Talk:COVID-19 pandemic

The stats on recoveries just don't look credible

(2nd post of this as 1st didn't come through)

Recoveries on <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2020_coronavirus_patients_in_China.svg> just don't make sense. The curve is far too perfect and deaths have levelled off weirdly. I'm either misunderstanding or something is plain wrong here. I followed the link back to the stats page <http://www.nhc.gov.cn/xcs/yqtb/list_gzbd.shtml> which is in Chinese, well no surprise, but the data is not in any machine-legible format I could find (edit: or even HTML table). Something smells off.

Is there any machine-formatted data for this that anyone knows of? Should that data be munged into machine-readability and made available here as well as the graph, as a matter of course? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.75.102.166 (talk) 15:23, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

This is the main article, so no I don't think we need any more detail than we already have. The subarticle 2019–20 coronavirus outbreak in Mainland China has additional detail including this chart Template:2019–20 coronavirus outbreak data/China medical cases chart. In addition, this is wikipedia, an encyclopaedia. Our purpose is to be read by humans. Machine-readability is not our concern. Try Wikisource:Wikisource or Wikidata:Wikidata:Wikidata. Of course even the graph you mention is an SVG so meets some definitions of machine-readability anyway. And the template, since it's intended to be edited by humans, also has the data in an even more machine-readable format. Nil Einne (talk) 16:36, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

(2nd edit to write this. The first seems to have been removed for some reason)

One of wikipedia's aims is verifiability, so having the data to analyse arguably does matter. And an SVG isn't even close to what I mean.

But that totally neglects the main point which is what wikipedia is saying appears likely to be wrong because it's based on dubious data. Surely you can see that's what I was getting at.

All numbers coming from China are plain lies. There is no point debating them. I actually support having them included on Wikipedia because they are so obviously wrong.--Adûnâi (talk) 17:55, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

Thank you. The silence on this, and the diminution then removal of a section critical of these statistics - it was starting to unnerve me. Glad I'm not the only one with doubts.

I am not an English native speaker but concerning the same image, instead of "Under treatment (daily)", it should be something different than "(daily)". Otherwise, what is the difference to "Confirmed cases (daily)"? When using the same meaning of "(daily)", there would already be several hundred thousand of infected people with over 30,000 "daily" for the last 20 days. Suggestion: "Under treatment (currently)" and "New confirmed cases (daily)". — Preceding unsigned comment added by 170.247.54.208 (talk) 21:52, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

In theory, an expert could check if the data provided by China fit to general models of epidemics dynamics and things like Herd immunity. Probably someone did it already somewhere. My very best wishes (talk) 05:24, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

In practice this has been done and it didn't fit the model. Also we had a section here (which I mention above) where a proper statistician was quoted giving his opinion. It got removed and when I asked why, no-one responded. What disturbs me much more than China spouting rubbish (it's what they do) is people quietly going along with it.88.108.214.79 (talk) 07:31, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

I strongly concur, in fact I removed the recoveries, which were reinserted after conensus. To quote myself
Surveillance systems are not standardised worldwide, and comparing deaths to recoveries is near impossible at this stage. Hong Kong had many cases and only 2 recoveries from memory. That can't be compared in a graph to other countries - it is very misleading. If you follow my contribs you can see a fair bit of the argument --Almaty (talk) 15:09, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

IMO, the argument holds even more weight, and the situation we are in now, I was predicting. User:Doc James I again proposing removing recoveries for all these reasons. --Almaty (talk) 11:04, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

WHO has looked at this and there is a good overview here.[1]

By the way is the claim that more people have recovered than is listed? Or that these many people have not recovered? :::With respect to recoveries "not looking credible" we are not here to make those sorts of claims. The question is do any reliable sources make those claims? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:12, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

I support showing the recovery data. Statistically relevant data from Italy, Iran, etc. will be coming out in the coming days and weeks. Comparison to China will either prove that China was/is messing with its numbers, or that it has better methods for containment. Either way, the comparison is useful.132.68.80.41 (talk) 07:07, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

I strongly support looking for primary data as sources from the Mainland should be taken with a handful of salt. --Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝) 07:20, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

User:Doc James I don't claim either way. I just suggest, strongly as I have since mid feb or earlier, that all recovery data is misleading and not yet encyclopaedic. --Almaty (talk)

We have good sources that state it.[2] That is all that matters. Our own opinions should count for nothing. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:49, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

I do not know where to suggest it, but I would recommend to add a column to the table of number of verified and dead cases per country. That column will indicate those number per million of people in that country. It will give a better understanding of the situation. For example 100 cases in Norway is much worse situation than 300 in the USA... Currently there is no way to get this understanding using Wikipedia, without calculations. Thanks. 🙏 Crxsmh (talk) 17:40, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected anti-vandalism request on 3 March 2020

• NOTE from author of plots: Boud and others. I spend an hour each day updating the semi-log plots. The Chinese data are easy. I only need to translate http://www.nhc.gov.cn/xcs/yqtb/list_gzbd.shtml And their errors are few. Even they sometimes correct the previous days numbers! The world data are a nightmare. My only way of matching daily BNO news counts (https://bnonews.com/index.php/2020/02/the-latest-coronavirus-cases/) is to track each country and check that the totals match the BNO numbers. BNO updates in real time - they don't give a daily total - and sometimes BNO correct numbers reported a day or two in the past. It's a nightmare! Trends in real time data comparing Hubei, rest-of-China and ROW matter. For example, they already show daily cases in ROW dominate those in China. They will soon show daily deaths in ROW dominate China. In late March they are likely to show TOTAL cases and deaths in ROW dominate China. The detailed country comparisons, which I have but don't plot, are useful to see the regional spread of disease. In the real world I am a biostatistician analysing coronavirus survival and recovery and offering advice about policy to save peoples lives - lots of people. I CANNOT afford the time to undo repeated vandalism of the semi-log plots. I'll repeat this in other parts of the discussion section so it's clear. This "hobby" takes time away from saving lives.Galerita (talk) 00:06, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

User:Galerita what is the ask here? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:26, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks Doc James. The semi-log graphs have been edited out on two occasions and I have had to manually restore them. I'm not a proficient Wikipedia editor so restoring what I see as vandalism is is painstaking. Undo doesn't work because other changes have been made in the mean time. The semi-log plots are time consuming to prepare, well at least the data collection is, taking a bit over an hour a day. This is because the Rest-of-the-World data comes in piecemeal and has to be carefully checked and rechecked by country to identify discrepancies. So I'm asking that it not be so easy to edit out the work I have contributed. Is there some setting that forces a discussion before a single editor arbitrarily removes something.Galerita (talk) 11:13, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

User:Galerita there is no simple way. Will keep an eye on it. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:04, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

Doc James Thanks Galerita (talk) 01:35, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Criticism of the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention

The US government, including CDC, have received fair criticism, which is being developed under United States government. I see there is now a new section dedicated to criticism of the CDC:

2019–20 coronavirus outbreak § Center for Disease Control and Prevention

The Center for Disease Control of the United States has been widely criticized for a number of problems and failings in its approach to the novel coronavirus outbreaks. Among the issues include: a large number of faulty coronavirus test kits sent out to localities throughout the United States, a "woefully" low number of tests being done (3600 as opposed to over 65000 in South Korea, a country with a smaller population) and contamination of the lab dealing with the new coronavirus... The CDC was also surrounded in controversy after a suspected patient who was refused a test by the CDC later turned out to be positive for SARS-CoV-2...

Firstly, can or should the content here be moderated a bit? Secondly, should the section be made subordinate to the United States government?

- Wikmoz (talk) 04:40, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

For now, I'd say putting it under US government would be fine enough. It's only if there's a later plethora of passages specifically targeting the CDC that it may need to be split as in the case of Hubei and the central CCP. Sleath56 (talk) 04:43, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

The CDC is acting independently of the governments: for example, a problem that was pointed out with the Japanese response was how Japan didn't have a CDC and hence the response was managed by political leaders. The US government section seems to focus mostly on the response of the government itself and budget issues, though it's far from clear that these CDC problems were to do with funding. I personally view the problem to be a cultural/structural issue relating to the CDC rather than something to do with the US government directly. Tsukide (talk) 07:51, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

Tsukide, I see that you created the section. I think you highlight some real issues. However, the section really reads like it was written by someone who has an opinion on the subject. It doesn't read like an encyclopedia entry impartially chronicling the criticism. The CDC has its own issues but it is part of the U.S. federal government. - Wikmoz (talk) 00:39, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

This section needs to be merged with or made subordinate to the US Government section, as the CDC is a US Government agency. Also, the US Government section itself requires significant clean-up. Specifically, the reports regarding cuts in CDC funding have been investigated and are inaccurate, as discussed here: https://www.factcheck.org/2020/03/democrats-misleading-coronavirus-claims/ The tone of the US Government Criticism section also reads more like an Op-Ed than an encyclopedia article. Also, the text regarding the deaths in WA state that appears in the "US Government" section should be moved to the US "Domestic Response" section, and definitely should not appear here, in the "criticisms" section.

Also, the United States government section has claims regarding the "80% cut" which need to be cleaned up. Specifically, this news report [[3]] clearly ties the identified program cuts to the expiration of funding earmarked the Ebola Crisis--which both the CDC and WHO have declared is "ended" [[4]]. Including information about the expiration of funding for an unrelated and resolved epidemic in an article about COVID-19 is misleading, as it implies the Global Disease Detection (GDD) program itself was cut. In reality, overall funding for this program has gone up in past FY's: [[5]] As written, this section is misleading and inaccurate. (NoExcuseForSloppiness) —Preceding undated comment added 18:12, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

I see the section has been moved under United States governement, which is great. The content I think in all of these sections needs work.

@Doc James, Dekimasu, and Mikael Häggström: Should we drop a {{POV section|date=March 2020}} flag in the Criticism of Responses section? Or is that too drastic? - Wikmoz (talk) 07:48, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

The criticism belongs on the subpage about the disease in the US if anywhere. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:48, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Since the CDC funding issue is of great significance for US political debate, we should make an effort to get the details correct here. I have done more research on the "80% cut" issue, and what I have found is significantly different from what is written in the article. For example, the CDC's Global Disease Detection (GDD) program was founded in 2004, not 2014, and was established as 10 regional coordination centers worldwide at the time. The "2014" date in the article likely refers to the start of a five-year effort to combat Ebola, which saw the deployment of CDC personnel to as many as 62 different countries during this time, which overlapped with the Zika crises, among others. It was the funding for Ebola eradication which was due to expire at the end of 2018. A peer-reviewed article with details of this program may be found here (may require subscription): [[6]]. Here is the full citation: Montgomery, J.M., Woolverton, A., Hedges, S. et al. Ten years of global disease detection and counting: program accomplishments and lessons learned in building global health security. BMC Public Health 19, 510 (2019). [7] NoExcuseForSloppiness--NoExcuseForSloppiness (talk) 16:47, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Informal requested move to "Coronavirus outbreak"

Per the spanish flu precedent. Although it is my instinct to be pedantic and want "COVID-19 outbreak" or "Coronavirus disease 2019 outbreak" I doubt those will gain traction. This is the commonest name, and in fact what has been on the front page updated in February. --Almaty (talk) 12:58, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

for clarity as nom I weakly support "coronavirus outbreak" and strongly support "COVID-19 outbreak", but this is the question I'm informally asking today. --Almaty (talk) 13:02, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

Also I would follow spanish flu and say "The outbreak of COVID-19, colloquially known as the coronavirus outbreak..." or similar --Almaty (talk) 13:33, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

There have been multiple coronavirus outbreaks (SARS and MERS being two others) Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:22, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

Ambiguity: as Doc James pointed out, there were other coronavirus outbreaks, and MERS is ongoing (but started earlier than 2019).

Too early: The head of WHO is still hoping for "containment"; in ten months' time, the development of treatment medications and vaccines and their mass use is reasonably likely to reduce the lethality of the outbreak/pandemic (even though the head of WHO is being conservative and stating 12-18 months); and in ten months' time, I would be surprised if the media still case this an "outbreak" rather than an "epidemic" or a "pandemic", no matter how much WHO discourages the use of "pandemic". Personally, it seems to me ridiculous to continue calling this an "outbreak", but I see no point in proposing a name change away from "outbreak": expending editing energy into a name change proposal would be a distraction. I would suggest waiting at least six months - until Sep/Oct or so 2020 - before considering a title change, unless WHO decides to officially use the word "pandemic". Boud (talk) 17:40, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, can't read past this without commenting - I see that your critical of the WHO's language, but I'm not aware of anyone (who is in the know) seriously talking of containing this. I mean, even the UK government (absolute shambles that that is..) is making clear that in all likelyhood we're going to see a first peak (in the northern hemisphere) this summer, and probably with around every second person infected... (jaw dropping as that admission / fact is in many ways).

So - I guess I just wanted to say that its going to take far less than till September for this thing to really strike terror into people (more due to the economic impacts than anything else I guess, but that's just my estimate), and to have a name that is going to stick. Regards Sean Heron (talk) 23:04, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

Agree. This name is good enough and we have better things to work on. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:49, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

Good, as stated, I agree.. Can I sound out COVID-19 outbreak as succinct, precise and the most common name that is not ambiguous? --Almaty (talk)

I'm partial to any name changes. My tendency is to agree with Doc James - the name changes your suggesting seem more cosmetic than substantial to me (sure it would be nice to have a shorter name, but is it really important? The current one seems to have a good balance of precision and commonness, I think). Regards Sean Heron (talk) 23:04, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

I support a change to "COVID-19 coronavirus outbreak" now, since the newer name may not be fully recognizable yet, but I expect that within a few more weeks "COVID-19 outbreak" will be as recognizable as "SARS" or "MERS" Mergy (talk) 22:15, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Edit United States Confirmed Numbers

I believe the numbers in the chart are outdated, citing the numbers from this page and the John Hopkins map. It might be unreliable so I'm asking the community for help. MJVAccount (talk) 13:13, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

Is this Template:2019–20 coronavirus outbreak data the chart you mean? Well you should go edit the numbers there. Good lock doing that because the people there aren't so welcoming.—SquidHomme ^(talk) 13:34, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

What source do you want to use? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:18, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

The numbers have already been updated. I've wanted to use this source but it seems it has been just used recently. MJVAccount (talk) 13:55, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Is there a biological reason for the higher mortality rates in the USA and Iran than other countries or is it just due to the substandard healthcare that's generally available to poor people? 64.231.91.97 (talk) 23:26, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

I assume you're calculating (number of deaths) / (number of cases). That's hard to compare across different countries due to all sorts of factors, including differences in how aggressively people are tested for the virus. But in any case, in the United States most of the deaths occurred from an outbreak at a nursing home/rehabilitation center in Washington state, so many of those infected had previous medical conditions. Since the total number of U.S. cases is still relatively small (around 150 compared to thousands in some countries), one outbreak among people more vulnerable to the disease can have a big effect on the statistics.

For Iran, see the article 2020 coronavirus outbreak in Iran; essentially many experts have questioned Iran's officially reported data. 68.7.103.137 (talk) 01:26, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Error and inconsistency in figures

There is an arithmetic error and inconsistency in the epidemic confirmed case table. BlackSun2104 (talk) 18:35, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

Yup. Numbers changes so quickly. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:02, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

Required correction

The global tally of confirmed cases for COVID-19 need to be changed. BlackSun2104 (talk) 18:39, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

We're getting to the point soon when agencies are going to stop bothering counting cases. It looks like this will be a pandemic that sweeps around the world, infecting billions. The precise numbers of cases or deaths doesn't matter, so maybe we should stop worrying about them, stop worrying about trying to do a running tally. That's not what makes a good encyclopaedia article (WP:NOTNEWS). Bondegezou (talk) 19:29, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

As a bit of context, Australia's health care systems still count case notifications of influenza as well as numerous other conditions - its called a surveillance system, most countries do it all the time in the background. --Almaty (talk) 00:17, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Yes, but no-one thinks that's accurate, that that is the actual number of flu cases. Bondegezou (talk) 07:47, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

looking to far into the future here tho User:Bondegezou - this is some of the most active surveillance the world has ever known. As you know, I believe that most "cases" and "deaths" will remain to be credible and reliable for some time, but not recoveries. But as we agree, we are doing the encyclopaedia a disservice to put the raw data from the agencies in graphical format when that format doesn't directly replicate a format that has been published in a WP:MEDRS compatible source. --Almaty (talk) 12:32, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

It made sense to have this very active surveillance when efforts were focused on containing the outbreak. We're moving past that now. When you're looking at a third to two thirds of the world population becoming infected, it will be impossible to collate precise numbers and it will not matter.

We should focus on writing a good encyclopaedia article more than we try to keep up with daily, rapidly changing statistics, as per WP:NOTNEWS and WP:NOTSTATSBOOK. We should have more text on why all the figures going around are certainly wrong (transmissions are occurring without any known chain, ergo there are significant numbers of unrecorded cases). That would be more useful to the reader than worrying about whether we have the latest San Marrinese reported figure. Bondegezou (talk) 19:58, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Confirmed cases in Greece have reached nine (9).
Please update the number on the 2019–20 coronavirus outbreak by country and territory table that is on the topic homepage.
It is verified from the 15^th reference on the 2020 coronavirus outbreak in Greece page. --ContentReliability (talk) 20:28, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

Required Correction

reinstate the above bar graph OK - oh gawd, haven't been here before and not sure whether i am doing the right thing or not but here goes. I came here because the graph that this post relates to has disappeared off the outbreak page and i am disturbed by that - i can see no information here about that decision to cut the graph from the epidemiology section. I complained to wikimedia and was put through to here. Weirdly the graph reappeared and with updated figures for one day and then disappeared again. I did notice it started to get a bit wobbly, field wise on my tablet at one earlier point. The reason the graph should be there is that it gives some balance to the epidemic - btw - i disagree with one of the former speakers - i don't believe it is a pandemic yet and i think it will be contained and wear itself out as the previous sars did. So that graph or perhaps i should say this graph as it appears here, is important because it shows the fluctuation in the daily rate of increase. Admittedly, it is somewhat general as it is worldwide but the important thing is that it reveals the original growth pattern in wuhan and then its subsequent decrease and the increase rate is now very low. Please reinstate it. Sydneygrrl2 Sydneygrrl2 (talk) 17:31, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Estimates / Projection - missing ?

Hi everyone, sometime between mid February (I guess during a reshuffle / reorganisation) the epidemiology subsection on "estimates" (tame as that was) got lost. For what I'm talking about, see eg - https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_outbreak&oldid=940935841#Estimates .

I wouldn't have noticed, but with the UK government (and various top health officials eg of Wales and Scotland) describing a (first) peak of infections for this summer, and a possibly very high attack rate (80% being given as the max estimate), I was thinking these projections are starting to be valid for inclusion in the article (and if you ask me, the lead as well). Won't get round to being BOLD right now, so thought I'd throw out a bone and see what other people here think ! Regards Sean Heron (talk) 23:44, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

Whilst there are valid estimates, I think we need to follow the WHO's lead on that one because of the global outlook of the page. Also many estimates are expert opinion AFAIK, so need to follow WP:MEDRS --Almaty (talk)

I would really like to see information on expert modelling/projection of the novel coronavirus outbreak discussed somewhere on this page, or in a dedicated article. I don't think it violates WP:CRYSTAL or other policies because the article would not be making claims about the future, it would be discussing claims made by others. Wikipedia has plenty of articles on climate change projections, so this should be allowed. Maybe there are specific rules for reliability of health-related sources, but that shouldn't be a barrier to including any info at all about projections. 72.209.60.95 (talk) 05:51, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure I understand Almaty - at first I thought you'd misunderstood my point or were answering at the wrong section (cause it sounded to me like you were discussing whether the outbreak should be called "pandemic" or not). On rereading, I can see you are talking about an estimate section, but I don't really understand your point, sorry. The "opinions" I was referring to are both by top health officials, and based on modelling by the scientific community (the models I saw were published on MedarXiv 2 weeks ago - dunno if they've been published in a journal yet). Regards Sean Heron (talk) 08:55, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

P.S. If the WHO has projections saying this is not going to peak in summer, and/or that they estimate a far lower attack rate, then I guess that would have some weight, sure. But I've not heard of any such projections (and just the fact that they're not making projections doesn't seem to be much of a reason to not include any here???). Sean Heron (talk) 08:55, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

The projections are all high and low estimates which aren't really possible to maintain up to date or reliable, trust me things will become clearer in approx 2 weeks I would still hold off until then per WP:NOTNEWS --Almaty (talk) 20:04, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

I'm nominating for deletion "https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:2020_coronavirus_patients_in_China.svg"

It's confusing [[8]], it gets arbitrarily reordered [[9]], the underlying stats are very questionable, and the author has not replied to a request 3 days ago to clarify anything [[10]] It's hard to credit the graph represents the underlying statistics well, or that those stats are credible anyway, so I will delete it shortly - but I would really like some input on this! 85.211.195.108 (talk) 09:48, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

You can't delete it. Only admins/bureaucrats can delete files/articles. If you mean removing the graph, well you can't do that either as you can't edit the article as an IP. Oh well. Mgasparin (talk) 09:53, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Thank you, you're right, it is protected and I forgot that (edit: changed title). I am nominating it for deletion. I've tried to start this discussion before and it didn't happen, now I'm being blunt to try to really get some talk going. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 85.211.195.108 (talk) 10:01, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

You don't offer any RS's that dispute the information in the file, so that may be one reason you are being ignored. Remember, it is Verifiability, not Truth - personal doubts don't enter into the equation on their own.50.111.9.62 (talk) 16:36, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

My disputation is given in the original links - is the Chinese government to be considered a reliable (as in Werifiable) source of these statistics? I really don't know - pointers welcome. I raised doubts about the recovery rate - next day the graph was reordered, hiding this, and the graph creator still hasn't explained why. The graph is considered confusing and possibly even wrong (as in, not correctly reflecting the statistics) by another commenter (that link again [[11]]). Those points have likewise not been addressed.

The top post in this section provided links to all these, I believe I've tried to go beyond "I'm not happy with it" which I agree would be inadequate. 88.108.208.53 (talk) 12:09, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Since the file is actually on commons it is useless to try to delete it on English Wikipedia. Since the graph is used on many pages don't expect others to support its deletion. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 05:56, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

So it should not be deleted not because it might be wrong/confusing but because it's widely used? That makes no sense. 88.108.208.53 (talk) 12:09, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

French Guiana is fully part of France and it has 5 Coronavirus confirmed cases

Considering the image on the infobox, there is someone constantly putting French Guiana in gray, considering that it doesn't have coronavirus confirmed cases. This is twice wrong:

• There are 5 confirmed cases of Coronavirus in Saint-Laurent-du-Maroni, French Guiana. Source: Cinq cas de Coronavirus confirmés en Guyane (France Info).
• French Guiana is fully part of France, its status is the same as Alaska or Hawaii with the US. It's NOT a semi-autonomous territories like would be Guam or American Samoa. As such, French Guianese cases are counted in the total of confirmed cases in France. There will NEVER be a specific line in WHO situation reports specifying "French Guiana" as a territory or whatever you guys imagine.

I insist on the fact that, just like Madeira and the Azores are part of Portugal, the Canary Islands are part of Spain, Alaska and Hawaii are part of the US, France can't be divided and the French regions of Guadeloupe, Martinique, French Guiana, Reunion and Mayotte should be coloured the same as the rest of the country. Because it's indeed at that scale that confirmed cases in France are counted, both in communications from French official authorities and from UN WHO reports. Metropolitan (talk) 11:33, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

The USA is a bad example, as it is comprised of 50 states, and Alaska and Hawaii are two. They are not "island possessions" or some such rot. 50.111.9.62 (talk) 16:33, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

The USA is the perfect example. France is divided in 18 regions, 5 of which are not located in the mainland (see Regions of France). Guadeloupe, Martinique, French Guiana, Reunion and Mayotte aren't "islands possessions", but integral part of France. Metropolitan (talk) 17:17, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

The analogy is fair: the US marines helped overthrow the government of Hawaii to help "possess" it for the USA, and movements for more autonomy or independence exist both in "distant" parts of the US and France, and in "mainland" parts - strict adherence to legal treaties would lead to many independent countries in what is now the contiguous United States (and Bretagne, Alsace, Corsica, the Basque country could hypothetically secede from France). Wikipedia won't intervene in these: the present legal situation, with parliamentary representation, full national constitutional rights and so on apply to a fair degree (not absolutely) in both situations. Boud (talk) 18:00, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Saint Barthélemy

In the case of Saint Barthélemy the JH source lists it separate from France. But are they double counting? We do not have this in our table. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 06:43, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

So what does "60% alcohol" mean?

Some explicit clarification is needed of the claim that "60% alcohol" is effective against coronavirus. Strangely none of the official sources from WHO or the government sources from the US or the UK bother to clarify the issue. Now Wikipedia is compounding the cover up by continuing the cryptic obfuscation. Do they mean 60% proof? Or do they mean 60% alcohol by weight. Or perhaps they mean 60% alcohol by volume. Then again, perhaps it's 60% alcohol by some other measure. No one is saying.

It happened that on 1 January 1980 Britain adopted the system of measurement recommended by the International Organisation of Legal Metrology, a system which measures alcohol strength as a percentage of alcohol by volume. And in the United States, the Code of Federal Regulations 27 CFR [1 April 2003 Edition] §5.37 Alcohol content requires that liquor labels must state the percentage of ABV. So perhaps it is ABV that WHO uses as well. Is it sensible to assume every Wikipedia reader knows all this?

The matter is not trivial. I have heard acquaintances saying happily that whisky, brandy, rum, gin and vodka are over 60% proof and will make fine hand washes. Older people often still think in terms of alcohol proof, and this is the demographic most likely to die from coronavirus. — Epipelagic (talk) 21:08, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

WHO uses volume ratios (v/v) so 80% would be 80 ml alcohol and 20 ml water. For example see https://www.who.int/gpsc/5may/Guide_to_Local_Production.pdf for example formulations. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 06:20, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

@Epipelagic: When communicating alcohol concentration in terms of alcohol proof, the percent sign isn't used. For example, you would just say 60 proof, not 60% proof. As to whether it's by weight or by volume, I would say that from my personal experience working in labs that alcohol concentration is given by volume. So 100 mL of 60% alcohol is 60 mL of 100% alcohol plus 40 mL H2O. Graeme seems to have a more official response above.  Bait30  ^Talk? 06:39, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Cases, Deaths & Recoveries

I apologize if this is self-evident, but do Cases (C) include Deaths (D) and Recoveries (R)? If so, if we had a column for currently sick/positive (S), would the formula be S = C-D-R? This is a serious question which I have been wanting to know the answer to for a while now. Thank you for your answer in advance.Juve2000 (talk) 01:54, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

They do. The consensus has been to avoid trying to count currently sick/positive, as not everyone reports recoveries, and what is the difference between asymptomatic and recovered? Graeme Bartlett (talk) 05:58, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Got it. Once a case, always a case, whether that person passes away or recovers, so the case number will only go up and, hopefully, level off at some point. I am not advocating changing the chart, just suggesting that the definition of 'case' be clearly explained for all users.Juve2000 (talk) 15:51, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

New Zealand's fourth case

NZ has its fourth confirmed case. The table needs to be updated. Newshub: Fourth coronavirus case confirmed Lord A.Nelson (talk) 04:08, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

•  Done J947 ^(c), at 04:42, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

There's speculation, but no evidence as yet. It probably belongs in the COVID-19 page. Robertpedley (talk) 21:24, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Update number of coronavirus cases in Slovenia

Number of cases in Slovenia is now 6.

• Information to be added or removed: Update the number of confirmed cases in Slovenia to 6
• Explanation of issue: STA (Slovenia Press Agency) has reported six infections as of 2020-03-05.
• References supporting change: https://english.sta.si/2735610/coronavirus-cases-in-slovenia-increase-to-six

--RStular (talk) 08:18, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

done. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:12, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Can we have better data on children and maybe a section?

At the end of the Epidemiology section. "As of 26 February 2020, very few cases have been reported in children." I looked at the source of this. Children is a large area of confusion, with some news outlets saying that children are immune (like the Indian Medical Council head), of that there are "few" cases. Can we put something more precise here?

Also There is clearly something different about children. Can we add a section ? The joint WHO study says this: "Data on individuals aged 18 years old and under suggest that there is a relatively low attack rate in this age group (2.4% of all reported cases). Within Wuhan, among testing of ILI samples, no children were positive in November and December of 2019 and in the first two weeks of January 2020. From available data, and in the absence of results from serologic studies, it is not possible to determine the extent of infection among children, what role children play in transmission, whether children are less susceptible or if they present differently clinically (i.e. generally milder presentations). The Joint Mission learned that infected children have largely been identified through contact tracing in households of adults. Of note, people interviewed by the Joint Mission Team could not recall episodes in which transmission occurred from a child to an adult." <https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/who-china-joint-mission-on-covid-19-final-report.pdf> Gegu0284 (talk) 11:23, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Are there not two groups of children - those under 2-3 who will have limited acquired immunities, and those who are older who have been exposed (vaccination or 'ordinary colds etc').

A key point is - whether actual immunity or 'very limited symptoms' ('a sniffle or similar') - it appears to be present across various geographical regions, so not the (beneficial) side-effect of a particular country's immunisation program. 82.44.143.26 (talk) 15:16, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

More reliable source for case number by territory?

Most of the data in the 2019–20 coronavirus outbreak by country and territory table currently links to [12]. The data published there appears questionable to me, because it is hard to verify. For example, Germany is currently given 545 cases by that page, without any source (I checked the sources given on the page, none contain that number). On Twitter, they give [13] as the source, quote: Germany's Morgenpost is reporting that, based on figures from the health minister, the number of coronavirus cases has risen to 545, which would be a sharp increase from 400 about 9 hours ago. No official confirmation so far. There is no such report by Morgenpost.[14] The only thing that Morgenpost did report was that the projected number of cases was expected to rise to more than 540 by late Thursday based on their own calculations,[15] while the official number was 534 by Friday morning. Wouldn't it be good to stick to one reliable - ideally to the official - source?[16] Renerpho (talk) 11:57, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Coronamapper.com

I find it problematic that Special:Contributions/John_tibbs72 and Special:Contributions/Montetennis persistently add links to the top page of Coronamapper.com. The problem is that they do so at country-specific subpages of the ongoing coronavirus outbreak such as 2020 coronavirus outbreak in Japan, even though the external website provides no breakdown within a country other than Switzerland and Italy. What do you think? --2001:240:2415:9967:2974:C4D5:7169:81EC (talk) 12:32, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

I agree that this is inappropriate. Is it possible to link to a more specific page in Coronamapper.com? Can a note be inserted into the reference that will help the reader navigate to the right section? Bondegezou (talk) 13:31, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Cases as of 6 March 2020

• 100000 cases was reached in 6 March 2020
• China Cases was declined at over 80000 cases
• South Korea, Iran and Italy will be hitting over 10000 cases this month and other countries less than 10000 cases
• Germany's first death coronavirus will be confirmed this month
• Belgium's first death coronavirus will be confirmed this month
• Netherlands's first death coronavirus was now confirmed
• Greece cases jump to 45. Schools, universities, theaters, cinemas shut from March 4 to March 15th in the affected areas. Sport events to take place without spectators in the affected areas from March 4 to March 15. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 62.74.252.139 (talk) 13:10, 6 March 2020 (UTC)
• European countries expected to have more coronavirus cases and Italian cluster.
• Middle East countries expected to have more coronavirus cases and Iranian cluster. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 112.213.209.244 (talk) 12:55, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Can you please state what you want changed? — RealFakeKimT 16:18, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Required updates

The total confirmed case figures for Germany, France and Spain need to be updated urgently. BlackSun2104 (talk) 13:35, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

N Not done: No source provided. — RealFakeKimT 16:18, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 6 March 2020

• Sixth case Reported in Pakistan.
• One of them has recovered 119.160.118.167 (talk) 16:35, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Y Done — RealFakeKimT 16:51, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

9 CASES IN ROMANIA

Hey there, Romania is now at 9 CONFIRMED CASES https://www.digi24.ro/stiri/actualitate/informatii-oficiale-despre-coronavirus-ministerul-de-interne-26-de-persoane-sunt-in-carantina-2077-sunt-monitorizate-la-domiciliu-1266261 Lucastefan123 (talk) 17:34, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

More cases and wrong origin of first case

More cases are in Poland and now 5 people are affected by the virus and when Poland got the virus did not start in Zielona Górą because The county lubeskie had the origin of the virus and the person who caught it was transported to Zielona Górą later. Hi poland (talk) 17:42, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Brazil has 13 cases confirmed

Brazil has nine confirmed cases, not ten as mentioned in the table. The outbreak map should be changed too.

Sources: https://g1.globo.com/ba/bahia/noticia/2020/03/06/secretaria-de-saude-confirma-1o-caso-de-coronavirus-na-bahia.ghtml https://www1.folha.uol.com.br/equilibrioesaude/2020/03/bahia-confirma-primeiro-caso-de-coronavirus-no-estado-pais-agora-tem-9.shtml https://saude.estadao.com.br/noticias/geral,bahia-registra-primeiro-caso-de-coronavirus-numero-de-casos-no-pais-sobre-para-9,70003222291 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2804:7F1:E100:67EF:9F5:E577:5E89:6BF0 (talk) 18:15, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

13¹³ https://g1.globo.com/bemestar/coronavirus/noticia/2020/03/06/brasil-tem-13-casos-confirmados-de-novo-coronavirus.ghtml

Treatment from people who have recovered

I don't see anything here about it, but antibodies or something like that from people who have recovered are being considered as a method of treatment.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 18:59, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

source?50.111.9.62 (talk) 21:57, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Add a chart indicating cases per million

It might be useful to add to the chart titled "2019-20 coronavirus outbreak by country and territory" a column which indicates the number of total cases per million of the population or the number of current (unrecovered) cases per million. This would, at a glance, give a sense of how severe the burden is on the medical infrastructure in that location. Instead of a column, this could also be a separate chart. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:58A:8002:CE60:3C81:856:5141:9642 (talk) 19:00, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

No domestic response addition for Israel?

Why no addition of Israel who is taking one of the harshes actions against the virus? The only ones topping it are Singapore and China. Information regarding Israels actions alongside the palestinian government can be found online. Thanks, Allan Tracy 21:57, 6 March 2020 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lord Knish (talk • contribs)