador	1,078,766	36,054
	United Arab Emirates	1,067,030	2,349
	Panama	1,044,987	8,756
	Uruguay	1,041,640	7,684
	Mongolia	1,011,489	2,136
	Nepal	1,003,450	12,031
	Belarus	994,038	7,118
	Latvia	977,765	7,475
	Saudi Arabia	841,469	9,646
	Azerbaijan	836,462	10,353
	Paraguay	735,759	19,880
	Cyprus	708,559	1,492
	Palestine	703,228	5,708
	Bahrain	696,614	1,536
	Sri Lanka	672,802	16,907
	Kuwait	667,290	2,570
	Dominican Republic	661,103	4,384
	Moldova	650,542	12,280
	Myanmar	643,209	19,494
	Estonia	610,471	2,998
	Venezuela	552,695	5,856
	Egypt	516,023	24,830
	Qatar	514,524	690
	Libya	507,269	6,437
	Ethiopia	501,239	7,574
	Réunion	494,595	921
	Honduras	472,909	11,114
	Armenia	452,977	8,778
	Bosnia and Herzegovina	403,890	16,400
	Oman	399,449	4,628
	Luxembourg	395,802	1,000
	North Macedonia	352,032	9,990
	Zambia	349,892	4,078
	Brunei	349,170	181
	Kenya	344,109	5,689
	Albania	337,192	3,608
	Botswana	330,696	2,801
	Mauritius	329,121	1,074
	Kosovo	274,279	3,212
	Algeria	272,173	6,881
	Nigeria	267,189	3,155
	Zimbabwe	266,396	5,740
	Montenegro	251,280	2,654
	Afghanistan	235,214	7,998
	Mozambique	233,845	2,252
	Martinique	230,354	1,104
	Laos	219,060	671
	Iceland	210,656	186
	Guadeloupe	203,235	1,021
	El Salvador	201,960	4,230
	Trinidad and Tobago	191,496	4,390
	Maldives	186,694	316
	Uzbekistan	175,081	1,016
	Namibia	172,556	4,110
	Ghana	172,210	1,462
	Uganda	172,159	3,632
	Jamaica	157,322	3,618
	Cambodia	139,324	3,056
	Rwanda	133,266	1,468
	Cameroon	125,279	1,974
	Malta	123,114	925
	Barbados	108,835	593
	Angola	107,482	1,937
	Democratic Republic of the Congo	100,976	1,474
	French Guiana	98,041	413
	Senegal	89,312	1,972
	Malawi	89,168	2,686
	Kyrgyzstan	88,953	1,024
	Ivory Coast	88,448	835
	Suriname	82,503	1,406
	New Caledonia	80,203	314
	French Polynesia	79,451	650
	Eswatini	75,356	1,427
	Guyana	74,491	1,302
	Belize	71,430	688
	Fiji	69,047	885
	Madagascar	68,575	1,428
	Jersey	66,391	161
	Cabo Verde	64,474	417
	Sudan	63,993	5,046
	Mauritania	63,876	997
	Bhutan	62,697	21
	Syria	57,423	3,163
	Burundi	54,569	15
	Guam	52,287	419
	Seychelles	51,892	172
	Gabon	49,056	307
	Andorra	48,015	159
	Papua New Guinea	46,864	670
	Curaçao	45,883	305
	Aruba	44,224	292
	Tanzania	43,263	846
	Mayotte	42,027	187
	Togo	39,533	290
	Bahamas	39,127	849
	Guinea	38,582	468
	Isle of Man	38,008	116
	Lesotho	36,138	709
	Guernsey	35,326	67
	Faroe Islands	34,658	28
	Haiti	34,555	860
	Mali	33,171	743
	Federated States of Micronesia	31,765	65
	Cayman Islands	31,472	37
	Saint Lucia	30,288	410
	Benin	28,036	163
	Somalia	27,334	1,361
	Solomon Islands	25,954	199
	United States Virgin Islands	25,389	132
	San Marino	25,292	126
	Republic of the Congo	25,234	389
	Timor-Leste	23,460	138
	Burkina Faso	22,146	400
	Liechtenstein	21,603	89
	Gibraltar	20,550	113
	Grenada	19,693	238
	Bermuda	18,860	165
	South Sudan	18,847	147
	Tajikistan	17,786	125
	Monaco	17,181	67
	Equatorial Guinea	17,130	183
	Samoa	17,057	31
	Tonga	16,992	13
	Marshall Islands	16,297	17
	Nicaragua	16,194	245
	Dominica	16,047	74
	Djibouti	15,690	189
	Central African Republic	15,443	113
	Northern Mariana Islands	14,985	41
	Gambia	12,627	372
	Collectivity of Saint Martin	12,324	46
	Vanuatu	12,019	14
	Greenland	11,971	21
	Yemen	11,945	2,159
	Caribbean Netherlands	11,922	41
	Sint Maarten	11,051	92
	Eritrea	10,189	103
	Saint Vincent and the Grenadines	9,674	124
	Guinea-Bissau	9,614	177
	Niger	9,528	315
	Comoros	9,109	160
	Antigua and Barbuda	9,106	146
	American Samoa	8,359	34
	Liberia	8,090	294
	Sierra Leone	7,985	126
	Chad	7,702	194
	British Virgin Islands	7,628	64
	Cook Islands	7,375	2
	Turks and Caicos Islands	6,824	40
	Sao Tome and Principe	6,771	80
	Saint Kitts and Nevis	6,607	46
	Palau	6,372	10
	Saint Barthélemy	5,507	5
	Nauru	5,393	1
	Kiribati	5,085	24
	Anguilla	3,904	12
	Wallis and Futuna	3,760	9
	Macau	3,514	121
	Saint Pierre and Miquelon	3,426	2
	Tuvalu	2,943	1
	Saint Helena, Ascension and Tristan da Cunha	2,166	0
	Falkland Islands	1,923	0
	Montserrat	1,403	8
	Niue	1,092	0
	Tokelau	80	0
	Vatican City	26	0
	Pitcairn Islands	4	0
	Turkmenistan	0	0
	North Korea	0	0

Please update {{2019_coronavirus_pandemic_data}} and {{2019 coronavirus pandemic map}} as needed.

1 confirmed infection in Germany (Bavaria)

Official statement by the Bavarian Ministry of Health: https://www.stmgp.bayern.de/presse/bestaetigter-coronavirus-fall-in-bayern-infektionsschutzmaßnahmen-laufen/ 77.183.92.215 (talk) 23:21, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

URL changed: https://www.stmgp.bayern.de/presse/bestaetigter-coronavirus-fall-in-bayern-infektionsschutzmassnahmen-laufen/ 77.183.92.215 (talk) 23:38, 27 January 2020 (UTC)

2 new cases in Japan

https://this.kiji.is/594810764410602593 — Preceding unsigned comment added by Xinjapanpon (talk • contribs) 08:57, 28 January 2020 (UTC) Xinjapanpon (talk) 09:27, 28 January 2020 (UTC) This should bring confirmed cases in Japan to 6.

Ivory Coast

Acording to this: https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6, Ivory Coast seem to be infected. Can we list them to the template? Neutrinium 11:22, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Coronavirus case on Brazil confirmed by Health Ministry

Here's the link for the news containing the info, would anyone kindly add it to the article? 200.233.220.204 (talk) 15:51, 28 January 2020 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 200.233.220.204 (talk) 15:49, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

It's not confirmed, only says that the Brazilian authorities are investigating a suspect case. Rgps (talk) 15:55, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

References

Chronology section causes horizontal scroll

Something in the Chronology section is causing horizontal scrolling. Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:04, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Thanks @Pigsonthewing:. I edited a lot this section today. Is it better now ? Yug (talk) 16:13, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Suspected cases - somewhat misleading

I think that the term suspected cases is somewhat misleading. For instance, Sweden has had suspected cases, but all suspected cases have been found negative. According to the National health authority in Sweden, a test is analysed within five hours. So to put Sweden permanetely as a place with suspected cases is misleading since our vigilance is high.

Or to put it differently. There ought to be a table of confirmed cases per nation. It could have (perhaps later) a column with last date of confirmed case.

Another table could be over nations where suspected cases have been reported and the date for the report. As long as there are no confirmed cases, the country could remain in the list.

213.67.241.199 (talk) 12:11, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Frankly, I don't think we should include "suspected cases" at all given the paucity of accurate information and expert consensus on any such numbers. We should stick to confirmed cases only, IMO. Global Cerebral Ischemia (talk) 16:25, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Change statement

Please change statement from "On 25 January, the number of laboratory-confirmed cases stood at 2,062, including 2,016 in Mainland China, seven in Thailand, six in Hong Kong, five in Macau, five in Australia, four in Malaysia, four in Singapore, three in France, three in Japan, three in South Korea, three in Taiwan, three in the United States, two in Vietnam, and one in Nepal." to "On 28 January, the number of laboratory-confirmed cases stood at 4,673, including 4,577 in Mainland China, 14 in Thailand, 8 in Hong Kong, 7 in Macau, five in Australia, four in Malaysia, 7 in Singapore, three in France, 7 in Japan, four in South Korea, 7 in Taiwan, five in the United States, two in Vietnam, and one in Nepal, Canada, Germany, Cambodia, and Sri Lanka." Because the old statement was outdated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 36.76.226.238 (talk) 13:07, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Casualties table not displayed on mobile ?

BTW Why is it removed? Nickayane99 (talk) 14:22, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

@Nickayane99:, if you talk about {{2019 coronavirus pandemic data}}, it was never removed. But a bug prevented it from working on Mobile for few hours. Should be ok now. Isn't it ? Yug (talk) 16:15, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Why were the day by day or day over day numbers removed? Please restore that chart. VERY helpful.

Lots of room for it in the article. Please restore ASAP. -- @137.69.117.204: 2020-01-28T16:29:21‎

Hello, if you are talking about the yellow horizontal bars diagram ({{2019 coronavirus bar data}}), we just moved it in the more relevant section. Can you scroll the aricle an see it ? Are you on mobile ? Yug (talk) 16:33, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

"Wuhan seafood market pneumonia" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Wuhan seafood market pneumonia. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. 67.70.33.184 (talk) 17:52, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 28 January 2020

Suspected case in Denmark: https://www.bt.dk/samfund/dansk-patient-undersoeges-for-coronavirus-havde-vaeret-i-udbruddets-epicenter 188.228.48.155 (talk) 18:05, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Should the fourth paragraph be moved to the virus article?

As someone who prefers for this article to be about providing legible information to the general public about an ongoing epidemic that could affect them, whereas the virus article is about discussion in terms of medical literature, does anyone else support the idea that the paragraph quoted should be moved to the virus article? Or further into the main body?

Chinese scientists were able to isolate a strain of the new coronavirus quickly, with the genetic sequence being made available for laboratories across the world to independently develop PCR tests that can confirm infection in a person.[28][29][30][31] Of the first 41 people confirmed by real-time PCR and next-generation sequencing to have been infected, two-thirds were found to have a link with the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market, which also sold live animals.[32][33][34][35] The seventh member of the coronavirus family to infect humans, 2019-nCoV's genome sequence has been reported to be 75- to 80-percent identical to SARS-CoV, and more than 85-percent similar to several bat coronaviruses.[36][37] Whether this virus is of the same severity or lethality as SARS is unclear.[28][29][30][31]

Tsukide (talk) 18:11, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Edited to insert a title. Tsukide (talk) 18:12, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

That's the fifth paragraph, isn't it? I think the actual fourth has merit of being moved into the body, though I'm also agreeable to holding off on that until the epidemic calms. Sleath56 (talk) 19:59, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Fatality Rate

The way we currently calculate fatality rate is very wrong. We are using current death to the confirmed case count. Confirmed case aren't in same state of progress, somes of them could be infected since 1 day, other since 20 days.

Fatality rate should be calculated from people dead vs (dead+Recovered) but this would also give bad rate (63,85 % Fatality Rate for 106 / 166.). Actually, fatality rate can only be calculated if we have a good way to be sure of the total quantity of infected and quantity of death wich we can't have.

I suggest Fatality rate to be removed untill the epidemy is ended. --Eric1212 (talk) 18:41, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Agree with removing the "Fatality %" column from the cases chart. It's too early to get a reasonable estimate by doing simple division. However, I would support including estimates of the fatality rate in the article that have prepared by professional researchers, the WHO, etc. who are looking at this more closely. Professionals can plausibly have enough details about case progression to make useful estimates of the mortality rate. Dragons flight (talk) 18:55, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Agree with Dragons flight. Tezakhiago (talk) 19:38, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

I removed it from the template. The true fatality rate will take a long time to emerge, and the method being used in the table is flawed and borderline OR --Charsum (talk) 19:41, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Not "borderline" completly OR. Fatality rates need to be calculated with the total cases, not only the CONFIRMED cases, based of severe symptoms and whether or not you come from Wuhan. There is still no evidence to even say that the fatality rate is any different from other coronavirus. 67.68.202.134 (talk) 19:51, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Tibet

Problematic political wording in the second lede paragraph - "including in every province of China except Tibet". Last I heard, Tibet's political status was still a matter of controversy. My suggestion for rewording is not nearly as informative, but I will toss out as an alternative "almost entirely within greater China." And, if you do want a specific mention of Tibet, then add "Tibet is not currently affected." This avoids an outright declaration of Tibet as a province of China, but also does not negate it. (Viruses don't respect politics, but debatable political situations don't usually vanish because of viruses.) - Tenebris 66.11.171.90 (talk) 19:46, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Agree 173.200.98.210 (talk) 20:44, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

not needed but... Some may not like it, but Tibet is in the health administration of China. To avoid loss of information but yet not be too verbose, instead of "except" use "but not": "including in every province of China but not Tibet". Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:33, 28 January 2020 (UTC)

Seems unnecessary and the discussed sentence doesn't seem provocative in any case to warrant bringing up such a discussion. However, in any case, Tibet is an internationally recognized political province of China.1 For a comparison, Catalonia doesn't similarly require having such caveat considerations despite its own secession movements having been far more topical in recent years, as its nonetheless a political component of Spain. Sleath56 (talk) 21:54, 28 January 2020 (UTC)