Talk:COVID-19 pandemic

Main table all wrong

The table is presenting a false (and bleak) picture of the virus. You can't even correct it! For example, in New Zealand, there are 5 (five) cases, and most have recovered. The table shows no recoveries. The first person recovered on 1st Mar [1]. I mean, that's almost two weeks ago!! There are references for the others too, but I can't be bothered supplying them. I know they reported on the others, for example case 2 of the 5, a woman, is definitely recovered also. I'm sure that most if not all the other countries are wrong too. Please someone supplying this table - correct it, or remove it! It is wrong wrong wrong. Thank you. Wallie (talk) 09:31, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

The WHO reported yesterday no recoveries for New Zealand. Sun Creator^(talk) 10:35, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

The source you gave said "on the mend" which does not mean fully recovered. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 10:47, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Been added anyway, without source so far. Sun Creator^(talk) 12:00, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

What part of "New Zealand coronavirus patient recovers but concern about pandemic spreads" is unclear? The second case has been released and that is documented also. It is plain silly to give references to every single case. As stated, that is over 200,000 references. Wallie (talk) 12:06, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Another aspect of the table I find odd is the discrepancy between the number of countries listed at the top and the actual number by count. At the present moment the summary at the top says 132 countries/territories. An actual count comes to 125. Where are the other 7 countries or territories? If they are included in a mother country (e.g. French Guiana in France), then they should not be counted separately as a country. Or if they are counted then they should be listed separately. Lack of accuracy/clarity on this verifiable point leads to doubt about the other less readily verifiable figures. In addition, there is a disconnect between the table and the map. The map shows at least 3 countries affected which are not in the table: Guinea, Sudan, and Cayman Islands. Ptilinopus (talk) 14:56, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

The table discrepancy continues. At this time the total countries at the top of table totals says 145 countries. An actual count of countries in the table is 136 plus 1 ship. Where are the missing 8? Ptilinopus (talk) 02:14, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Again. Actual count of countries on the table is 137. The total at the top summary has jumped to 150! The source seems to be the dubious Worldometer. How about some consistency?! Incidentally there are 3 countries on the list that were not there 4 hours ago (Rwanda, Namibia, Antigua & Barbuda) - and 3 that have disappeared (since the count remains 137). I notice that Aruba and Curaçao have been deleted - though they are separate countries, equal to the Netherlands. Even so, their details have not been included with the Netherlands. I see Puerto Rico is listed though it much more part of the US than Aruba etc are of the Netherlands! I note the disappearance of Jersey and Guernsey too - even though they are not part of the United Kingdom. Nor have their data been added to that of the UK. Can we have consistency please? Ptilinopus (talk) 12:23, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Before you go and denigrate Worldometer, maybe you should compare the countries and find out why there are more in Worldometer than in the main table. Cayman Islands, for example is reported in Worldometer, but not in the main table. It is an autonomous British Overseas Territory, which definitely makes it a "country or territory." And yes, Caymen Islands has a case, as reported in the Miami Herald.DrHenley (talk) 02:18, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

While I would personally agree that it would be better to report geographically rather than politically, my biggest issue is consistency. At least now the table has adopted a consistent approach: dependencies are included in the main country. So as the footnotes to the table say, Gibraltar, Jersey, Guernsey and Cayman Islands are included under U.K., the French dependencies etc are under France, Aruba, Curaçao etc under Netherlands, Faeroe Is and Greenland under Denmark, Guam, Puerto Rico, US Virgin Is under USA etc. Previously, it was some one way, some the other. Arguing over definitions of countries is unprofitable. What has not changed is the totals versus the list. Overnight 4 more countries were added - Benin, Tanzania, Somalia and Liberia, but the total remains at 143. Actual count says 147. Ptilinopus (talk) 19:31, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

I had gone and separated Puerto Rico because I thought I had seen it separated on this site but as of March 15, 2020 Puerto Rico has been deleted and re-included with the US count on Wikipedia. I'm not sure why a Wikipedian has done that. Check out the table... There must be a method to the wikipedians madness. Maybe it's okay for Puerto Rico to be included with the US count.Check this out... https://gisanddata.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html?fbclid=IwAR0jYwvytu-1e4jh6ujShnxAjxytKn8kgypxeW9s5eE5Ar88AjJlDGiJBmc#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6 --The Eloquent Peasant (talk) 17:03, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

See my comment just above. Puerto Rico is not independent. I would like the table and map to reflect geographical spread - dependencies remote from the main country listed and shown separately. But for consistency, they are included in the main country. Regardless of preferences, consistency is better. Ptilinopus (talk) 19:31, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Despite the protocol which had begun to be consistent, someone has again split out Jersey and Guernsey. Even though I would prefer to see such entities separated out to give a better view of the geographical spread, the adopted protocol has been that dependent territories/countries be included under the main country. Either Jersey and Guernsey should remain under the UK, or we should also separate out the French, Dutch, Danish, US and the rest of the British territories. Jersey and Guernsey are no more independent than are Faeroe Is, Greenland, Curaçao, Aruba, Cayman Is, Puerto Rico etc. Consistency please!!! Ptilinopus (talk) 00:12, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Someone keeps putting incorrect country totals at the top of the table. As of now, by actual count, there are 149 countries and one ship - an increase of 2 (Gambia and Barbados) from yesterday. But the number given is 165. How does +2 become +18? Ptilinopus (talk) 02:25, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

You are right, I have changed to 149. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 02:50, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks Graeme Bartlett! I noted just now it had jumped again to 171, but someone has again just corrected it back to the current 153! However, I have transcribed the table into a spreadsheet so I could check the data, I find the total cases and total deaths are also incorrect and inflated. Can’t the table contain a formula to generate correct SUM of columns? Total Cases is given as 206,845; it is actually 204,698. And total Deaths is given as 8,272; the actual sum is 8,251. Ptilinopus (talk) 14:55, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

"Misconceptions are circulating about how to prevent infection, for example: rinsing the nose, gargling with mouthwash and eating garlic are not effective." The source does not say that garlic is ineffective. The source says that there are no studies regarding efficacy of garlic on COVID-19. (Garlic is rather broad antimicrobial and one of the likelier candidates. A future study *may* demonstrate some beneficial activity.)

R.I.P errbody😎🔥 Sy3thaba (talk) 12:46, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

The table should be sorted by number of deaths, not cases. The number of deaths is a better guide to the severity of the situation, and probably a better guide to the total number of hidden cases as well. Fig (talk) 17:31, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

References

Potential changes to the maps

Cases or Deaths?

The first map in the infobox, showing total cases per country

The second map in the infobox, showing cases per capita

New map, showing deaths per capita

As more European countries are running out of tests, and both the UK and especially the US have had low testing rates from the start — counting cases is likely to poorly reflect the state of the pandemic. However, deaths are likely to be much more accurate, both at the aggregate level and the per capita level. Should we shift at least one of these maps to cover deaths or deaths per capita? Carl Fredrik ^talk 11:50, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

It would be a nice map to have but I don't see a need to replace either of the maps there now. Adding a third map to show deaths per-capita would be preferable to replacing one of the existing maps.Monopoly31121993(2) (talk) 14:49, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Both absolute (total deaths) and relative (deaths per capita) are useful in my opinion, and indeed better than "cases" for which the numbers are completely unreliable. The advantage of the relative map is that countries of different sizes can be compared more easily (and to judge which countries are proportionally more affected). I think it would be a good idea to show both maps (but perhaps not in the lead). Ideally, it would also be nice for the larger countries (US/China) to have the data displayed per province/state in this worldmap . Voorlandt (talk) 20:22, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

I don't think we should include any death calculations or per capita calculations as while these may seem simple, they are not obvious or correct in their interpretation. The reason for this is that there is a massive lag in this outbreak especially, and due to unreliability of reported figures (undue comparison will be made against disparate health care systems). Both will lead people to me more alarmed or reassured than they should be. In terms of policy this violates WP:CALC specifically. --Almaty (talk) 08:36, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure I follow."Due to unreliability of reported figures" we should only show the aggregate reported figures? That doesn't really follow especially when the reported figures are those currently listed on the page's chart, most sourced from the WHO. With regard to an alleged "massive lag" (in reported figures or virus symptom onset(?)) and that per-capita maps of deaths or rates of infected persons will "lead people to me more alarmed or reassured than they should be." I don't think it's up to Wikipedia editors to decide what facts from reliable sources Wikipedia readers should and should not be exposed to and certainly not on the grounds that it could makes some of them alarmed. The data here comes from the WHO and World Bank's population estimate figures for 2018.Monopoly31121993(2) (talk) 09:36, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

We should only show the raw reported figures, from the WHO. I don't see them anywhere dividing it from the world bank population estimate from 2018, that is WP:OR. That doesn't hide anything, it just prevents us from doing a calculation that the reliable source is not doing. --Almaty (talk) 09:55, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Ok, Almaty's opinion is clear. Almaty would like to "only show the raw reported figures, from the WHO". Voorlandt and myself disagree with Almaty. Would anyone else like to share their thoughts?Monopoly31121993(2) (talk) 10:25, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

I agree that per capita statistics should be published in addition to totals. The "per number of people" statistics is routinely published in Wikipedia for occurences of other diseases. The only argument I see provided by Almaty against it is that it would alarm people. I don't see anything wrong with people being alarmed by alarming statistics. Don't see any explanation for Almaty's argument regarding why "per capita statistics" is misleading. That somebody else such as WHO does not provide it does not mean that it is misleading.Roman (talk) 15:44, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

I also support per capita. We are dividing by large numbers (country populations) that are well-estimated and are constant (assuming we are using some recent census), so any error is overwhelmingly due to the error in cases - which we have anyway. The resulting comparison is meaningful and useful. Here is a link for 'usefulness' [2]. Segoldberg (talk) 20:24, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Yes but that isn't a clear summary of why. Its not because I only trust the WHO, or I'm a censor (far from it, the opposite), its because per WP:CALC there is not clear current consensus that dividing these figures is a meaningful interpretation of the source. The calculation is simple, but they don't do it, because the answer is misleading. --Almaty (talk) 10:29, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Yes, we need per capita. I see no violation of WP:CALC ("Routine calculations do not count as original research, provided there is consensus among editors that the result of the calculation is obvious, correct, and a meaningful reflection of the sources. [...]"): the manner of calculation is super straightforward. (As an aside, I see no undue alarm; I only see undue complacency.) --Dan Polansky (talk) 12:32, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Which ever map is chosen, it's probably best they don't look like the player wiped out entire nations in Plague Inc. 73.155.111.138 (talk) 08:30, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

I would be okay with a deaths map and a deaths per capita map being added as part of a package, per my proposal below. Sdkb (talk) 07:19, 17 March 2020 (UTC). ...It would be nice to have a gif showing at each frame the daily situation in the maps.

A statistics predictions for the near futere are welcome...

Deaths per capita map

Deaths per capita

There is now a deaths per capita map. Thanks to @Dan Polansky: I must say it looks excellent! And it does a much better job than confirmed cases per capita of showing the true severity of the regional epidemics, since the testing policies differ a lot between countries. The fatality rate is very much more comparable. Other thoughts? —St.nerol (talk) 13:47, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

I concur that cases data, which was frequently poor already, is becoming ever less accurate. We should therefore de-emphasise it in the text and in the map. Death data is more reliable (albeit not perfect). That said, while moving away from inaccurate cases data, it is still important and useful to describe the spread of the pandemic. The reader should be able to clearly see the global reach of the pandemic. Bondegezou (talk) 13:51, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Fully agree. As long as we keep the total confirmed cases map, the global spread should be evident. —St.nerol (talk) 13:55, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Come to think of it, this map also complements the original total confirmed cases better than the cases per capita map: Since both confirmed cases and deaths are important, and both absolute numbers and per capita are relevant, we have four possible maps. But we get as much as possible from just two maps when one is cases in total and one is deaths per capita. Then there's no redundancy! —St.nerol (talk) 16:50, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

@Dan Polansky:, do you think you could update the map to reflect the latest data, and give me a ping afterwards? --St.nerol (talk) 22:13, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Deaths are very likely underreported in at least two countries that have the darkest shading on that map: Italy nursing home elderly resident COVID-19 deaths appear to be underestimated by a factor of 3 in one case listed in that article, and other cases cited in the article suggest that this is widespread in parts of Italy; the COVID-19 death count in Iran is quite likely, according to many different sources of information (see the article) to be a lot higher than the official value. Despite this, I tend to think that the death counts, despite being delayed compared to the positive SARS-CoV-2 detections, will be more reliable than the positive SARS-CoV-2 detection count in many countries. Adding the map, either normalised for population or not, would be useful. Boud (talk) 00:18, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

@St.nerol: I updated the map yesterday evening. Next planned update of the map is today evening. I see no gain in updating the map more frequently, except perhaps to correct errors should there be any. --Dan Polansky (talk) 06:44, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

@St.nerol: I think the article would benefit from both reported cases per capita and deaths per capita maps. The article needs to contain the best caveat about how both reported figures are underrepresenting the real figures as it can, as far as can be done while meeting Wikipedia verifiability guidelines. As for whether we need absolute counts when we have per capita, some have argued that using colored backgrounds for non-capita map is misleading, or even fraudulent, and I can see what they mean: the colors give impression that we are dealing with density, which only applies to per capita maps. It would make sense to me to only include two maps: total reported cases per capita and total deaths per capita. --Dan Polansky (talk) 06:54, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

@Dan Polansky: You're right! I made a miscalculation and didn't see that the map was indeed updated. I'll try to start an RFC here to see how we should use the map. St.nerol (talk) 10:36, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

As of March 19, in cases per capita the undisputed leader is San Marino (4244), followed by Faroe Islands (1474), then Vatican City (1248), then three more mini states (Iceland, Andorra and Liechtenstein), with Italy being only seventh and just above Luxembourg, according to worldometer. Cases per capita demonstrate testing per capita rather than the severity of the decease. Deaths per capita seem to be more indicative of the severity (this data is not given on worldometer or any known to me source, except the map of Dan).--Maxaxax (talk) 00:44, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

(For reference, on 2020-03-19 19:12:38 UTC, the top 3 figures for deaths per million people calculated from WP data were San Marino: 417; Italy: 56.5; Spain: 17. --Dan Polansky (talk) 08:22, 20 March 2020 (UTC))

RfC on which maps to use

There are three very relevant maps currently being discussed: Absolute number of confirmed cases, Confirmed cases per capita and Deaths per capita. They are displayed above. Which maps should we use in the lede?

1. Confirmed cases per capita, Absolute number of confirmed cases (current)
2. Deaths per capita, Absolute number of confirmed cases
3. Confirmed cases per capita, Deaths per capita
4. All three (in a collapsed state?)

St.nerol (talk) 10:58, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

• Comment on Overlapping RfCs This RfC overlaps slightly with the one already in progress below about whether to list a per capita map first or a totals map first. I'm not exactly sure how to handle overlapping RfCs. I propose we agree that that one take precedence regarding which map to list first/uncollapsed and this one take precedence regarding which map(s) to list. If there is a conflict between the RfCs, the RfC with significantly more participation will take precedence, or if they are roughly equal, that one as the first RfC will take precedence. (Note: I'm making this comment before any !votes have been cast in this RfC.) Sdkb (talk) 17:10, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
• Option 4, with one primary uncollapsed map (as decided by the other RfC) and the rest collapsed. All three maps have potential value; let's give readers the option to access them. Collapsed maps take up very little room, decluttering and allowing us to move the photos higher up, while also taking only a single easy click for interested readers to access. They're a win-win. Sdkb (talk) 17:45, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

  Hmm, St.nerol, it seems like you and I may be the only ones here currently. If no one else comments otherwise, would you be alright with me boldly implementing option 4 with the three maps (leaving out the daily new cases map, which isn't updated/developed enough to be ready for mainspace yet). We'd of course revert if others start chiming in and the consensus moves in a different direction. Sdkb (talk) 21:17, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

• Option 3, if not that then Option 4: My preference is show only two maps: total confirmed cases per capita and total deaths per capita. If non-per-capita should be shown in addition, it should not be a color map but rather a pie map where the counts are represented as pies (circles) of different sizes; the objection against color map is 1) obvious: do not represent as density something that is not density, and 2) on another wiki there is a comment tracing the objection to How to Lie with Maps, Third Edition by Mark Monmonier. --Dan Polansky (talk) 07:53, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Daily new cases

The daily new cases of COVID-19 on March 13

I propose as a second map that we simply use this map, as it gives more relevant information, does not involve calculations, and it will be able to be updated very easily based on the link provided. --Almaty (talk) 13:05, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

I disagree that that Almaty's map "gives more relevant information" than the per-capita infection rate. I think knowing how many people on average in a country are infected with a virus is very relevant information.Monopoly31121993(2) (talk) 13:25, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

I would say that the per capita will be relevant information in a few weeks, but pertinently when they are published by reliable sources. Additionally the map of per capita has a caption that we cannot hope to keep current. --Almaty (talk) 13:31, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Why will per capita be relevant information in a few weeks and not today?As for keeping the map current there are many maps on Wikipedia that regularly need to be updated and I have updated this one twice already over the past few days.Monopoly31121993(2) (talk) 13:48, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

I rescind comments in relation to undue concern or alarm. I simply don't think that this map is verifiable. In order for it to remain verifiable we have three options IMO.

1. Only use raw figures from the WHO

2. Use another source that is making maps that we consider to be reliable.

3. Waiting until any WP:MEDRS compatible source at least publishes a table showing per capita case rates. --Almaty (talk) 01:08, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

ALASKA with 500 is Strange, very !

@Almaty: I would be okay with this map being added as part of a package, per my proposal below. Sdkb (talk) 07:17, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

thanks mate, sounds like a great way to move this discussion forward from a clear stalemate. —Almaty (talk) 07:27, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

@Almaty: Have any updates been made to this map? It needs some changes before it'll be ready for mainspace (in my view). Namely: new updated data, conversion to SVG, moving the legend out of the image itself (to parallel the other maps), and switching to red (the color we're using for case counts). I'd also prefer it be a per capita new cases per day map, rather than totals by country (we could always have both). Sdkb (talk) 23:04, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Cases by density

In addition to maps showing number of infections by country & another showing incidence by population, there should be another showing incidence by density (eg cases per hundred sq kms). That would show where it's most concentrated. Jim Michael (talk) 10:10, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

And dan please read medrs. It is our most onerous policy to adhere to and this article is confusing because many claims can just have a reliable source, but all medical claims must have a medrs source. This is generally review articles, international authoritative statements (from bodies such as the WHO or the DSM) and medical texts. If you find a CFR in one of those please insert it with all the disclaimers. Almaty (talk) 15:22, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Per capita data vs. totals by country

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

By and large, I much prefer the per capita map. Especially as the virus continues to spread, the totals map is increasingly becoming just a variation on a world population map. It makes no sense to display prominently a map where, if Exampleistan suddenly splits into two countries tomorrow, the outbreak would suddenly show up as half as bad there. The one redeeming factor of that map is that it appropriately shows how severe the outbreak has been in China, whereas the per capita map does not. Fortunately, there's a solution to that: splitting up the data for China by province. That way, Hubei will presumably show up as appropriately severe. The main downside of this approach is that some readers might ask why China gets more granular data than other countries, but I think most won't have a problem (and if the data does exist for generating a world map of prevalence by zip code or some other smaller unit and we could turn it into a map, that would of course be brilliant). Sdkb (talk) 06:33, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

See also: commons:File_talk:March14_cases_per-capita-COVID-19.png#Colouring_seems_misleading_for_China. Sdkb (talk) 06:44, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

The data for such an addition is pretty readily available; both the population and case numbers are included in yesterday's WHO daily situation report. Sdkb (talk) 05:08, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Now there are 180 cases in brasil, but in the main table it dropped from 151 to 121 LGCR (talk) 18:10, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

What would folks think of listing the per capita map before the totals map? (per the logic in my archived comment directly above about why per capita is generally more useful for readers wanting to know where the outbreak is most intense) I'm going to try boldly implementing, but we can discuss here if it turns out to be controversial. Sdkb (talk) 23:58, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Ratherous, you reverted. What's your argument? Sdkb (talk) 02:36, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Regardless of the use of per capita maps, the main informative resource in use by most media outlets and general epidemic data is the total cases map, showing the exact extent and reach the virus had on a certain number of people. --Ratherous (talk) 02:56, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

@Ratherous: The main thing our readers are looking for in the maps is an indication of where the virus is most severe, and the per capita map does that best. Media outlets using totals are doing so mainly through a combination of poor statistical knowledge and laziness in not wanting to count populations. Another way to look at it: the totals map is also "per" in a way. It's just that rather than using an even unit that allows equal comparisons, the totals map uses "per country", making it look like the virus is worse in more heavily populated countries, e.g. India is darker than Vatican City. That's not what we want. Sdkb (talk) 03:24, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

I don't think it's very fair to assume laziness of journalists, rather it is a clear indication that readers are indeed looking more for totals of infected individuals at any given place. There is a very blatant reality that larger countries have greater potential at posing risk to the rest of the world due to their larger populations. The one person infected in the Vatican has a much lower probability of spreading the virus than the now 147 infected individuals in India. Regardless of the use of per capita maps, the main maps of the total should always be placed first. --Ratherous (talk) 05:27, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

I've started an RfC below so we can get some more perspectives on this. Sdkb (talk) 18:40, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

RfC on which type of map to list first

Should this article list a per capita count map first, or a total count by country map first? Sdkb (talk) 18:40, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

• Per capita map. The main thing our readers are looking for in the maps is an indication of where the virus is most severe, and the per capita map does that best. The total map, by contrast, is increasingly becoming just a variation on a world population map as the virus continues to spread. It makes it look like the virus is worse in more heavily populated countries, e.g. India is darker than Vatican City. That's not what we want. It makes no sense to display most prominently a map where, if Exampleistan suddenly splits into two countries tomorrow, the outbreak would suddenly show up as half as bad there. Another way to look at it: the totals map is also "per" in a way. It's just that rather than using an even divisor that allows equal comparisons, the totals map uses the uneven "per country" divisor. Sdkb (talk) 18:40, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Per capita map per Sdkb. — RealFakeKimT 19:08, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

• Per capita Per Sdkb, and as a stark example, shading implying San Marino, with around 120 cases in a population of fewer than 40,000, is on par with Hong Kong (181 cases in population of 7.4+ million), is bollocks. CaradhrasAiguo (leave language) 19:17, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
• Total Count Still the main resource of information on statistics. Per capita map can be included, but in no way should it go before the main map. Readers should primarily see the amount of actual infected people around the world. Plus still a more accurate exact figure. As I said earlier, it's not only the extent of infection in any given country, but also the threat of any given population to infect other people, which would rely on total count. --Ratherous (talk) 19:38, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
• Per capita per Sdkb. Total count map does not need to be listed at all. Per capita is directly calculated from totals. A map for totals with colored background is arguably grossly misleading (not factually wrong but misleading), since the colored background visually suggests we are dealing with density, which is only true for the per capita map. While in the per capita map, China has a slightly less dark color, it is still relatively dark and when the reader considers their background knowledge that China has a huge population, they should immediately see that the China total count is actually very large. --Dan Polansky (talk) 07:29, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

  Very well put. For China, my preferred solution is to split the data by province — see the proposal for that below. Sdkb (talk) 21:03, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

• Total Count Map – This is still the aggregate total and the main source of information on the raw statistics. The per capita count map is something that is not entirely obvious at a glance. While a per capita count provides useful information on the spread density within a population, it fails to provide a picture of the actual, overall spread and can actually be misleading to unfamiliar viewers. LightandDark2000 🌀 (talk) 18:39, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

  But this manner of visual represenation of the raw statistics is misleading; if it were pies (circles) rather than background colors, that would not be misleading. I don't see where the claim that per capita is misleading is coming from: it represents density with a visual representation corresponding to density. --Dan Polansky (talk) 07:57, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Data sources for maps

Extended content

Are coronavirus maps, should we use Our World in Data as a reliable attributable source, or should we be making calculations not yet published in reliable sources? --Almaty (talk) 14:06, 14 March 2020 (UTC)I removed the aggregate new cases map which was included in this history section of the page so that we can discuss it first. There are two major issues with the map. The data does not come from the WHO but from a third-party charity website called "Our World In Data"..."a project of the Global Change Data Lab, a registered charity in England and Wales (Charity Number 1186433)." The map claims that there were 0 new cases on March 13th in Iceland, Norway, Belgium, Portugal, Greece, and a few dozen other countries and that's just inaccurate.Monopoly31121993(2) (talk) 13:48, 14 March 2020 (UTC) The reason is I have not seen it published in any reliable source with WHO data, to keep the dispute simple. --Almaty (talk) 14:37, 14 March 2020 (UTC) It doesn't claim that, it claims that there were between 0 and 10. --Almaty (talk) 13:50, 14 March 2020 (UTC) They claim the data does come from the WHO. Are you able to point to any specific inconsistency in the reliability of this source? --Almaty (talk) 13:52, 14 March 2020 (UTC) Also they aren't just a charity researchers at University of Oxford, who are the scientific editors of the website content. I strongly propose that unless anyone can point to how any of the data is inaccurate, that we use it. The main reason is because myself and other editors aren't able to easily verify the content of the maps. This will worsen as the outbreak progresses. --Almaty (talk) 13:58, 14 March 2020 (UTC) Yes, Those countries reported dozens if not hundreds of new cases between 12 march and 13 March. That's evident in the table's history page. Belgium for example went from 399 to 559. The map you added shows Belgium with 0-10 cases.Monopoly31121993(2) (talk) 15:53, 14 March 2020 (UTC) Per capita is absolutely relevant today, as it was a week ago and a month ago. Bed capacity would usually exist per capita, so case totals per capita is very indicative of severity. Furthermore, per capita achieves coloring invariance upon region merge: it is not so badly sensitive to choice of granularity of regions. --Dan Polansky (talk) 14:54, 14 March 2020 (UTC) If it is a indicative of severity why can't I see it in a WP:MEDRS source using WHO data to date? Ive done quite a search to come up with this current opinion. --Almaty (talk) 14:57, 14 March 2020 (UTC) Per capita is at worldometers.info; search for "Tot Cases/1M pop". I don't know about WP:MEDRS; I am not really a Wikipedia editor. In any case, as long as WP:CALC applies, we should be fine. ---Dan Polansky (talk) 15:03, 14 March 2020 (UTC) User @Bondegezou: and myself concur that WP:CALC is not being fully interpreted and with divisions in particular these may not be "obvious and correct". --Almaty (talk) 15:56, 14 March 2020 (UTC) Worldometer fails WP:MEDRS so severely, that even its updaters have lost faith in it, it appears --Almaty (talk) 16:55, 14 March 2020 (UTC) Is the above original research or can you support the above claim with reliable sources? --Dan Polansky (talk) 17:20, 14 March 2020 (UTC) Yes User:Dan Polansky I can support that claim with worldometers own website The live counters show the real-time estimate as computed by our proprietary algorithm, which processes the latest data and projections provided by the most reputable organizations and statistical offices in the world. This is not peer reviewed, is an estimate, is not a study, is not even thought to be verifiable or correct by its publisher. ---Almaty (talk) 00:55, 15 March 2020 (UTC) Well, your claim is an original observation gained by looking at worldometers.info and using your brain; the claim "worldometers.info is unreliable" is not traced to a reliable source. Of course, your reasoning is very plausible, and one has to take worldometers.info with grain of salt, but is the grain larger than that for WHO data? But my main point is on the meta-level and it stays: you require me to trace the obvious to a reliable source while you do not require yourself to trace the obvious to a reliable source. --Dan Polansky (talk) 09:06, 15 March 2020 (UTC) User:Dan Polansky I dont want to argue, but we all have to use reliable sources. I would love to insert things that were my original research and i've tried to before, but we cant. The pillars of wikipedia apply. --Almaty (talk) 10:22, 15 March 2020 (UTC) Per WP:CALC, we can do certain calculation ourselves; Almaty claims we can't. Let the reader read this very discussion alone; I see not a single person agreeing with Almaty, who sets unreasonable high standards on what should be common sense but uncritically defers to WHO. --Dan Polansky (talk) 10:24, 15 March 2020 (UTC) Ok, maybe we can't trust the maps there, probably a data quirk if their tables are correct. But can we make maps like it - I want to use their "no data", and I truly think that a map with the number of new cases is more important at this stage, than per capita cases. My opinion of this will change, when anyone can show me a WP:MEDRS source that is showing charts with per capita cases. I can't find one --Almaty (talk) 17:03, 14 March 2020 (UTC) I find it obvious that per capita is super useful (total cases, active cases, daily new cases, daily deaths, all per capita), and to support the notion, I mentioned that bed capacities would usually be maintained per capita in a country. I do not have WP:MEDRS sources to support what I just said and what I consider to be obvious reasoning. Maybe someone knows where to find such sources. If WP:MEDRS sources do not report per capita, maybe they should wake up from their dogmatic dream and start reporting also per capita right now, before it is too late. --Dan Polansky (talk) 17:20, 14 March 2020 (UTC) I'd go so far as to say that the use of the current graphic is highly misleading. Some Europeans have remarked at the Danish government's shutdown when comparing it to the apparent inaction in France or the UK, whereas the reason becomes instantly clear if you consider that the size of population matters a great deal. The only truly objective measure that can be used is the per capita figure. -- Ohc ¡digame! 17:28, 14 March 2020 (UTC) Let me add that the name of the game is bed capacities, respirators, breathing machines and such. If there were no risk of exhausting these, it would be kind of acceptable to give up all flatten-the-curve measures, maybe not entirely acceptable, but kind of. And these capacities, the name of the game, the resource nummero uno that you can run out of, is usually maintained on a per capita basis. And the resource does not increase exponentially at 20% per day rate, only the demand for that resource does so increase. Per capita is super meaningful; maybe some has the WP:MEDRS paperwork to support that claim; I supplied the substantive arguments. --Dan Polansky (talk) 17:42, 14 March 2020 (UTC) I expect that they are doing this in unpublished government data, of course. But that doesn't help our encyclopaedia. Can you even point to a table, let alone a graph or a chart or map that shows per capita? that isn't worldometer? I note that for the second time in 24 hours this has been removed due to errors, once due to the Mediawiki doing it. Its an exceedingly big job, and one I think we need to delegate to the likes of Our World In Data (where their data is verifiable). --Almaty (talk) 00:39, 15 March 2020 (UTC) Here are links to the data sources for the map. This is certainly not "unpublished government data." Many news websites have map and visualization pages up and running now. There are plenty of examples of per-capita maps out there and the data for making these is widely available at places like: FT[3] and John Hopkins [4]. The Hill even published a list of top map sites[5]Monopoly31121993(2) (talk) 10:25, 15 March 2020 (UTC) User:Monopoly31121993 I dont trust you to be able to keep up with the volume of data that will be coming through in the next few weeks, to be frank. Its not like I dont think you've done a good job so far. Its just that maps will become completely unverifiable --Almaty (talk) 11:01, 15 March 2020 (UTC) Does Almaty concede now that there are reliable sources publishing cases per capita? That would be a start. --Dan Polansky (talk) 11:07, 15 March 2020 (UTC) I'm not in this for the argument, trust me, just for verifiability. --Almaty (talk) 11:10, 15 March 2020 (UTC) (outdent) So does Almaty concede the point that has been demonstrated? There cannot be any rational argument if one party refutes to play the argument game fairly. Almaty, do you now agree that "there are reliable sources publishing cases per capita?" --Dan Polansky (talk) 11:15, 15 March 2020 (UTC) Guys, I wrote a program that can read a dataset and generate an svg map. [6]. It currently fetches data from John Hopkins University, but the dataset doesn't have every country/territory and is updated daily, not as frequent as the current map. I say we generate the maps using a community-maintained list. Ythlev (talk) 11:45, 15 March 2020 (UTC) Excellent, makes perfect sense. Let the script fetch data from locations in Wikipedia, and it is then the business of Wikipedia editors to update those locations to reflect reliable sources. Is Template:2019–20 coronavirus pandemic data good for the purpose? It should be easy to extract the data from there using Python. --Dan Polansky (talk) 12:01, 15 March 2020 (UTC) I don't know how though. I only know how to fetch from pages with data only. Ythlev (talk) 12:10, 15 March 2020 (UTC) Okay, maybe I'll have a look. --Dan Polansky (talk) 12:12, 15 March 2020 (UTC) no I’m afraid that I am still yet to see medrs sources showing per capita statistics. And it’s cos they can’t, so we can’t. —49.179.25.69 (talk) 12:31, 15 March 2020 (UTC) I think it is possible with Wikidata. Ythlev (talk) 12:18, 15 March 2020 (UTC) Here's a very quickly written grabber that returns a dictionary where the countries are the keys and the values are list of column values as integers (no work of beauty, but it works and is here right now): def grabFromTemplate(): import urllib, re url="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_pandemic_data" allLines = [] for line in urllib.urlopen(url): allLines.append(line.rstrip()) allLines = " ".join(allLines) allLines = re.sub("^.*jquery-tablesorter", "", allLines) allLines = re.sub("</table.*", "", allLines) allLines = re.sub("<(th|td)[^>]*>", r"<td>", allLines) allLines = re.sub("</?(span|img|a|sup)[^>]*>", "", allLines) allLines = re.sub("</(th|td|tr)[^>]*>", "", allLines) allLines = re.sub("&#91.*?&#93", "", allLines) allLines = re.sub(",", "", allLines) allLines = re.sub("<small>.*?</small>;?", "", allLines) allLines = re.sub("</?i>", "", allLines) outData = {} rows = allLines.split("<tr> ") for row in rows: try: cols = row.split("<td>") cols.pop(0) cols.pop(0) country = cols.pop(0) cols = cols[0:3] cols = [int(col) for col in cols] except: continue outData[country] = cols #for key, value in outData.items(): # print key, value return outData --Dan Polansky (talk) 12:53, 15 March 2020 (UTC) Okay, with a few modifications, it worked. I can incorporate it now. Ythlev (talk) 13:19, 15 March 2020 (UTC) A lot of work is matching those country names to ISO country codes used to colour the map. Ythlev (talk) 13:20, 15 March 2020 (UTC) @Dan Polansky: It's done: [7]. Your code has some bugs though. It does not work for Netherlands for some reason. Ythlev (talk) 18:17, 15 March 2020 (UTC) @Ythlev: It fails for Netherlands since Netherlands has "–" in the 3rd column instead of zero. I don't know what "–" means, or else I could just tweak the script to replace it with zero or maybe place None in the list instead of int. Did you also create a per capita map on the world level? File:COVID-19_Outbreak_World_Map.svg is not per capita. --Dan Polansky (talk) 19:03, 15 March 2020 (UTC) No. Such a map is being question now. Ythlev (talk) 19:07, 15 March 2020 (UTC) NCBI StatPearls link in support of per capita, in addition to actual number [8]. Prevalence, or cumulative cases per capita, is an estimate of the probability for a person in the country to be sick (useful if you are considering walking around in public in that country). Incidence, or new cases per unit time, is useful for tracking rate of new cases. Segoldberg (talk) 18:08, 16 March 2020 (UTC) Hi there, you may already know, but i would like to inform you that the data for the per capita map is wrong, it shows Australia as >0.1 but it is currently at >10 it has actually been >1 since the 1st march so the map is definitely not accurate as of 13th march as it states. I have not checked for other countries but there are probably more mistakes that need fixing. Just your average wikipedian (talk) 06:35, 16 March 2020 (UTC) You may know x and y, but you may not conduct operations on them. Just want to say this is the weirdest discussion in history. If a map of cases by country is acceptable based on the data available, then a map of cases per capita causing such trauma because it's OR (no it isn't) or it's somehow fundamentally unknowable information, implies that the wiki page "countries and dependencies by population" also needs deleting. Otherwise, x is acceptable, y is acceptable, but x/y is magically wrong. Funny old place. 165.225.81.57 (talk) 10:33, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Cumulative cases vs peak active cases

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If the first map is meant to be more directly sourced, the second should be more reflective of impact. Taking into account the health care systems and "flattening the curve", the second map should be peak active cases per capita. Ythlev (talk) 11:34, 15 March 2020 (UTC) If the data is available, I would be okay with this map being added as part of a package, per my proposal below. Sdkb (talk) 07:20, 17 March 2020 (UTC) So right now we have two competing per capita maps; one cumulative and one peak outbreak (see above). At the moment, I think that the cumulative map of @Raphaël Dunant: is preferrable. If China had another major outbreak, the peak outbreak map of @Ythlev: would not change a bit, but the cumulative map would reflect the change. Second, the peak outbreak map has a funny scale. How are the cutoff levels chosen? I appreciate Ythlev's ambition to reflect the intensity of the blow to the healthcare system and the general population. Perhaps this could be accomplished by a deaths per capita map? St.nerol (talk) 14:55, 17 March 2020 (UTC) Why is "changing a bit" important? Looking at any map so far, can you tell whether the disease is more serious in China than Europe or less? could be accomplished by a deaths per capita map? That's still a third map. Ythlev (talk) 15:13, 17 March 2020 (UTC) Second, the peak outbreak map has a funny scale. If by funny, you mean not powers of ten, the figures are mostly within 45 cases per million, so compared to the above map, using a smaller scale separates the countries better (e.g. East Africa, South Asia). Ythlev (talk) 15:26, 17 March 2020 (UTC) Several countries in Europe have over a 100 cases per capita. At the current centre of the outbreak your scale does not separate countries well at all. St.nerol (talk) 15:38, 17 March 2020 (UTC) And why should a world map separate Europe better at the expense of other regions? You want to know about the situation in Europe, there is a map of Europe in the corresponding article. Ythlev (talk) 16:13, 17 March 2020 (UTC) I agree with the consensus that if we are to have one per capita map, it should be the cumulative cases one. I can see the value to a peak active cases one, though, and would like it to be included as part of a package, per my proposal below. Sdkb (talk) 17:01, 17 March 2020 (UTC) The cases per capita map was removed from the article because it needed fixing. A corrected svg was then restored to the article. You have now removed it twice in favour of your own map. I see no consensus for having a peak active cases map instead of a regular cases per capita map. There are also some potential problems with your map that needs to be discussed; @Redav: mentioned some of them. Total confirmed cases per capita is data readily available from e.g. https://www.worldometers.info/ An illustration of this data clearly has encyclopedic value. The regular cases per capita map should be restored to the page until if a consensus here should say otherwise. –St.nerol (talk) 16:04, 17 March 2020 (UTC) As per @Sdkb: and @Redav: (asking for an SVG version of the total cases per capita map) and @St.nerol: comments, the total cases per capita map has been restored. I also feel like total cases per capita has more value to an encyclopedia than peak cases, as it is more useful to know which country have been hit the most, not which countries have been hit the quickest. I am agreeing with the direction the consensus seems to be going, but will abide by any consensus. Raphaël Dunant (talk) 16:45, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Developing an SVG version

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I greatly appreciate the efforts of Monopoly31121993(2) to produce a PNG per capita map for the infobox, but there is still an urgent and open request for SVG version that can be updated by all editors, like the primary map. Perhaps the script developed by User:Ythlev and User:Dan Polansky above could be of use to an editor reading this who would like to give it a try? — Goszei (talk) 18:40, 16 March 2020 (UTC) Copying my comment from the Commons: Monopoly31121993(2), I appreciate the effort you've put into updating this, but I need to re-emphasize that, at this point, by far the most urgent need is for you to convert this file to an SVG. This is an extremely prominent file on perhaps WP's most prominent article right now, and keeping it as a PNG (as well as not specifying your data source) effectively prevents other editors from being able to make updates and improvements to it. Maintaining this map is too big a task for any one editor at this point, and while you may disagree with some of the suggestions, consider that (a) even the uncontroversial ones, like fixing Greenland, cannot currently be remedied, and (b) WP:OWN applies — WP needs collaboration to function best. If you continue to maintain this map as a PNG, the editors whose concerns have not been adequately addressed are going to increasingly clamor for the removal of the map from the article, nullifying your work and doing a disservice to readers who would be better served by a per capita map. Sdkb (talk) 20:45, 16 March 2020 (UTC) @Monopoly31121993(2):@Sdkb: I can agree with what Sdkb writes, and I can confirm that I feel an urge and a repsonsibility to remove the per capita map because also the newer version still has multiple issues concerning a) well-definedness, b) meaningfulnes, c) accuracy, d) verifiability / falsifiability, that I do not see addressed, or at the very least discussed with arguments that might convince, by e.g. Monopoly31121993(2).Redav (talk) 01:16, 17 March 2020 (UTC) From Monopoly31121993(2)'s reply on Commons here, it looks like they may not know how to convert a PNG to an SVG. I don't know how myself; is it an easy thing to do? If so, could someone guide them through it? And if not, it looks like the best approach may be for someone else to build a per-capita map from scratch. Sdkb (talk) 03:41, 17 March 2020 (UTC) @Ythlev and Dan Polansky: Would either of you be able to explain how one might use the code you wrote above to create a per capita SVG map? I'm not a technical expert, but we very urgently need someone who is to help with this task. If you need it, population data for the world and province-level info is provided in the WHO daily situation reports like this one. Sdkb (talk) 07:12, 17 March 2020 (UTC) There is no easy way to convert PNG to SVG; the other way around is easy. PNG is a raster image, like colored tiles in your bathroom; SVG is a vector image, representing shapes as lines, arcs, circles and such. PNG knows no shapes; it is just a huge grid of colored tiles. The script on my talk page already grabs Wikipedia sources and provides calculated output. What I would need to do is to expand the script to 1) download a blank SVG of the political world map from Wikipedia sources, 2) create a mapping from country names to country codes since the calculation uses country names and the SVG map probably has country codes in it, in comments or the like, 3) determine which colors to use for which ranges, 4) use the calculated per capita output to color the blank SVG, 5) save the result to SVG file. In a sense, it is very straightforward, but it still takes effort and attention, and I do not know whether I find time and energy to do it any time soon, in part since I have also to make deliberations, measures, and actions concerning me personally; I do not promise anything. I am happy that I can extract cases per capita and deaths per capita in a snap. --Dan Polansky (talk) 07:36, 17 March 2020 (UTC) There are a few thing to sort out first. What should the map be. As I said, the map should be peak active cases per capita because it reflects the mitigation efforts and health system burden. Data source. Currently the map (cases map) is just updated by whichever figure is latest for a country. It's quite hard to write a script that can read the current map and update it. What is feasible is to read a community-maintained list of figures. Someone wrote a scrip that can read Wikidata. Alternatively we could just use a single source like John Hopkins University with the drawback that it is only updated daily. Either of these approaches would require consensus though. It means the map can't just be edited by anyone who has the latest figure. Ythlev (talk) 09:17, 17 March 2020 (UTC) @Sdkb:@Ythlev: I located what seems to be an svg world map on https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Population_density_countries_2017_world_map,_people_per_sq_km.svg. I am hoping my next line will help enlist its author in the map project under consideration.Redav (talk) 11:30, 17 March 2020 (UTC) @Ms Sarah Welch: You appear to be the author of an svg world map. There is a request at https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Talk:2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_pandemic&action=edit&section=9 for an svg world map showing numbers per capita for, among other things, the reported active COVID-19 cases per country / region / dependency / other division type. Would you be able and willing in helping create such a map? Some work on e.g. scripts that calculate the numbers and label them to either country names or country codes, seems to be done already. Thanks a lot!Redav (talk) 11:30, 17 March 2020 (UTC) Ta da! Ythlev (talk) 12:02, 17 March 2020 (UTC) Peak active cases per capita I've included details in case someone wants to check. Ythlev (talk) 12:05, 17 March 2020 (UTC) @Ythlev: This looks promising! Again I propose to include in the title the words "reported" and "active" (or another appropriate word if another quantity is going to be presented) and furthermore to mention the source(s). I can see the list on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_pandemic_data is not the (only) source for your current map, since e.g. the total number of infected for (the country of) the Netherlands (which, by the way, is only part of the Kingdom of the Netherlands) mentioned there differs from the 1,413 your table shows, and the Netherlands do not count the recovered. The latter, of course, limits the meaningfulness of a number A = T - R - D for the Netherlands. (Symbols explained above on this page.) Another remark is that your table shows a date of 18 Feb 2020 for the China data. Are there no more recent data available?Redav (talk) 13:13, 17 March 2020 (UTC) I wish I didn't have to keep repeating this. In a pandemic, people are bound to get sick. What matters is whether they all get sick at the same time, hence the map I made is peak active cases per capita. China is way past its peak. Ythlev (talk) 13:34, 17 March 2020 (UTC) @Ythlev: Thanks for your explanation (again, as you say). You seem to address me specifically (although I am not sure you actually do). If that is the case, I cannot see which part of my input you are discussing or arguing with, since I cannot remember inputting any arguments regarding more / less usefulness / uselessness of current and/or peak active cases. If you mean to say that 18 Feb 2020 was the date with the (reported) peak in active cases, and that the data list you provided concerns this quantity, then I can now understand why this particular date is reflected in your list. But I do not remember seeing / reading that the data list was about peak active cases at the respective peak days for the respective countries / territories / division of whatever kind. Maybe I missed it, maybe it was not provided.Redav (talk) 16:38, 17 March 2020 (UTC) @Ythlev: Is there a substantial number of divisions (e.g. countries, territories, provinces, etc.) that record the number of recoveries from COVID-19? I know that (country of) the Netherlands does not do so. For such countries, I do not see how a meaningful number of active cases can be obtained. I do, however, agree that a map which presents accurate values of the accurate cases per capita, would be very interesting and meaningful indeed.Redav (talk) 17:50, 17 March 2020 (UTC) The data is from John Hopkins University, who collects data from various sources, so I have no idea. But they do report 1 recovery from the Netherlands. Ythlev (talk) 20:32, 17 March 2020 (UTC) @Ythlev: On https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6 (which I think is the source you mean) I see mention of 2 recoveries for (the country of) Netherlands. This number is the same as shown on https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/. Following sources from both websites, I have not been able to find any ultimate source for these 2 alleged recoveries. What is more - and I repeat this message that I already repeatedly gave on https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template_talk:2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_pandemic_data in relation to the (first) table in the article - is that public health authority RIVM in (the country of) the Netherlands does not count recoveries. This can be read on its website https://www.rivm.nl/coronavirus/covid-19/vragen-antwoorden#nederland (in Dutch). There, the text "Hoeveel mensen zijn in Nederland inmiddels genezen van COVID-19? Dat is op dit moment niet bekend. Er is geen meldingsplicht om door te geven dat mensen zijn genezen van de ziekte. Iemand die 24 uur geen klachten meer heeft wordt als genezen beschouwd." translates as: "How many people in the Netherlands have recovered from COVID-19? At this moment this is unknown. There is no obligation to report that people have recovered. Someone who has no complaints during 24 hours is considered as recovered." Does this convince? Therefore, I can see no reason whatsoever to use a number of recoveries for (the country of) the Netherlands. Does this help to reach a consensus that (secondary) sources mentioning a specific number of recoveries are overriden by what can be considered as the best possible source for data about (the country of) the Netherlands at this point in time? (The Kingdom of the Netherlands - I repeat, or maybe I mention it for the first time on this page - includes and is more than (the country of) the Netherlands.)Redav (talk) 22:01, 17 March 2020 (UTC) @Redav: Well, some countries are thought to underreport figures. Some countries have more tests than others. It's impossible for the map to be perfectly accurate no matter what. Ythlev (talk) 06:10, 18 March 2020 (UTC) @Ythlev: Your point in itself is clear to me. In fact, I am convinced that not only some but every country underreports, in the sense that they undertest: not every infected person is tested. On top of that, there may be authorities which deliberately underreport with respect to the figures they know as the outcomes of the tests that they actually (had) carried out. But, as long as we accept to define the quantities used to fill tables and draw maps, as the figures published by the responsible authorities that may be assumed to best know the data (even if flawed by undertesting), in my view there is no reason to accept any figures that deviate from the figures reported by these responsible authorities. So, in the case of (the country of) the Netherlands with the responsible authority RIVM which clearly states they do not count the recovered, I see no reason to accept the number of 2 recovered as mentioned by some. If we would accept such a figure, we would deviate from what I think is probably the most feasible definition of a measured quantity to be presented, and we (would) seem to be following some - not or less well-defined - strategy of, say, estimation. I am not saying estimation is absolutely unhelpful, but I argue that estimated figures be separated from the reported figures, however flawed the latter may be. Contrary to what you write, I am not convinced that the map is bound to be inaccurate, at least not to the degree that I understand you mean. Starting from the definition that what the map and table present are figures reported by the respective responsible authorities, we seem to be able to be certain of at least accurately presenting these reported figures. So, the quantity we would (try to) present are not the actual numbers of active COVID-19 cases - however much we would like to have those figures -, but rather the reported figures just mentioned. The main inaccuracy left is then related to in how far an authority is the only (uncontested) authority for a particular division (e.g. country, province, state, territory).Redav (talk) 14:02, 18 March 2020 (UTC) Total cases per capita I added an SVG version of the map with the latest numbers and sources. Feel free to comment and/or adapt the map. Raphaël Dunant (talk) 13:38, 17 March 2020 (UTC) @Raphaël Dunant: Thanks for your work; it's nice to have it back! Regarding possible tweaks, I see a few: Greenland appears to reflect the data for Denmark, rather than itself. There's a weird border curving up along the right side. Also, now that we have a workable map back, it would be nice to start trying to figure out how to integrate province-level data for China, as requested above. Sdkb (talk) 17:34, 17 March 2020 (UTC) Great indeed to have such a map. Of course, we need to realize that its value is limited by under-testing / under-reporting in the reported confirmed cases, but it certainly helps. As to China's provinces, would any of the svg-maps on https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Maps_of_subdivisions_of_China help? (I do not know how svg maps technically work, and hope the specialists can easily assess that.)Redav (talk) 17:43, 17 March 2020 (UTC) Thank you @Sdkb: for the improvement suggestion. The weird border curving has been corrected. Note that Greenland has the correct value of 1 case per 56171 inhabitants , which is different color from mainland Denmark. I also colored French (Guyane, Reunion, etc.) and UK (Jersey, Gibraltar, etc.) dependencies differently than the mainland, with their correct color. For @Redav: remark on breaking down Chinese provinces, then we could argue of also breaking down big countries (Russia, Brazil, etc.)? Note that it will make the map harder to maintain, and that in this case we also need to do it for the total case map. We can open a new Talk session for finer-grained maps. Raphaël Dunant (talk) 18:07, 17 March 2020 (UTC) Oops, I assumed it wasn't in Greenland yet, but I guess we're at that point.We're now officially on track to win the IRL Plague, Inc. /humor And yes, good thought to make that a separate section; I'll open that up now. Sdkb (talk) 18:14, 17 March 2020 (UTC) At User talk:Dan Polansky, I now posted a script that creates an svg fully automatically from data that it grabs from Wikipedia. Maybe someone will find it useful. I suspect there are glitches in region match between the sources of data, but overall, my impression is good. --Dan Polansky (talk) 19:43, 17 March 2020 (UTC) @Raphaël Dunant: It looks great that, as far as I can judge from blowing up the map, at least three of the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands (namely Aruba, Curaçao and (the country of) the Netherlands) have separate values and colours; I did not yet succeed in discerning the fourth, being Sint Maarten, but that may be caused by the relative smallness of that country. You even created a separate value and colour for one the three public bodies within - i.e. belonging to - (the country of) the Netherlands that lie in the Caribbean, namely Bonaire. Again the relative smallness of the other two public bodies (Sint Eustatius and Saba) may be the cause of me not being able to identify them on the map. These are welcome contributions to me. As to breaking down countries into provinces, states: I have not exactly pleaded for such breaking down of numbers - though I have tried to point to svg maps for China broken down into provinces -, but - of course - interesting it would certainly be, if feasible and accurate.Redav (talk) 23:33, 17 March 2020 (UTC) Total deaths per capita (outdent) I now created File:COVID-19 Outbreak World Map Total Deaths per Capita.svg, using code at Commons:File talk:COVID-19 Outbreak World Map Total Deaths per Capita.svg. --Dan Polansky (talk) 08:46, 18 March 2020 (UTC) The deaths per capita is a nice job! It does seem to indicate the severity of the situation in the respective countries much better than the cases per capita. I hope we can use it! —St.nerol (talk) 12:19, 18 March 2020 (UTC) Thanks for the remark about the visibility. I brightened the total cases per capita map to make it more readable. Raphaël Dunant (talk) 15:11, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Including additional maps in collapsed state

Draft:2019–20 coronavirus pandemic/Infobox sandbox Old title: Let's introduce an interactive drop-down menu to switch between maps

As I explained above, I think the per capita cases map is much more useful for readers than the total cases map, and will continue to become even more so as the virus said. That said, I can imagine some readers validly wanting to see a total cases map, as well as a total deaths map, per capita deaths map, total new cases map, and per capita new cases map. As we (hopefully) work on getting the per capita map turned into an SVG, I was wondering whether it would be possible to, instead of having multiple maps above and below each other, display one map by default (I'd prefer the per capita cases map due again to my explanation above, but that's open to debate), and have a drop-down menu that readers could use to switch between maps, ideally including most or all of the ones I just listed. Do any of the more technically-inclined among you know if we could do that? I know it's fancy, but it seems like it would be worth the effort for the top of an article as prominent as this. Sdkb (talk) 20:17, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

This doesn't seem to be getting engagement. Is that since you all don't like the idea, or just since no one who has seen this yet knows how to do it? If you have an opinion for/against the idea, it'd be helpful to know that, as achieving consensus is a precursor to figuring out technical implementation. Sdkb (talk) 19:20, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Okay, so after looking into this a bit, I think a much easier option that'd have a similar effect would be to include a bunch of maps but just collapse them by default using {{collapsed infobox section begin}} and {{collapsed infobox section end}}. What say you all to that? Sdkb (talk) 08:57, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

@Sdkb: It's a little hard to know before I've seen it. It's probably a good idea, but I think at least one map should be visible without clicking. I started an RfC above about which maps to use, which is relevant with regards to your initiative. St.nerol (talk) 11:16, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

@St.nerol: I've whipped up a preview of what it might look like in the sandbox and added it along the side here. The maps included or not included are obviously open to debate; your RfC should hopefully help clarify that. Sdkb (talk) 17:37, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Splitting data by state/province

(mostly copying my comment from above to kick this off) By and large, I much prefer the per capita map. It's main problem seems to be that it doesn't appropriately show how severe the outbreak has been in the part of China where it originated. Fortunately, there's a solution to that: splitting up the data for China by province. That way, Hubei will presumably show up as appropriately severe. The main downside of this approach is that some readers might ask why China gets more granular data than other countries, but I think most won't have a problem (and if the data does exist for generating a world map of prevalence by zip code or some other smaller unit and we could turn it into a map, or just adding data for e.g. Italy, that would of course be brilliant). The data for such an addition is pretty readily available; both the population and case numbers are included in yesterday's WHO daily situation report. Sdkb (talk) 18:48, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Sure; I don't mind showing provinces of China, or some other large country where the case concentration turns out to be very different for different parts. But I guess China is the most relevant to show provice-level here. —St.nerol (talk) 23:06, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Good idea, but could be harder to implement. If you give me a blank world map that has the provinces split and if you give me Wikipedia pages from which I can grab covid and population data for the provinces, I can implement that. I guess I could find the data pages by myself, and the bottleneck would be getting the map. --Dan Polansky (talk) 07:59, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Interactive timeline maps

Template:Interactive COVID-19 maps lists some interactive maps I created using mw:Extension:Graph. Readers can move the slider at the top to view global COVID cases for a given day, and hovering over a country displays the exact datapoint for that country on that day. I'm interested in feedback on the maps since the user interface could probably be improved, and given the extensive coverage of this pandemic, I'm also interested in how editors familiar with this topic would use them. My first thought was to have them at Timeline of the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic but maybe others have better ideas. Thanks to Siliconred for suggesting this at WP:VPT. — Wug·a·po·des​ 05:48, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Interactive map example

@Wugapodes: Ooh, I like these; nice work! Two big issues that I'd want to see addressed before these are implemented anywhere. First, South Korea and North Korea are switched (North Korea is the one that at least claims to have no cases). I didn't look too closely, so there may also be other data issues. Second, when you're at the start of the slider, it's weird to have some countries be gray and others white; it's only at the end that you realize the gray ones are the ones that still don't have any cases. Just make them all white. In terms of use, it seems we may be poised to collapse the non-primary maps, and I'd be fine with a timeline being included among those, or even, if it develops enough, becoming the primary map itself. Sdkb (talk) 06:47, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Other more minor issues: some weird stuff can happen with the cursor when you move off the image and then back on, etc. Also, given how terrible people are at geography, it'd be nice to display the country name when you hover over a country, not just the case count. And ideally (perhaps pie-in-the-skyly), clicking on the country would lead to the article on the pandemic in that country. Sdkb (talk) 06:53, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

I fixed the South Korea issue; the data are formatted by script, and it chose the wrong korea ISO code. The colors have been changed, and the country name is now displayed on hover as well. The weird behavior when you mouse off the canvas is something I'm trying to fix. As for clicking on a country and being taken to the corresponding article, I think it can be done. I'll look into both of those last two tasks tomorrow. — Wug·a·po·des​ 07:52, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Proposal: Move moratorium

These requested moves on here are getting disruptive so I formally propose a moratorium. I am neutral on how long it should be. Interstellarity (talk) 20:51, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Support

1. Support - We need to focus on the content, not the title. What the final title will be hinges on what the end-point of this pandemic ends up being: we should be wary about trying to title the current incident while living through it. doktorb _words^deeds 20:55, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
2. Support The last move was pretty disruptive, taking the usual editors to move all other related pages and updating them to conform to the new page name of this main article. Let's wait for the pandemic to stabilise first (be it for good or bad). robertsky (talk) 21:16, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
3. Support a 30 day move moratorium, unless and new consensus to lift this moratorium occurs before then. - MrX 🖋 21:30, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
4. Support. The renamings 3 time a day is ridiculous. Iluvalar (talk) 03:38, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
5. Support. This is clearly a long-running distraction that has been affecting this page and its related subpages. Carrots have stopped working, so it's time for the stick. --benlisquare_T•C•E 04:49, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
6. Support. I think that there are reasonable arguments for COVID-19 rather than coronavirus, but there are also good counterarguments, and any proposal along these lines wouldn't have a snowball's chance in hell of being seen as a priority right now. We can get back to this in six to twelve months' time. The change to pandemic was justified, but any other changes (such as from coronavirus to COVID-19, or in terms of the year(s)), are minor matters compared to the content. I propose at least a 3-month moratorium. Boud (talk) 01:05, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
7. Support. This is clearly needed now, as yet another RM comes along on yet another triviality. Obviously moratoria are not suicide pacts - if something radically changes in the real world, then of course we're allowed to think again. But for now the current names enjoy solid consensus and we should have the ability to shut down quickly the never-ending attempts at moves between the different names, when nothing has radically changed.  — Amakuru (talk) 12:05, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
8. In the last 2 weeks, there have been about 13 requested moves, many of which have been speedily closed per SNOW. In the last RM, some editors supported the idea of a moratorium. Therefore, I request that there be a moratorium for the next 3 months on page moves, as having these daily requests is becoming very disruptive. Three months should be long enough for the pandemic to die down somewhat and by then we should all have the time to look more closely at the requests without being bogged down by the rapidly evolving situation currently going on. Thanks. Mgasparin (talk) 22:08, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
9. would support such action--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 22:36, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
10. Support the standard six month moratorium. No move proposals on this page before September. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:40, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Oppose

1. 'Oppose': I notice there was some WP:RM recently, but most of them seems to too focus on "wanting to close" despite some merit on the RM starter side. I want to restrict users from attempting to enforce additional rules that would censor voices in RM and prevent users from using vote "Speedy Close" or having it closed for WP:SNOW. Wants them to keep RM open for 7 days no matter how much were started after another. Regice2020 (talk) 23:48, 15 March 2020 (UTC) Speedy Close As this issue been reviewed. It apparently there is a group individuals wants to prevent name changes unless it fits their "groups" agenda by proposal ridiculous amount rules to restrict voices from the other side. This the regular way to request a move and just make sure no other move are active Request Move Request. The users are following the instructions and these individuals are not allowing it last longer than 1 day for wahtever reason. Regice2020 (talk) 04:46, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
2. Oppose: we moved too slowly on removing "Wuhan" from the article title. A move moratorium is too extreme of a solution to this problem. We should remain adaptable. This may be for another discussion, but I propose we only allow one move request or move review to be open at a time. This makes sense because move requests/reviews technically conflict with each other. For example, we can move from "2019–20 coronavirus pandemic" to "2019–20 COVID-19 pandemic" or to "2019–20 SARS-CoV-2 pandemic" but not to both. In practice, this means any move request started while a request or move review is still ongoing gets closed immediately, and all discussion redirected to the active move discussion. I am still thinking of how to close the loophole of people NACing a move discussion early just so they can post their own. Rotideypoc41352 (talk · contribs) 07:23, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Comment

• We have proven that we are able to deal with multiple move requests, and we cannot predict the future. So let’s just be the encyclopaedia that we are, and just deal with them when they arise. —49.195.179.13 (talk) 05:26, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
• Instead of a formal move request that puts a notice on top of the page, start an informal discussion on this page first to float the ideas. I think almost all of these move requests are wasting effort. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 05:34, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

  I support this option. A moratorium on move request notices, not on move discussions. -St.nerol (talk) 15:01, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

  Support this as well. --Efly (talk) 01:26, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

  I support this. Sdkb (talk) 07:14, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

• I think this is just part of a larger issue of settled matters being dredged up again and again on this talk page. It's indicative of the need for a "current consensuses" banner, as has been proposed below, and is basically awaiting someone to create it. Sdkb (talk) 07:14, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Illustration of an aspect of social distancing

Alternatives to handshakes

In my opinion this is a useful illustration of one aspect of social distancing. Of course a lot of measures will be required. Not sure why removed? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:01, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Can you justify why this funny comic strip showing people doing thumbs-up and namaste is a useful illustration? Because it's obvious to me that's not the case. In fact, I would go so far as to say that this kind of content has no place in an encyclopedia. Wikipedia isn't a textbook for kids. --RaphaelQS (talk) 04:15, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

These are example of avoiding direct content with other people. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:30, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

I think it would make a very useful addition. HiLo48 (talk) 04:37, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

agree it would be a useful addition...IMO--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:01, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

References

These animated images feel a little out of place on Wikipedia. Displaying handshake alternatives doesn't feel as important as communicating some other prevention recommendations and the animated format can be distracting. - Wikmoz (talk) 05:42, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

It can also be engaging. We have the instructions on how healthcare providers should put on PPE. We do not really need more pictures of people wearing masks. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:24, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

There are a few cultural references that are specific to New Zealand: hongi, “NZSL” and “East Coast wave”. That isn’t ideal for an article that’s global in scope; many viewers will be wondering what a hongi is before noticing the .nz URL. Roches (talk) 09:16, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

This illustrates the global nature of the outbreak and that yes some responses will be local. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:24, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

• I'd oppose the use of such graphics. It made the article looks like it's for children, and also quite irrelevant for a global audience. I'd oppose anything made by that website whose images aren't good at all (as can be seen by their misrepresentation of the intervention curve, suggesting that the quality of their so-called experts is dubious). Hzh (talk) 09:56, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
  • • That would need a reference / more than your personal opinion. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:24, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Their curve is sourced to CDC, and since it deviates from that source, we can say it misrepresent the source. Anyone who can misrepresent a source cannot be reliable. Hzh (talk) 17:08, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

No we cannot say that. The CDC does not exclusively dictate the field of community health and epidemiology. This is an entire profession. The CDC graph combines multiple actions into one graph well the other graphs deal with one aspect at a time. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:32, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

They did more than emphasizing one single aspect. For example, they moved the curve below health capacity, which is not supported by the source. I have seen curves used in various news report, and they made no such claim even when showing a line for health care capacity (for example, a recent report I saw on BBC TV news and it shows the curve going above the line with intervention). The idea that you can do it with a large-scale outbreak, particularly with no decrease in total number of cases, is pure nonsense. All the curves I've seen in RS in fact also show decrease number of cases, which is not shown in this curve. Very poor effort by that website. Hzh (talk) 17:56, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

What "large-scale outbreak"? Most of the images I've seen have been somewhat targeted at an NZ audience. NZ has 20 cases so far. Significantly, fewer at the time the images you are referring to were likely created. Which highlights the point that there has been a worrying increase in cases. However, there's still no indication of any real community spread, and all the border closures likely mean there are likely a bunch of people who've decided it's time to come home fairly recently. (Plus NZ still hasn't banned non residents and citizens from coming so there's probably some coming to try and ride out the outbreak in NZ.) There is some concern over insufficient testing, and so we may be in a Italy, UK etc situation. The hope is that NZ can prevent this becoming an outbreak akin to Italy etc. Whether that will succeed is strongly debated. But if you're trying to apply the images to the situation in Italy etc, it's not surprising that they don't work since I don't think they were really targeted at such a situation. Nil Einne (talk) 10:31, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

If you are arguing that that curve is specific for NZ, then it is not applicable to the rest of the world, therefore it should not be used aimed at a global audience. Hzh (talk) 11:16, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Hi, Thank you so much to all the volunteers who are helping share evidence-based information in this article. I took a look at "File:Covid-19-Handshake-Alternatives-v3.gif" and also the source. I think it adds information to the article and given that the article has strong references that follow Wikipedia's Guidelines indicating that social distancing is a prevention measure, I do not see why we cannot include this to demonstrate social distancing. Given that articles are supposed to be written at a level for everyone to understand, I support re-adding this. JenOttawa (talk) 12:07, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

What information is added? You can't just say that the illustration adds information and expect people to take your word for it. To be absolutely clear, this illustration is useless, distracting and unencyclopaedic and should be removed. --RaphaelQS (talk) 18:02, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

There is no clear consensus to use it (4 support, 4 oppose or expressed reservations), so I'm not sure why it's been put back. Hzh (talk) 20:35, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

While I can appreciate several of the arguments against this, on balance, I'm in favor of this illustration. The main reason is that there is a lot of high profile image/footage at the moment of people using greetings that bring them physically close to each other, like elbow and foot bumps: this image is sending the message that true alternatives aren't physical contact. On whether it's too childish, I don't think that's a problem: some readers are young, and this style of cartoon adds lightheartedness to a social issue at a time when people are very stressed about their personal behavior. I think many images on Wikipedia are culturally specific, so I'm not fussed about one being NZ-centric. Hildabast (talk) 20:48, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Here is some rudimentary "social distancing" lineart: 1. no crowds, 2. physical distance, 3. no handshakes. I can make more in the same style, if there is anything you would like to have depicted. Cheers, gnu57 23:09, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

• I wouldn't be opposed to the use of a graphic like this one, but it should be multicultural (include alternatives greetings from different cultures), without a watermark and ideally public domain and uploaded on Commons. Darylgolden^(talk) Ping when replying 23:35, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
  • You able to trim the stuff at the bottom User:Darylgolden? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:02, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
    • @Doc James: That would likely be illegal (or at the very least, very shady). Darylgolden^(talk) Ping when replying 01:10, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Well it isn't. I am happy to remove. It is on commons. It is under an open license. And it is multicultural. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:13, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

As others have pointed out, it is New Zealand-centric. Though I suppose I wouldn't be opposed to the use of this image, but I don't think it should be used in this article (there are more important aspects to social distancing than alternative greetings). Darylgolden^(talk) Ping when replying 01:55, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Okay what do you have as illustrations that are available under an open license. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:07, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

This image contains credits in the image itself. Because this image is a freely licensed image, it is in violation of Wikipedia's image use policy.--RaphaelQS (talk) 00:22, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Sure have cropped them. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:34, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

If the illustration demonstrates in one small space several important methods of avoiding hand contact... It appears ok to me to use. It's effective. A number of world leaders are talking about them and if it cheers people up as a sideline, does it matter that it is a cartoon?Whispyhistory (talk) 04:42, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

I'm a Kiwi so probably biased but I support the use of that image. As a free image, we don't have to worry about the possibility other images could be created which may be the same or better. The only question is whether this one is good enough and IMO it is. If someone creates another suitable free images, then we can discuss which one to use but until then..... If editors are really worried about the 2 or so panels which are somewhat NZ specific, we can always remove them but IMO it's not necessary. The question of whether other images created have been misleading is largely moot unless someone can provide evidence that this image is a problem. Editor's personal dislike for the website, is also irrelevant unless they can show some reason why it matters to us. (E.g. they mislead on copyright.) Nil Einne (talk) 10:12, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

What about including it on the 2020 coronavirus pandemic in New Zealand article? Bondegezou (talk) 14:02, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

• I believe I was the one that removed the image. The article is already thick with illustrations and this is pretty light on educational value in comparison. I'm not opposed to its use on more specific articles like Social distancing, but the bar for educational value warranting inclusion is set by the range of illustrations available for a subject, and I don't believe this falls in the upper range of most educationally useful media for this higher level subject. GMG^talk 12:56, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

How can we get this talk page under control?

The amount of attention being devoted to this article is immense, and as might be expected, it's making this talk page really unwieldy and unorganized. Even with the 24hr archiving, there are still tons of duplicate discussions being opened up, making it difficult to centralize discussion on discrete topics like the maps. I'd like to use this thread as a space for proposing solutions to get things under control. Some ideas:

• Introducing a pinned list of established consensuses similar to the one at Donald Trump.
• Relax the norms about not changing section headings, applying WP:SECTIONHEADINGOWN to better define what discussions are happening in each section.
• Using the archiving and collapsing templates more liberally to stop proposals unlikely to pass before they suck up too much oxygen and generate clutter.
• More readily transferring comments made in an inappropriate place to the appropriate centralised discussion.

I'm sure there are more ideas that aren't occurring to me, but the basic gist is that experienced editors should be more aggressive about cleaning up this talk page than we normally would be for one with a more normal level of activity. Also, I should note that for the related issue of the edit history of the article itself also being extremely unwieldy, I requested that we add a line to the edit notice encouraging better edit summary usage. Cheers, Sdkb (talk) 04:38, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

I have been grouping discussions. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:48, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks! I guess we just need more others helping you and/or more aggressive grouping, then. Sdkb (talk) 05:13, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

I pulled the archival down to 18h to decrease the number of discussions here. Not sure if that's the best idea or not. Feel free to change it back if you disagree. Mgasparin (talk) 09:42, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

people don’t refactor like they used to, strikethroughs aren’t necessary, one can summarise —Almaty (talk) 11:46, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

I'm not too familiar with the history (if there's a page documenting that, I'd be curious to see it), but I think refactoring might need to start coming back. Sdkb (talk) 19:06, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

I think a WP:NOTFORUM edit notice might be warranted, for one thing. Dekimasuよ! 15:55, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

@Dekimasu: Implement that as well as semi-protecting both the article and talk page to only autoconfirmed users. CaradhrasAiguo (leave language) 15:58, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

I don't think protecting the talk page is warranted. It's very rare to make it impossible to add all edit requests. On the other hand, moving the article itself to extended confirmed is a possibility given the level of protection at other related articles. Dekimasuよ! 16:00, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Ok, then blocking any new users who commit any NOTFORUM infractions. I considered local blocks, but there are too many national / regional sub-articles for that to be feasible and a topic ban would be more feasible logistically anyhow. CaradhrasAiguo (leave language) 16:17, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Page notice added. Dekimasuよ! 16:21, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

looks good--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:30, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

I'm glad to see the talk page edit notice. I agree with Dekimasu that protecting talk pages is generally a last-resort; if we did do so, we'd need to create a sub-talk page so that non-autoconfirmed editors could still participate. Regarding extended-confirmed protection, I think a request would probably be denied given there's not too much vandalism currently, and if it did pass, that might just result in this talk page getting flooded even more with edit requests. It does seem that not all editors are heeding the article page edit notice; perhaps change the i icon to a caution triangle? Sdkb (talk) 19:06, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

I think the problem is none of the header notices, which provide a lot of info, show for mobile users. Rotideypoc41352 (talk · contribs) 03:55, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

@Rotideypoc41352: Are people on mobile really editing a page as huge as this? Oh my. If they are, is there any way to get the notices to show for mobile users? Sdkb (talk) 00:09, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Copying a comment I made below following yet another instance where we were having a discussion, only to realize that someone (we don't know who) had gone straight to editing the article itself: [There is] a concerning phenomenon with this article, where editors trying to engage on the talk page are being steamrolled by editors completely disregarding the talk page/established processes for consensus and making major edits to the article with poor edit summaries. There is simply such a flood of edits to the page that any given edit is not being given adequate scrutiny unless someone notices the change through reading the article itself. This is the exact opposite of the incentive structure we want, and I think it's leading to a decline in the article quality. Sdkb (talk) 06:34, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Proposal: Add a "current consensuses" header at the top

like the one at Donald Trump. This may prevent unnecessary discussions that have been repeatedly been discussed over and over again. Interstellarity (talk) 22:15, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

• Support. This should be uncontroversial. We just need to make sure that anything on the list actually does represent consensus, and realize that consensus can change. - MrX 🖋 22:55, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

  Agreed; it's just a matter of someone taking on the work to create it. It should include only discussions that have taken place on this talk page and either been closed or reached a clear consensus. Sdkb (talk) 00:07, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

• disagree strongly because seemingly minor things such as “exhaled” as User:Doc James and I have disagreed and then agreed on, need to be repetitively discussed, over and over again... the point of the encyclopaedia —Almaty (talk) 16:23, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

  The point of a current consensus header isn't to prevent WP:CCC; it's just to make it easier to identify what the current consensuses are and to find the discussions where those consensuses were previously achieved. It does have the effect of making consensuses a little more solid, but that's a good thing for an article as important as this one. It'll be nice to have an easy shortcut to give to an editor who tries to overturn an established consensus. Sdkb (talk) 21:06, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

I was the one who implemented the current consensus table on the Donald Trump page. To do so would require one of two things first: either an agreement by the community here to adopt the "bold, revert, discuss" method which would require a list of current consensus items for people to work with, or discretionary sanctions (such as are found with the template:COVID19 GS editnotice) which would require a list against which editors can determine what does and does not come under the sanctions. Either option will work, its just a matter of which would be preferred here. TomStar81 (Talk) 12:30, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Increasing fatality rate

We have surprassed the 4 percentage of fatality rate, sadly this most important data sometimes was in the article (I mean the overall fatality rate), but it is now deleted. We are now at 7893/194515=4.05 percentage. 87.97.82.243 (talk) 18:19, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

No, that number is pretty much useless out of context. The number of CONFIRMED case is directly proportional to the amount of tests we throw at it. It's kinda obvious that china gave up testing all of it cases on feb 4. Although they will keep reporting death cases with much more accuracy then confirmed case. I think it's about 100% certain at this point that COVID'S virulence is at least on par with other coronavirus and therefore it's conservative to expect it to hit about 1/20 to 1/10(?) of the world population. In my opinion, you can easily add two 0 to your 194515 give or take one order of magnitude. So we'd be at 0.4% (4x a seasonal flu) to 0.04%(1/2 a seasonal flu). I hope it helps. Iluvalar (talk) 20:41, 17 March 2020 (UTC) That is correct, all the mass hysteria is caused by "1/2 a seasonal flu."--Maxaxax (talk) 22:53, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

"The cluster of mainland China (except Hubei province) still has a decreasing trend in CFR with an estimate of 0.15% (95% CI: 0.12–0.18%)"[9]. Just found this souce, it was in february. Iluvalar (talk) 01:43, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Seasonal flu does not overwhelm your healthcare system, and does not make it run out of ICU beds. Start paying attention, and look at Hubei and Italy. --Dan Polansky (talk) 12:43, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

I only see that Italy found a cold during a cold season as soon as they had the tests available. Italy didn't notice or cared about any surge of death before they had the tests. Which correspond exactly to what would happen if the virus was a seasonal cold. I see no exponential growth of death cases in Hubei, staying well under the normal mortality rate of the region. Also strongly indicating that the virus is not in it exponential growth phase and that the starting flow of cases was strictly caused by tests availability (just like everywhere else in the world). This reinforce the hypothesis (up to 99.5%) that the early detected cases in Wuhan were not the very first infected and that COVID-19 (being overall mild) had time to spread across the world. Chances are, it's already in peak strength across the globe. Iluvalar (talk) 18:00, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Why is Italy seeing healthcare capacity problems that it does not see in common cold? I quote: ' “It’s not a wave. It’s a tsunami,” said Dr. Roberto Rona, in charge of intensive care at the Monza hospital. “It’s something that makes you change completely how you run a hospital.” '[10]. You'll find plenty of such articles; are they unreliable? Do you believe that certain regions in Italy are not running out of ICU beds? Why did Chinese suddenly have to build additional hospitals real quick this year, but not during last year's common cold season? Do you believe that Italy normally run out of ICU beds during common colds epidemics? --Dan Polansky (talk) 19:34, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

At the peak of the flu season ? Yes. Iluvalar (talk) 23:13, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Do you have any sources on China quickly building additional hospitals during peak flu season, in 2019 or other years? --Dan Polansky (talk) 07:12, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

It is very unlikely for China to have built any hospitals for flu in the past, since China has been noted for reporting remarkably few deaths from flu for many years - [11][12]. Hzh (talk) 12:01, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Dan, you have to explain to me how the speed at which we build an hospital prove the deadliness of the virus. I also believe you'd be surprised how many hospital a population of 1.4 billion people need. Iluvalar (talk) 12:27, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Combating U.S.-centric bias

Trimming section on United States

The section on the United States' response is too long relative to the severity of the outbreak in the USA. I think this reflects an inappropriate U.S.-centric perspective that we ought to combat. Can we trim it down, moving excess detail to the U.S. outbreak article? Sdkb (talk) 19:44, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

probably is a bit too long at this point--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 21:31, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

totally agree it's too long. i tried rewritting it a bit so it would be less wordy

"The United States reported its first case of COVID-19 on 20 January, 2020. By March 12, diagnosed cases of COVID-19 in the U.S. exceeded 1,000. The number of cases exceeded 2,000 by March 14; 4,000 by March 16 and 8,000 by March 18. In response, the Trump administration limited travel to and from China and Europe. Many American sports leagues and organizations, such as the NHL, NBA, and MLB have postponed events. As of 18 March 2020, the epidemic was reported to be present in all states, plus the District of Columbia. The number of confirmed cases in the U.S. rose to 8,019, with 124 deaths. A national emergency was declared on 13 March to deal with the outbreak, and individual states have closed schools and restaurants in order to slow the spread of the disease.

The White House has been criticised for downplaying the threat, and controlling the messaging by directing health officials and scientists to coordinate public statements and publications related to the virus with the office of Vice President Mike Pence. On 4 March, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention of the United States deleted the running tally of the number of people tested for the coronavirus across the US from its website. Concerns has risen that the deletion, as well as the previous May 2018 dissolving of the National Security Council directorate for global health security and biodefense, could possibly limit the country's response to the epidemic." Of course we have to put the citations and stuff but MadameButterflyKnife yeah sure.talk 00:29, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Removing U.S. from list of countries with major outbreaks in lead

Someone added the U.S. back to the list of countries in the lead with "major outbreaks", but due to extremely poor edit summary usage, I don't know who they are. I don't think it makes sense to list the U.S. but not e.g. Australia/Malaysia/Japan, so I'm going to take it out again and add a hidden text warning. I think this reflects an inappropriate U.S.-centric perspective that we ought to combat. Sdkb (talk) 20:40, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

No, someone did not "add the U.S. back to the list of countries in the lead with major outbreaks". The USA were included as part of the countries with major outbreaks before your edits, so you are the one deleting the USA without consensus in the talk page. There are over 8,000 cases in the USA, almost as many cases as there are in South Korea, a country labeled as a major outbtreak. And your analogy with Japan makes no sense. In New York city alone (not the state but the city specifically), there are 1,300 cases. In Japan as a whole there are less than 1,000 cases. No single Japanese city has over 1.000 cases. Please, stop deleting the USA without consensus. James343e (talk) 10:10, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

The United States was only added about two days ago (sorry, I'm not able to find the diff, again because of bad edit summary usage/the sheer quantity of edits), so the WP:STATUSQUO is for it to not be present in the lead. I'll revert to that while this discussion plays out. Japan was a bad example for me to choose, but the overall point stands that, when looking at the severity of the outbreak in different parts of the world, there's nothing currently to make the U.S. stand out. Sdkb (talk) 20:29, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

The WP:STATUSQUO was including the USA as one of the countries with major outbreaks before @User:Sdkb edited it. If it was before he edited it, it was the status quo. "when looking at the severity of the outbreak in different parts of the world, there's nothing currently to make the U.S. stand out." There are over 2,500 cases in New York (state), over 1,300 cases in New York City and over 1,000 in Washington, it is already uncontrolled in the country. There are also 8,990 confirmed cases in the USA, more than in South Korea, a country listed as major outbreak. James343e (talk) 10:10, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

It looks like the U.S. was perhaps added here. James343e, I ask that you please self-revert to respect WP:STATUSQUO. You are welcome to continue believing and arguing that the U.S. should be added, but a presence of 48hrs is not close to long enough for the text to acquire status quo status. Sdkb (talk) 22:02, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Dear Sdkb, i find it slightly inapproppriate that you avoid discussing the topic at hand. 2 arguments I gave:

1. There are over 2,500 cases in New York (state), over 1,300 cases in New York City and over 1,000 in Washington, it is already uncontrolled in the country. At this point, it looks like denialism to deny that there is an uncontrolled pandemic in the country.

2. There are over 9,000 confirmed cases in the USA, more than in South Korea, a country listed as major outbreak. Therefore, it makes no sense to include South Korea, but not the USA. It would be following a double standard.

Please, do reply to those arguments, instead of avoiding the topic. The WP:STATUSQUO is valid after 24 hours without revert. Your specfic edit (deleting the USA) has lasted less than 24 hours and so it cannot count as status quo.James343e (talk) 10:10, 18 March 2020 (UTC).

There is no such thing as a 24hr rule for WP:STATUSQUO, and I think any reasonable interpretation of the policy would require text to be present for significantly longer than that before becoming the status quo. I have no interest in debating settled policy here. I ask that an uninvolved editor please enforce it by reverting James343e's edit and then collapse the off-topic portion of this thread so that we can return to the actual question at hand. Sdkb (talk) 22:26, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

You did it again. You ignored my 2 arguments. These are my 2 arguments:

1. There are over 2,500 cases in New York (state), over 1,300 cases in New York City and over 1,000 in Washington, it is already uncontrolled in the country. At this point, it looks like denialism to deny that there is an uncontrolled pandemic in the country.

2. There are over 9,000 confirmed cases in the USA, more than in South Korea, a country listed as major outbreak. Therefore, it makes no sense to include South Korea, but not the USA. It would be following a double standard.

Please do reply to those 2 arguments. The talk page is to discuss about the topic at hand, not to avoid the discussion, as you are strategically doing by ignoring my 2 arguments. By the way, there is no such thing as "an edition needs to last 48 hours to be status quo", especially in constantly changing articles about an ongoing event like this.James343e (talk) 10:10, 18 March 2020 (UTC).

I noted in my edit summary for the previous message that I was replying to policy and would reply to your arguments in a minute. I've now done so below (slight delay from the edit conflicts), but you evidently could not wait that long before accusing me of avoiding your points. (Side note: it appears the timestamps on your signatures are inaccurate. If you are copying your earlier signatures, you may want to use tildes instead.) Sdkb (talk) 22:36, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

@James343e: I noted above that Japan was a bad example for me to choose, but the overall point stands that, when looking at the severity of the outbreak in different parts of the world, there's nothing currently to make the U.S. stand out. You asked me to reply specifically to your points about the counts in some U.S. cities and about the comparison to South Korea. Regarding the former, those numbers don't mean much unless they are put in comparison with other global cities, many of which also have similar counts. Regarding the latter, the U.S. is a much bigger country than South Korea, so having only a slightly higher count is not very persuasive. Cheers, Sdkb (talk) 22:36, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

@Sdkb: OK, let us compare with other global cities. Please do tell me the name of one single city in the world (only one), that has over 1,500 coronavirus cases, and is from a country which is not included as having a "major outbreak" in the lead paragraph. You won't find it. That is the reason why NY city having over 1,500 cases proves there is an already uncontrolled pandemic in the USA.

Another proof: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

The USA is the 4th country in the world with most new COVID-19 cases the last 24 hours. Will you keep the denialism? James343e (talk) 23:10, 18 March 2020 (UTC).

I wasn't able to find a list of global cities by coronavirus cases. Can you give me your source for your assertion that NYC has the highest count? Regarding the worldometers list, it also shows that countries like Israel and Singapore have nearly twice the per capita case count as the U.S. I'm perfectly open to adding the U.S. if there is evidence that the severity of the outbreak has reached a comparable level to the countries/regions already listed (remember that we're here to build an encyclopedia, not win battles; there's no shame in conceding). However, I have not seen such evidence yet, and the WP:BURDEN is on you to provide it. Sdkb (talk) 23:32, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

@Sdkb:Well, arguably you have the WP:BURDEN to demonstrate your thesis, as you deleted an already existing USA mention as major outbreak that had lasted more than 24 hours in a constantly changing article of an ongoing event.

I send you a link that indicates the number of daily cases detected. Here you have the link: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/#countries

If you carefully read the link, you will see that the USA is the 4th country with most daily new cases in the world. How is that not a major outbreak in the USA? So only 3 countries in the world have a major outbreak?

In addition to that, there are over 1,500 cases in New York City, and no other city in the world has so many cases and is part of a country not included in the lead section of major outbreaks. I don't need to send you a list of other cities, it is common sense. In Japan as a whole there are less than 1,000 cases, and other cities with more cases are alreayd included with the mention of Europe. In the next 24 hours, NY could be in quarantine according to local news.

What is your criterion to add the USA? Do you need 1 million cases? Not even China needed 1 million cases to be included as a major outbreak. The USA has now more cases than both South Korea and France, both of which are listed as having a major outbreak (France is in nationwide quarantine as decreted by their first minister Macron). James343e (talk) 02:10, 18 March 2020 (UTC).

@User:Sdkb: I accidentally reverted the message you added when making other lead changes; I have reverted my mistake. I don't seek to make an argument in either direction on this topic. — Goszei (talk) 20:03, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

There is no country with major outbreak. We are all human beings. The virus doesn't care if you are democrats, republican or jew. The gray countries in Africa on the map doesn't mean the virus go around their frontiers, it's just a sign of their health system capacity. The "curve" may be flatten or not in some countries, but unless some evil genius start thinning the population with flamethrowers, the virus WILL propagate internationally until it's own wake of infected people slow the propagation down on it tracks. 5% to 25% of the world population I would guesstimate... I agree with Sdkb, the article is a bit too much US centric. Iluvalar (talk) 20:53, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

We are required to deal with facts from reliable sources here. America is having a major outbreak by any metric. It's going to get worse, especially when compared to those nations which took timely and effective action. The virus doesn't read Wikipedia, and there is no way anything we write or do or write here can affect the spread.

With one exception. By providing a timely, accurate, and NPOV resource for those looking for information, we can help people take effective action.

As for US-centric, remember that this is the English-language Wikipedia, and we may reasonably expect that our readers come from the English-speaking world, of which [is the largest single nation]. We are going to have more Americans reading our article than (say) Chinese, Koreans, or Italians. --Pete (talk) 23:08, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

The USA just passed S. Korea by number of cases. So I think it is reasonable to keep it. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:08, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

It appears that the whole sentence concerning countries affected by major outbreaks was removed at some point, should it be restored? — Goszei (talk) 22:34, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

It appears so. I'm okay with it being taken out — we already have mentions elsewhere in the lead to China, as the origin, and Europe, as the new epicenter. I'll see if I can work in a wikilink to the overall pandemic article for China, as that appears to be missing, and (possibly) to the articles for South Korea and Iran.

More generally, this is another example of a concerning phenomenon with this article, where editors trying to engage on the talk page are being steamrolled by editors completely disregarding the talk page/established processes for consensus and making major edits to the article with poor edit summaries. There is simply such a flood of edits to the page that any given edit is not being given adequate scrutiny unless someone notices the change through reading the article itself. This is the exact opposite of the incentive structure we want, and I think it's leading to a decline in the article quality. Sdkb (talk) 06:06, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

I think we can agree that the government of China can not be considered an accurate or reliable source of information. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 204.62.118.152 (talk) 06:25, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Add new Field Death by country

Can someone update the table with *Death Rate By Country* as I tried showing in the picture? I am not good in updating the Wikipedia table and moreover I think I can not update this article. I think it will help to compare the healthcare system by country in this crisis. DeathRate = (Deaths / Reported cases) * 100

will look--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 13:56, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Rankings and active cases and percentages

Can we edit the list of countries affected, by adding in rankings, to check if a country has slowed down or increased exponentially? It's a bit hard to count.

Also, it would help if there was another column for active cases, so we can list them by total infected, active cases, number of deaths, or per 10 million capita.

180.129.74.216 (talk) 04:10, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

More columns will make it wider. We should try to keep it narrow so it works on mobile better. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:23, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

I fully agree with adding active cases to the page. This is the more important number than cases. China is a save country now! Since there is great reluctance to include active cases in the present table, just make a second table for the sake of humanity. In the second table you have three columns: Active cases, percentages with respect to previous day, new cases. Active cases are simply calculated from confirmed cases minus recovered minus deaths. Robads (talk) 18:02, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Completely agree. The number of active cases has become far more relevant to the current situation than the number of overall cases Romdwolf (talk) 18:10, 19 March 2020 (U

No confirmed cases

Nothing was said about any recoveries in Poland yet and the Minister of Health didn’t say that there was a recovery in Poland or nobody yet knows about that. Hi poland (talk) 10:54, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Hi poland, your discussion title is a little misleading. Do you mean that out of all confirmed cases, none of them have been reported to have recovered and the article says that there are some who have recovered? Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝) 16:09, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Tenryuu in Poland we have only 1 confirmed recovered patient [13] - Polish Press Agency, [14] - Polish Public (goverment) TV, the data from https://www.worldometers.info/ are not accurated, there are wrong Natanieluz (talk) 16:20, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Natanieluz, maybe the Google translation software isn't up to snuff, but nothing in either article you provided claims that Patient Zero is the only one who recovered; furthermore, those articles were written on the 17th, two days ago, so the situation could have changed significantly by then. I've checked a stats page on Poland and the number of positive cases matches the one on Worldometers, and both were updated today on March 19th. --Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝) 16:44, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Tenryuu yea, I see your point but Iam watching every day MOH press conferences on TV, maybe you want to look at that- https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_Poland#Recovered_people. Natanieluz (talk) 16:51, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Natanieluz, I am not the best person to ask to watch MOH press conferences as I do not speak or understand Polish.

Following that discussion it unfortunately depends on what external sources say. Unless there's a reason to doubt the MoH and KPRM IT that's reported in another reputable source like Boud supposes, it's more than likely that we'll stay with those sources. (Trust me, I feel your pain every time I see South China Morning Post used as a source.)

If you have reputable sources that state that the number of reported cases recovered is inaccurate, please include them, but make sure it's mentioned in the text of the article. Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝) 17:54, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Sub-section on Spain required

Spain now has over 800 dead and the highest level of increase in death toll after Italy with 209 dead in one day.Php2000 (talk) 15:36, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

 Doneyes it should have a sub section--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:46, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Italy (update)

Italy just officially announced that it has more deaths than China reported. The main table should reflect this too. 2A02:8388:1641:8380:3AD5:47FF:FE18:CC7F (talk) 17:42, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

in what way (other than numerically) should it reflect this?--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 19:19, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Best reliable source for data on cases, deaths and recoveries???

Which source should be used for the lede? All have different amounts, but the WHO site has wildly differing case and death totals. Expert opinion is required. https://www.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/bda7594740fd40299423467b48e9ecf6 ?

https://experience.arcgis.com/experience/685d0ace521648f8a5beeeee1b9125cd ?

https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ ? MattSucci (talk) 18:16, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

I believe Worldometer is the de facto trusted source due to its complete independence from governing bodies, and good reputation (their services have been used by the United Nations in the past, for example). -- Pingumeister^(talk) 12:43, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

What did they know and when did they know it?

I heard on a radio newscast that the Trump administration knew last year they were unprepared for such an event and did nothing. Once a source is found for this statement that we can use, how does this go into the article?— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 19:14, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

@Vchimpanzee: Can we start with the source and see where that takes us? - MrX 🖋 20:24, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

This is the source, approximately 15 minutes from now, assuming the same story is repeated. I figured others would be able to find the same story elsewhere.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 20:45, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Less detail this time, but NPR was mentioned, so I'll check for the story there. I couldn't quite tell whether the current pandemic was already under way for the even in the NPR story.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 21:05, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

This is a different story from after the pandemic began.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 21:09, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Problem with File:FlattenTheCurveCDC.gif

In the section 2019–20_coronavirus_pandemic#Outbreak is File:FlattenTheCurveCDC.gif.

"Figure 1. Goals of community mitigation for pandemic influenza

This figure is taken from https://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/volumes/66/rr/rr6601a1.htm, where it is titled "Figure 1. Goals of community mitigation for pandemic influenza"

The problem with this figure is that it illustrates the result of changing multiple variables, in particular "Reduce number of overall cases" as well as delay the timecourse.

In the source, it is not an introductory figure, but a late discussion illustration of the late discussion of the paper. On this page, a more introductory figure is needed. I suggest a figure that changes only one variable, the timecourse. For a first introduction to the concept, the two curves should have the same area under the curve, the number of cases should be the same in the two scenarios. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 22:23, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

There is nothing wrong with the figure. It sounds like you misread the source. The Figure 1 illustrate the Purpose section in the source after the introduction, it is not about any late discussion, it in fact illustrates an early part of the source and it is the introductory figure. Some publications simply put the figures, tables and notes at the end. I suspect you are misled by the silly figure given in the Coronavirus disease 2019#Prevention, which should not have been used, and I have raised objections to that figure before. Hzh (talk) 23:55, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

I have adjusted the figures in Coronavirus disease 2019#Prevention. Hzh (talk) 13:01, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 20 March 2020

Spain has a . in their number instead of comma in the confirmed cases. Skagraw (talk) 00:10, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

I am pretty sure that the 2019-20 coronavirus pandemic article is written in British English. The numbering convention in British English is to use commas for their number separators instead of full stops. If this article was in the Spanish version of Wikipedia, where it is primarily written in Spanish, then it would be appropriate to use full stops for their number separators. Qwertyxp2000 (talk | contribs) 01:38, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

 Done It was fixed with this edit. The above user misunderstood the request; a full stop was accidentally used instead of a comma, not vice versa. JTP ^{(talk • contribs)} 05:23, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Map now a mess!

The per capita map has adopted a new level: 1-10/100 million. Unfortunately the colour chosen (cream) wipes out national boundaries, making it impossible to know where one country begins and another ends. This is especially seen in Africa. Please choose a colour which is different from the border colour - or else, choose a different colour for borders! One not in the black/red/cream/white spectrum! Ptilinopus (talk) 00:20, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

@Raphaël Dunant: here's another complaint about the light yellow. I'm inclined to agree. Sdkb (talk) 07:07, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

I agree. Do you have some colour suggestion? I am not that good with colour picking. Raphaël Dunant (talk) 08:10, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

How about pale violet? Ptilinopus (talk) 13:26, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Static link in from Central Notice

Please note, there is a static URL link to this page from a Central Notice (meta:MediaWiki:Centralnotice-Programmatic translations 2020-covid-article-link) please do not move the page without consideration for this. — xaosflux ^Talk 02:46, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

List of ongoing and previous quarantines should be added to this page

I've improved this template a bit: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:2020_coronavirus_quarantines

But there's still a lot of misssing information and needed improvements.

This is very important information which is currently split under multiple articles and should be consolidated somewhere.

It would be great if the template could be improved and added on this page. 200.138.199.161 (talk) 03:29, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 20 March 2020

Change ">1 cases per 1,000 inhabitants" in the world map key to "<1." 108.16.214.102 (talk) 03:31, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

 Not done: The map has been refreshed and the key rewritten. — RAVENPVFF · talk · 09:17, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Dataset for South Korea, versus China

Slight data anomality? Confusing a bit.

Look at China versus South Korea.

Right now we have:

China (mainland) 80,967 infected, 71,150 recovered. I will ignore the dead folks for the moment.

Now: South Korea has 8,652 infected, and 2,233 recovered.

I understand that China was initially the country to be hit first, but from there it spread to other countries, including South Korea.

So it's almost 3 months now past that ... isn't it strange then that China has almost all of these already recovered (excluding those who died), but South Korea has only 2233 recovered, and 6400 still not recovered?

I think this can probably be best explained that not many folks here on wikipedia seem to update this information - so if there is anyone from south korea or perhaps asia, and can explain this, it may be interesting to see why the dataset is quite dissimilar so far. At the least I think it appears that way. 2A02:8388:1641:8380:3AD5:47FF:FE18:CC7F (talk) 03:41, 20ned by SineBot-->

Major part of it has to do with what's reported. --Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝) 07:11, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Semi protected edit request

From the BBC, the first case reported in Isle Of Man - https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/amp/world-europe-isle-of-man-51964205?

Cheers

86.15.109.13 (talk) 06:14, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

 Not done — Not clear why this would be relevant on this top article. See perhaps 2020 coronavirus pandemic in the United Kingdom.
Carl Fredrik ^talk 10:07, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 20 March 2020

Request the removal of the following sentence as it is not factual but biased.

"The coronavirus outbreak in the United States may have been used to affect negatively Donald Trump's chances of re-election at the 2020 United States presidential election." 76.68.224.201 (talk) 09:45, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

 Not done, but reworded: this is appropriate than removal here, in my opinion. I have moved the sentence to a more appropriate position in the paragraph and changed the wording slightly so that it reads more neutrally. The statement is in fact fairly neutral, since the New York Times source includes the views of both Democratic and Republican commentators. -- Pingumeister^(talk) 12:37, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Template "Cases by country and territory": Spain

I can't and I don't dare to edit this, but there's an official Ministry of Health website for covid-19 cases (https://covid19.isciii.es/). The current link is for RTVE, the Spanish National Public Radio and Television. El tiu Cancho (talk) 10:56, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Template "Cases by country and territory": European Union

I think in the list of countries with cases should be also flag of EU with number of cases in the European Union, will be pretty informative. Is it possible to add it there? Peter1170 (talk) 11:25, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

That would be original research and against Wikipedia rules. doktorb _words^deeds 12:12, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Dont need to be original research. Just someone can add to tamplate some script, which will count cases from every country in the EU. In template are offcial numbers, so it will count automatically official numbers.Peter1170 (talk) 12:19, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Ah but then we're getting into WP:SYNTH I think. Creating statistics from existing ones is not really what this template is for (would we no then fall foul of WP:SOURCE come to think of it?) I'm sure there might be a way in prose to refer to EU figures but adding an entry for the EU seems fairly "window dressing" to me. doktorb _words^deeds 12:24, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Ok, just an idea, but it can be nice, if we have some info also about numbers in the EU.Peter1170 (talk) 12:34, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Australia will closed schools because of lockdown very soon

Australia states will be lockdown like NSW.