Talk:COVID-19 pandemic

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01. Superseded by #9

The first few sentences of the lead's second paragraph should state The virus is typically spread during close contact and via respiratory droplets produced when people cough or sneeze. Respiratory droplets may be produced during breathing but the virus is not considered airborne. It may also spread when one touches a contaminated surface and then their face. It is most contagious when people are symptomatic, although spread may be possible before symptoms appear. (RfC March 2020)

02. Superseded by #7

The infobox should feature a per capita count map most prominently, and a total count by country map secondarily. (RfC March 2020)

03. Obsolete

The article should not use {{Current}} at the top. (March 2020)

04. Do not include a sentence in the lead section noting comparisons to World War II. (March 2020)

05. Cancelled

Include subsections covering the domestic responses of Italy, China, Iran, the United States, and South Korea. Do not include individual subsections for France, Germany, the Netherlands, Australia and Japan. (RfC March 2020) Include a short subsection on Sweden focusing on the policy controversy. (May 2020)

Subsequently overturned by editing and recognized as obsolete. (July 2024)

06. Obsolete

There is a 30 day moratorium on move requests until 26 April 2020. (March 2020)

07. There is no consensus that the infobox should feature a confirmed cases count map most prominently, and a deaths count map secondarily. (May 2020)

08. Superseded by #16

The clause on xenophobia in the lead section should read ...and there have been incidents of xenophobia and discrimination against Chinese people and against those perceived as being Chinese or as being from areas with high infection rates. (RfC April 2020)

09. Cancelled

Supersedes #1. The first several sentences of the lead section's second paragraph should state The virus is mainly spread during close contact and by small droplets produced when those infected cough, sneeze or talk. These droplets may also be produced during breathing; however, they rapidly fall to the ground or surfaces and are not generally spread through the air over large distances. People may also become infected by touching a contaminated surface and then their face. The virus can survive on surfaces for up to 72 hours. Coronavirus is most contagious during the first three days after onset of symptoms, although spread may be possible before symptoms appear and in later stages of the disease. (April 2020)

Notes

On 17:16, 6 April 2020, these first several sentences were replaced with an extracted fragment from the coronavirus disease 2019 article, which at the time was last edited at 17:11.

010. The article title is COVID-19 pandemic. The title of related pages should follow this scheme as well. (RM April 2020, RM August 2020)

011. The lead section should use Wuhan, China to describe the virus's origin, without mentioning Hubei or otherwise further describing Wuhan. (April 2020)

012. Superseded by #19

The lead section's second sentence should be phrased using the words first identified and December 2019. (May 2020)

013. Superseded by #15

File:President Donald Trump suggests measures to treat COVID-19 during Coronavirus Task Force press briefing.webm should be used as the visual element of the misinformation section, with the caption U.S. president Donald Trump suggested at a press briefing on 23 April that disinfectant injections or exposure to ultraviolet light might help treat COVID-19. There is no evidence that either could be a viable method. (1:05 min) (May 2020, June 2020)

014. Overturned

Do not mention the theory that the virus was accidentally leaked from a laboratory in the article. (RfC May 2020) This result was overturned at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard, as there is consensus that there is no consensus to include or exclude the lab leak theory. (RfC May 2024)

015. Supersedes #13. File:President Donald Trump suggests measures to treat COVID-19 during Coronavirus Task Force press briefing.webm should not be used as the visual element of the misinformation section. (RfC November 2020)

016. Supersedes #8. Incidents of xenophobia and discrimination are considered WP:UNDUE for a full sentence in the lead. (RfC January 2021)

017. Only include one photograph in the infobox. There is no clear consensus that File:COVID-19 Nurse (cropped).jpg should be that one photograph. (May 2021)

018. Superseded by #19

The first sentence is The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is a global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). (August 2021, RfC October 2023)

019. Supersedes #12 and #18. The first sentence is The global COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an outbreak in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. (June 2024)

Should we switch the lead infobox map from cases per capita to deaths per capita?

Per Metropolitan's arguments here, the death count is a better metric at this point of the severity of a pandemic in a given region than the case count, since the latter is highly dependent on the region's testing capacity. Accordingly, I propose that we switch to using the deaths per capita map as the top map in the infobox, with the others collapsed beneath. Sdkb (talk) 03:45, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

Oppose. For months, we have focused on case counts. I see no compelling argument to change this right now. I understand that testing is not being evenly applied across regions but the case count (and cases per million) is the best number we have right now to measure the extent to which the pandemic has impacted each region. And testing volumes are increasing dramatically everywhere. Death rates are greatly influenced by each region's healthcare system quality and capacity. I'd oppose changing for now. - Wikmoz (talk) 05:51, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

One way to look at it might be that we want the map to reflect the fact that some countries' weaker healthcare systems are leading to higher death counts there. Sdkb (talk) 03:34, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Support. The current stage of the crisis is of a different nature than what it was in january, requiring us to change our perception on this. Some countries such as South Korea or Germany have tested at a very large scale, even people with very mild symptoms or no at all [1]. However, in many other countries such as Italy, Spain, France or the UK, healthcare systems are totally overwhelmed and the testing capacity is saturated. Testing is limited only to the most serious cases and healthcare workers [2]. As a result, the number of confirmed cases reported daily remains steady, not because we're nearing its peak but simply because there's no testing capacity to report more. Using this metric as the main one can easily lead to very fallacious conclusions about the maturity and intensity of the epidemics from a country to another. Obviously deaths count has its own bias as well [3], yet, very sadly, the number of deaths will never reach any saturation point like testing does. As such, reported deaths remain, despite its flaws, a much better metric to get an idea about the intensity of the epidemic in each country. Therefore, it would seem wiser to use the deaths metric as the ranking by default on Template:2019–20 coronavirus pandemic data table. Metropolitan (talk) 11:02, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

I think these concerns can be fairly addressed with a footnote. We're already seeing death-to-case ratios vary by an order of magnitude from one country to the next so I really don't think counting deaths is a fair indicator of anything. Testing capacity limits are rapidly being resolved and cheaper and faster tests will come to market over the next few weeks. - Wikmoz (talk) 05:03, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose The first map is based off a recent consensus formed here. It's to early from that to change it in my opinion. — RealFakeKimT 14:17, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

  @RealFakeKim: When I formulated the question for that RfC, you'll notice that I referred only to "per capita" vs. "total", and left out the word "cases". That was a deliberate choice, since I anticipated we might at some point want to switch to using death counts instead. I'll leave it to others with more medical/statistical experience to decide what the best approach is at this point (I haven't been persuaded to wed myself to one or the other yet), but I don't think that that RfC should be used as an argument against switching. The other maps RfC might serve as a slightly better precedent, but it was a little muddled since it was asking about per capita vs. totals/cases vs. deaths/collapsed vs. uncollapsed all at the same time. Plus it was started over a week ago, which is meaningful given how rapidly the situation is evolving. Sdkb (talk) 19:40, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose: Death is not the only consequence of the disease, and the constant fixation on the fatality rate in the media can likely be of partial blame for the complacency seen among the general public (e.g. "It's no big deal, only 3.5% die!" or "Don't worry, only boomers and retirees die!"). There are plenty of infected patients that do not die, but end up in ICU and require emergency intervention, not to mention we don't fully understand the long-term chronic implications of the disease yet (e.g. lung tissue scarring, and whether or not patients are able to eventually regain most of their pre-infection lung capacity). The spotlight needs to be on infection, and not excessively on cases of death. --benlisquare_T•C•E 17:27, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

This is an incredibly important point. I'd also add that as treatment improves in coming weeks and months, the death rate will become a weaker and weaker indicator of the pandemic's reach. - Wikmoz (talk) 05:03, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

• Support Per capita confirmed cases were always dependant on testing capacity, and as the pandemic continues and countries like the US fail to increase testing capacity, the numbers quickly become misleading. Unfortunately, deaths are not subject to the same issues of testing capacity; we could test no one and the rate of reported deaths would remain the same. Given the known issues with testing capacity in many countries and the growing death toll, per capita deaths are a better representation of the extent of the pandemic. — Wug·a·po·des​ 19:10, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

• Wouldn't this depend on the country's (or local provincial) specific procedures? If there is little to no testing capability for cadavers, then if an untested patient dies, wouldn't the cause of death be recorded as unrelated pneumonia? If the local provincial/national policy was to cremate all pneumonia-case bodies, tested or untested, would they record all bodies as coronavirus cases? --benlisquare_T•C•E 02:30, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

• Not necessarily. The testing capacity required to have an accurate count of deaths is much lower than the testing capacity required to have an accurate count of infections. If we ballpark the death rate at 3%, you'd need 30 times more testing to identify 90% of confirmed case than you would need to identify every death (and that's assuming we never test someone without the disease). It also is more likely that in regions with limited testing capacity, tests will be limited to severe cases which are also the ones most likely to die, so cases that lead to death are more likely to be identified well before actual death. I find it unlikely that covid19 deaths will go misreported as pneumonia-related deaths since every doctor in the world is on the lookout for patients with pneumonia-like symptoms. Even if there are the occasional errors, the much greater error is using data we know represents testing capacity and not infection rates and then tell readers that it represents infection rates. — Wug·a·po·des​ 04:54, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

In some countries, the number of deaths counted depends on testing, so the whole point is moot. For example, in Iran, it is said that they classed the deaths as pneumonia or other causes if they had not been tested for the virus. Hzh (talk) 18:19, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

• Support As @Wugapodes: stated. The readers want to make sure these details are there for them to see. We cant have anymore misinfomation or missing detail on such heavily worked topic. Regice2020 (talk) 03:46, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose. Death is only one of the possible symptoms of COVID-19. People who spend days in ICU and place a significant stain on the healthcare system are also to be accounted for. The main map should reflect the spread of COVID-19, not the number of respirators available to save people. Moreover, countries that under-report the number of cases often also under-report the number of death. Of course if the global consensus goes towards death per capita map, then we should follow it!Raphaël Dunant (talk) 10:34, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
• Support Is the most object quantity (with least amount of uncertainty) Voorlandt (talk) 10:43, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
• oppose per Raphael Dunant--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:08, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
• Keep as is Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:24, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
• Support. Death numbers are much more comparable between countries. For example Iceland and Norway have tested a large portion of the population, so the map gives impression of high, but very few died, which is a more reliable number. Also: We should always prioritize numbers per capita over absolute numbers.Tomastvivlaren (talk) 08:59, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose No good reason to change it, especially as the death rates appear to vary considerably between countries, over ten times the difference in some cases (e.g. very low in Germany but very high in Italy). Hzh (talk) 18:13, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

  The above is likely explained by Germans testing much more than Italians by now. The above is a reason to prioritize the death map, not because deaths are the only important thing, but because deaths are probably a better basis for an estimate of the real cases than the confirmed cases are; both confirmed deaths and confirmed cases are subject to incomplete testing, but deaths would seem less so. Ideally, show both per capita maps and drop the map with absolute numbers, and then it will be no longer so important which of the two maps is prioritized. --Dan Polansky (talk) 19:48, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

No, since some countries don't count deaths they haven't tested, they simply attribute deaths to other causes like pneumonia, therefore death number would also be unreliable. Hzh (talk) 20:28, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose Too soon. There will come a time. But right now for a current event what is more of interest is the infections/infection rate. --Calthinus (talk) 22:16, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose The per capita map just needs its ranges tweaked or added to. It's far too homogeneous in colour to be helpful at conveying the data. Worse, it might be misleading, implying some countries have similar rates when it's anything but. If you're going to lead with that map you at least need to include the specific numbers in the following chart because, as it stands, it requires users to look all of the information up themselves and do the math.135.23.106.211 (talk) 23:18, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose The article should switch to using a harmonic mean of infection rates, hospitalization rates, intubation rates, and fatality rates. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.163.111.74 (talk) 16:01, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
• Support The deaths per capita, although comes with its own biases, is a better indicator of the effect on the region and is less affected by the saturated testing capacity in many regions.--17jiangz1 (talk) 20:23, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
• Support, as per 17jiangz1 and others. The cases figure is known to be all over the place because of different approaches to testing from country to country. It could be off by more than an order of magnitude. Deaths, while still having some differences in recording, are much more comparable. Bondegezou (talk) 10:45, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
• Support. The reasons given above are strong and convincing. Cases are nowhere near as reliable a statistic as deaths. The only valid argument I see in opposition is that a pandemic is not characterised by deaths but by cases. While this is true, one could argue that the impact of a pandemic is indeed better characterised by deaths. I feel that argument ends up being a 50/50 about what is considered important, with equal validity to those who say deaths are more important and those who say cases are more important. With equality on that argument, and the reliability argument favouring heavily the use of deaths as a metric, I definitely support this change.Wikiditm (talk) 08:35, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
• Support as per others' comments. I don't see how "for months, we have focused on case counts, why should we switch now" is a good argument. If you have focused on the wrong thing for months, shouldn't that be an incentive to focus on the better measure immediately? Once cases become the better measure again, you can always switch back. Only tangentially related: in the "Deaths" section, can someone explain to me the difference between "death-to-case ratio" and case fatality rate? The section makes it seem like those are two distinct measures, but (and I am not an expert), to me they seem to be the same thing...? Felix.winter2010 (talk) 8:40, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
• Support - The cases map is certainly misleading, as it makes the most efficient countries like Germany and South Korea look like problem cases. Quite the opposite. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 10:41, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
• Support. Case count is largely meaningless as a means of comparing the epidemic in two countries, due to the huge discrepancy in testing regimes. It's comparing apples to oranges. The death count, although not completely consistent (some countries may be less likely to test for COVID in a postmortem than others, for example), is certainly much better than case count, because most deaths will be recorded unlike many stay-at-home-and-isolate cases which are not.  — Amakuru (talk) 10:57, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

  The argument simply doesn't make sense. Countries that don't test much, whether on the living or the dead, won't register deaths as being due to Covid-19. I'm not sure why people would also assume that post-mortem test is something even done in most countries (I would think most countries don't do it when even rich countries like Germany don't). This is in addition to countries that have been accused of deliberately downplaying the number of deaths. Hzh (talk) 19:25, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

  The countries that test less focus their small number of tests, and they focus them on people who are more likely to carry the disease; that's the idea. In such countries, covid-infected people are more likely to escape testing than covid-infected dying people (dying of covid or with covid.) --Dan Polansky (talk) 12:29, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

It's still the same problem - those who don't test won't assign the deaths to Covid-19, I have no idea why people assume that those who died would be automatically attributed to Covid-19. For example, in China people who died from flu for many years were attributed to other reasons, giving China an unusually low death count compared to other countries - [4]. Hzh (talk) 15:01, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

My post does not suggest that "those who died would be automatically attributed to Covid-19", nor is it concerned with "those who don't test" but rather with those who focus their tests, and the only non-focused tests would be random-sampled tests from general population with no pre-selection bias. --Dan Polansky (talk) 12:07, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

• Both – because deaths lag cases by several weeks, but also they are arguably the more reliable statistic. Countries like S Korea and Germany have kept things under control by much more extensive testing which gives comparatively high case figures. I maintain the graphs of new cases and daily deaths on this page and lacking any better measure I use the weighted average of the two figures to pick the top 5 countries. If a statistician can suggest a better combination I'm open to it. Chris55 (talk) 07:36, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Having thought about it for a few minutes, it's probably better to use the geometric mean. Chris55 (talk) 08:23, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

It doesn't make sense to take the mean of two statistics which aren't independent.Wikiditm (talk) 09:17, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose The focus should be on infections/cases for now, since deaths lag the infection rates by weeks. There will be a time to include both deaths and cases, adjusted for population, but now is not the right time. Rwat128 (talk) 21:17, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Compromise: Default, show both maps and add a warning text

A suggestion for a compromize while waiting for people to agree here is to show both maps in the infobox - currently only the number of infected per capita is visible by default. The number of deaths per capita should also be visible immediately, as that is more reliable.

A second suggestion is to add a warning below maps of the number of infected people: "Numbers are not comparable as different countries have different testing strategies". 82.196.112.105 (talk) 09:20, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

I'd oppose showing both maps by default. The image panorama is quite good, and it shouldn't be pushed so far down that people need to scroll a bunch to see it. I'd support having some sort of caveat in the caption, as is done currently for the Europe map (we at least need to get consistent), although it might make more sense as an efn (footnote) than as direct text. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 04:16, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

I think that maybe putting the deaths chart in a collapsible may be the better way to do this for now. Swordman97 ^{talk to me}

Dealing with technical limitations of WP:PEIS

Ahecht has raised the issue we were noticing the other day of reference tooltips not being displayed because of WP:PEIS. I'm opening this conversation to explore what our options are to deal with this, and would be curious to hear from those with more technical expertise. Is there any way to increase the limit? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 00:13, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

When a page reaches the template limit, the most common solution is to convert some "citation templates" to a "manual style" citation as this has ZERO effect for our readers...templates for refs are just an editor preferences...thus not an end user concern.

Rawls, John (1971). [http://books.google.com/books?id=kvpby7HtAe0C&pg=PA1 ''A Theory of Justice'']. Harvard University Press. ISBN 978-0-674-00078-0

--Moxy 🍁 00:23, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

+1, go for it. I just reduced all the duplicate citations I could find, but that seems to have had no effect on the fact that the last few references in the article are displaying as "#invoke:citation/CS1" and the like. (I am not sure if this is because of PEIS issues or something else.) -sche (talk) 02:18, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

This was discussed at WP:VPT (permalink). Since then, the large navboxes have been removed and I don't think there is any more low-hanging fruit. I just did some tests for the post‐expand include size:

• Current article is slightly broken and uses 2,097,152 bytes (the limit).
• The only navbox is {{2019–20 coronavirus pandemic|short=true}} which uses 49,360 bytes.
• Removing the navbox makes the article just work (the result is slightly under the limit but it would soon go over as more templates are added).
• There are currently 359 {{cite xxx}} templates in the References section (and many more in the article). Removing the 359 templates saved 562,000 bytes.

Expanding the cites would be really ugly as it would make editing the citations very difficult. In principle, the cites could be put in another page and a gnome would expand them and put the expansion in the article (keeping the original cite on the other page). However, that would break down in a couple of hours with the hectic editing. The solution might be a creative split of the article. Johnuniq (talk) 02:24, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Another possible solution has been done in Timeline of the 2019-20 coronavirus pandemic in March 2020, where we split off a major section (Responses to the 2019-20 coronavirus pandemic in March 2020) into its own article after this same issue occurred over there. Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝) 04:00, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Looks like we've gotten the article nearly working again, but the lack of low-hanging fruit, as Johnuniq put it, concerns me, since the pandemic is far from over, and there will be legitimate reasons to want to continue to expand some areas of it. If we don't find a more permanent solution, we're going to keep on running up against this and have to take increasingly drastic measures. Splitting doesn't seem editorially like the right move — this is a single discreet topic, and most sections, with a few exceptions, have been kept to a reasonable length. What would need to be done to get this page to have an exemption from the technical limit? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 04:07, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

That's not possible. Of course in theory anything is possible, but it's not going to happen. For one thing, editing the article takes many seconds to preview or save. That pain would be fixed if the expansion was drastically cut down. Johnuniq (talk) 09:17, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

I think rather than a hard split, a better approach would be to simply replace most of the excerpted sections with links to the source articles, using {{main}} or something similar. There's no need to duplicate content, especially when the page is already so large and unwieldy to read (trying to read it on my old netbook, for example, locks up the browser). --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 14:21, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

This is a little unorthodox, but throwing it out since we're in an unorthodox situation: would autocollapsing some sections help with the issue, or do they need to be totally removed from the page? If we do need to do that, I think the section on domestic responses is the most obvious candidate. But it's not as though it's disposable — Ahecht, the sections that are excerpts don't correlate with which ones are less important so much as just which ones have good or appropriately sized leads. Spain is but China isn't. Misinformation is but xenophobia isn't. Etc. It would be a disservice to readers in my view not to include information they would expect, and it might be hard as editors to agree on what to take out when, in a strictly editorial sense, none of it needs to be taken out (except the bloated content I list in the thread below). {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 18:09, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Because the current situation is very fluid, sometimes people add new information without size considerations. Once the situation stabilizes more or less, we may figure out what could be harshly trimmed to alleviate the article and what could be kept. Ultimately, this should keep the article within WP:PEIS limits. Brandmeister^talk 19:06, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Collapsing won't help because that happens in the client's browser: the server still has to render the whole page. Johnuniq (talk) 09:22, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Do we know what exactly is taking up so much of the room data-wise? I mean, this is a long article, but I've seen plenty of other long articles that seem a lot longer but aren't running up against the technical limit. I'm somewhat at a loss, since I just don't know what could be further removed. We're under the limit right now, thanks to Benica11's slimming of some of the overlong sections, among other edits, but I'm not sure we'll stay under for long. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:32, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

See "Removing the 359 templates saved 562,000 bytes" above. I'm afraid the cite templates generate a lot of stuff, and that appears to be the limit. Currently, the article is 25,000 bytes below the limit. Johnuniq (talk) 04:04, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

• To help in pruning the article, I have promoted the {{section sizes}} template above. I reckon the Domestic_responses section which contains country-by-country details should be split off completely. It's a pandemic so every country in the world is affected and so this page should focus on overall global coverage. Another thing I notice is that the lead has about 40 citations and some of these are clusters. This looks like over citing. Andrew🐉(talk) 09:30, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Which figure is more accurate?

I have recently been editing the Epidemiology section, where I have included a figure showing the average population percentage a country has tested using data from the countries that have released their testing data, using testing data from Our World In Data and population data from Worldometer, coming to about 1%. Since this data treats all countries equally and does not account for population, I have also calculated the percentage of total tested people in relation to the total population of the testing countries, getting a figure of about 0.0023%. My question is: which one is more accurate and apt for use in the main article? My calculations are available here: https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/d/1a4yZOdhgrwzqoDkW0nq7WtZCVhEZqGJ-rADHb3e10po/edit#gid=0 and I have also made a template for this data available at Template:Testing for Coronavirus disease 2019. sam1370 (talk) 01:49, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

@Sam1370: As a heads-up we are moving away from WorldOMeters as of this discussion over at the pandemic data template. --Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝) 04:05, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Please check WP:OR your calculation may be contrary to policy. Robertpedley (talk) 18:19, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

@Robertpedley: I think WP:CALC covers that, but I may be wrong. sam1370 (talk) 01:35, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

References

Take a look at this graph from Our World in Data. They've recently created an entire section dedicated to testing so there are many others (but I think this one is clear) total test for COVID-19 per 1,000 people). I'm updating OWID graphs daily and can add this one on if you're going to use it. Ian Furst (talk) 01:43, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

@Ian Furst: Thanks for the data! This seems to be basically the same thing as I am doing; however, it has less data points and is more dated than my graph, which I made using the latest Github data, so if my calculations don't contravene WP:OR I am going to stick with mine. sam1370 (talk) 03:19, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

@Sam1370: well it says to obtain consensus. As far as I know, WHO, Worldometer etc aren't looking at this statistic, and so I can't see how it adds value to Wikipedia. What is the significance of these numbers, and how would it inform the readers if either of theme were greater or smaller? Robertpedley (talk) 13:11, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

I've just been for a walk and thought of a couple of problems.

• First off, there are currently 2 types of tests - PCR, which detects an active infection; and serological tests which should measure immunity but aren't yet reliable. PCR has a clinical application - you would only give to someone who is exhibiting symptoms or seems likely to be incubating an infection. Serological test - when it works - will be forensic in application, looking to see what % of the population are immune. Which type of test are you tracking?
• Second, are you tracking the number of tests applied, or the number of people tested? People in hospital are PCR tested multiple times and only released when the test is negative so the number of people is likely to be far fewer than the number of tests. Robertpedley (talk) 14:38, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

@Robertpedley: Hmm. I mainly put the data in to go along with the statistic that no country has tested more than 10% of their population — if we’re going to say the maximum, we might as well put the average too. I think it just serves to inform people how little or much of their population most countries are actually testing.

Not sure about the different types of tests. The info from Our World in Data just says “tests”. As for your second question, there seems to be few datapoints regarding just the number of people tested, so I include the datapoints that just have the number of tests as well. I’m not sure of a good way to fix that other than getting inaccurate information by not including countries, maybe you have any ideas?

If you want more information, be sure to check the excel document above, and if you want edit access just include your gmail in your next reply. sam1370 (talk) 18:02, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

@Sam1370: you haven't made a case for this; if you can't say what you are measuring then it's clearly not meaningful. Let's suppose hypothetically that a country such as France (pop 67 million) were to perform 67 million PCR tests tomorrow. What would that tell us about the pandemic?

There are some points which maybe could be made. 1) that insufficiency of testing kits is hindering the global response, 2) that competition for the limited supply of kits favours rich countries over poor. Robertpedley (talk) 19:37, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

@Robertpedley: I can say what I am measuring: it is measuring the average percentage of their population that countries have tested: 2.6. Not sure how this isn't meaningful, it shows how little people have actually been tested in the average country, which goes along with the data that no country has tested more than 10% of their population. If France were to perform 67 million tests tomorrow, it would contribute to both this measurement and the maximum number of people who have been tested. The two points you provide can be added to the article if a reliable source cites them, I'm kind of confused on what you're getting at there. sam1370 (talk) 19:44, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

And I did already say what I was measuring, at the top in my original talk page post. Was the wording confusing? sam1370 (talk) 05:26, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Oh okay, I reread your reply and I think what you meant was that since the testing data sometimes only has the number of samples and I included that, it's inaccurate, and therefore unmeaningful. I don't think it impacts the final result that much, but if you have any solutions to that I'm willing to implement them. sam1370 (talk) 05:35, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

@Sam1370: I've taken a look at the https://ourworldindata.org/covid-testing page, and they list a number of limitations in their own data. For one thing, some countries are number of people tested (as you said) but others are reporting number of tests performed - contrary to your original assertion. So you've got apples and pears in the same basket. They also highlight a number of other methodological issues with the data and any calculations which rely on it. For this reason, I don't think the "routine calculation" exemption in WP:CALC can apply. If the University of Oxford with full time researchers can't get a clear picture of what's going on it would be very presumptuous of Wikipedia to step in! Sorry, I oppose your proposal. Robertpedley (talk) 17:31, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

@Robertpedley: What do you mean "contrary to your original assertion"? I stated "As for your second question, there seems to be few datapoints regarding just the number of people tested, so I include the datapoints that just have the number of tests as well." Maybe the wording was a little confusing, but combined with my later statement "I think what you meant was that since the testing data sometimes only has the number of samples" it should make it pretty clear that I am aware of that problem. If you have looked at my Google Sheets document, you can see that it clearly marks which data contains the number of people tested and which data contains the number of samples taken. As I said, I am willing to implement solutions such as removing data that contains just the samples can be done, which would eliminate the problem BUT provide inaccurate data due to the few datapoints used.

I am also confused by your assumption that the "routine calculation" exemption doesn't apply. It is a routine calculation, performed whenever I (or anyone else who has access to the document, but just me right now) has time and whenever the data is updated. And a bit of a nitpick here, but this wasn't a proposal of mine to begin with. It was my question on which figure is more accurate / reflects the data the best, which you turned into a question on whether the data should even be included.

I found an updated list of User:Ian Furst's data here, which could be used in the article. The article text could also be reworded to say tests instead of people. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/full-list-cumulative-total-tests-per-thousand?time=latest&country=USA+VNM+ARG+AUT+CAN+BEL+COL+CZE+ECU+EST+FRA+GHA+HKG+ISL+IND+IRL+ITA+JPN+LTU+MYS+NLD+NOR+PAN+PER+POL+ROU+SEN+Singapore%2C%20swabs%20tested+SVK+ZAF+SWE+TWN+TUN+GBR+AUS+BHR+BOL+CHL+CRI+DNK+SLV+FIN+DEU+GRC+HUN+India%2C%20people%20tested+IDN+ISR+Japan%2C%20tests%20performed+LVA+LUX+MEX+NZL+PAK+PRY+PHL+PRT+RUS+SRB+SGP+SVN+KOR+CHE+THA+TUR sam1370 (talk) 21:20, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 13 April 2020

Change Greece's color on main map from 50-200 cases per mil to 200-500 cases per mil (current Greece status; 203 cases per mil). NicolasMartell96 (talk) 10:32, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

 Already done, the map maker fixed it a few hours ago Benica11 (talk). 00:46, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Note for Kosovo

Moved to Template talk:2019–20 coronavirus pandemic data § Note for Kosovo

 – MarioGom (talk) 14:48, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

NATO

Why would one count NATO on the list of sovereign territories ? Makes no sense. Please remove it, and leave as before.

CFRs in the lead

I am not sure this belongs in the lead

"with Italy showing the highest rate of 11.39 per cent."

The deaths in the Bahamas are greater. As is France by the way.[5] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:25, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

@Doc James: The article's focus is on the pandemic, not just China. Consequently mentioning only China's CFR is inappropriate and unacceptable.

Countries such as Italy show a much higher rate of 11% than China’s 4%. I sought to introduce scope in the lead by including Italy’s which you preferred to remove. In that case, I have removed China’s as well. Painting part of a picture here rather than the whole does more harm than good.

The sentence has been edited to simply read; ‘Case fatality rates vary significantly between countries.’ Veritycheck✔️ (talk) 12:47, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Sure seems reasonable. If we mention any rate it should be the global one. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:22, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

References

WHO response

Under WHO response measures

December 2019

"On December 31, Taiwanese health officials warned WHO that the coronavirus is transmissible between humans, but the WHO ignored the warnings and did not notify other countries.[805]"

This information isn't sufficiently backed up. The cited article is from The Independent Sentinel titled "Reporter says WHO admits it ignored Taiwan virus warnings in December" which is mostly just a photo of 3 paragraphs of an Economist article that says Taiwan asked WHO about human-to-human transmission and the WHO admittingly never replied. The paragraphs state that WHO ignores Taiwan NOT that Taiwan warned WHO about human-to-human transmission and WHO ignored the warning and failed to notify other countries. If the latter is true a better source should be cited. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DiegoJane (talk • contribs) 05:12, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

This is apparently a full report on the matter, but it’s locked behind a paywall. (https://www.ft.com/content/2a70a02a-644a-11ea-a6cd-df28cc3c6a68) Benica11 (talk). 14:58, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

I removed the “ignored” part as other sources allege they at least considered the warning. Benica11 (talk). 15:16, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 14 April 2020

Add image:

File:Flatten the curve by social distancing

Social distancing and self-isolation may reduce transmission of COVID-19 but not completely. PrimaryHealth (talk) 05:54, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

 Not done. The specified image does not appear to exist. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 19:31, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Greenland

If Greenland have all people recovered from COVID-19 then can it go away from the chart? Hi poland (talk) 08:00, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Hi poland, what source is that from? We're using Worldometers and that says there are currently 770 active cases. Could you elaborate? — Yours, Bᴇʀʀᴇʟʏ • ^Talk∕_Contribs 14:23, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Greenland has all people recovered. The numbers you pulled are for Iceland. As for the original question, I’d keep Greenland in. Articles on other epidemics keep the national case counts in well after the epidemic’s conclusion and there’s always the possibility the cases come back. Benica11 (talk). 14:33, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

The larger question of how to represent the pandemic data/maps once it becomes more of a past thing is a good thing for us to start considering, as it will (hopefully) be increasingly relevant soon. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:35, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

worth mention?

• U.S. Diplomats Warned about Safety Risks in Wuhan Labs Studying Bats Two Years before Coronavirus Outbreak (also Washington Post[6])--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 19:59, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
• Yes! I just saw a news video about that, and checked and found the link you just posted from the Washington Post. That should be in there somewhere. "The cables warned about safety and management weaknesses at the WIV lab and proposed more attention and help. The first cable, which I obtained, also warns that the lab’s work on bat coronaviruses and their potential human transmission represented a risk of a new SARS-like pandemic." Dream Focus 20:14, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

I don't see how this belongs in the main article on the pandemic, considering there's little evidence of relevance to the pandemic. At best, maybe it belongs in the article for the US, but even that seems a stretch. If there was some evidence the virus came from the labs then maybe it would belong somewhere but there isn't. Nil Einne (talk) 22:53, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

The Epidemiology section of the article already list that it came from bats and there were some in the open food market in Wuhan. Why not mention bats known to have this virus were being researched in a research facility in the city as well, and that American had warned China for years about the threat of this happening? Dream Focus 01:01, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Because it's speculation, with overtones of My country is better than your country. HiLo48 (talk) 02:48, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

• It is no more speculation than people who said the bats with the virus came from the open food market. And how exactly do you interpret it as "my country is better than your country"? No idea how you reading that into thinks. I doubt anyone in China would argue that America is way better than their country though and they'd move here if they could. Dream Focus 04:02, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Does not relate to the pandemic really so not on this page. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:11, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

How does American warning them about the pandemic before it happened not relate to this pandemic? This is EXACTLY what they said would happen. Dream Focus 04:01, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

America didn't warn about the pandemic. They warned about safety risks from a lab, which from the current evidence, has nothing to do with the pandemic. And speculation about possible origins from of this outbreak from the wet market, and it's ultimate origins in bats with the possibility of pangolins as an intermediatary has been widely discussion in reliable secondary sources including academic ones. It's somewhat true that the wet market origins have come into question with some more recent data, so it's possible that this should be removed from this article although because of the significance of the wet market in terms of the first known identified cluster, it's quite likely it will be mentioned here even if we don't comment on it originating from there. And this still has enough significance for coverage in other articles (the virus one definitely and probably the disease one too).

Meanwhile, there are few reliable sources which speculate about this may originate from that particular research lab. Even in terms of the above 2 sources, I'll note the claims about it originating from that particular lab are limited. National Review quotes one unnamed official as claiming the evidence is in favour of it originating from the label. The expertise of this official is unknown.

Washington Post claims "national security officials have long suspected" it originated from a lab, but they apparently can't even decide which lab and aren't willing to publicly provide their evidence, and the expertise of these officials in the matter is unclear. In fact, it's not even clear if these are career bureaucrats, or political appointees.

It also quotes one person who they actually name, but who's expertise is also unclear (he is working at a School of Information so I'm not sure he is an epidemiologist). And even if we put this aside, he doesn't really seem willing to say it originated from that particular lab. Instead all he really says is we don't know enough, we need to know more and so the Chinese government needs to be transparent and it could have originated from a lab although not as an engineered virus. Most likely this is because whatever his expertise he is a scientist and so he recognises the actual public evidence at the moment that it originated from that particular lab is very limited.

BTW who is "them" in the above comment? America seems to have warned American officials. It was a "sensitive but unclassified" cable between Americans. I guess it's possible China got access to it, but it clearly wasn't targeted at them. From those sources, it's not clear that the US actually contacted China or anyone about their concerns. They sent officials to visit, which is in part how these cables came about but whether these officials ever shared their concerns directly with anyone in China isn't stated. In fact, the Washington Post notes that the Chinese had asked for more help from the US but it's unclear if this was provided.

Nil Einne (talk) 09:35, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Notable deaths?

Should deaths of notable (celebrities, etc) people, such as Rick May, be listed on this page? Mount2010 (talk) 20:39, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

• Support The article on AIDS includes celebrities such as Rock Hudson and Freddy Mercury with both deaths helping to increase public awareness of that virus. N.B. Their deaths created a huge media frenzy which certainly played a part in their inclusion in the article. Veritycheck✔️ (talk) 20:58, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

I've withdrawn support to be listed on this page as they can be listed here instead. N.B. That page looks like it should be renamed. Veritycheck✔️ (talk) 20:23, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose I think we just link to a pack from here that lists all the notable deaths. This page is already long enough. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:10, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
• No The list is too big to add here. List_of_deaths_due_to_coronavirus_disease_2019 Shadow4dark (talk) 15:36, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose. At this point, that is just bloat/trivia compared to the substance of the article. There might be some exception if someone who is already notable and included in the article dies (e.g. Tedros Adhanom, Donald Trump). I think the consensus would be easy to build in that case. --MarioGom (talk) 19:29, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
• Probably not per MarioGom, with all due respect to the deceased. If someone like Boris Johnson or Tom Hanks had died, that would be worth a mention. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:51, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Epidemic curve graphics

RCraig09 has done some amazing work creating graphics to represent phenomena related to the epidemic curve. Which ones do you all want to include in the article here? Currently we have both (1) and (5). {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 21:18, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

(1) Progressively stronger "Flatten the curve" (FTC) mitigation strategies... with a single, constantly improving "Raise the line" (RTL) strategy

(3) Progressively stronger "Flatten the curve" (FTC) and "raise the line" (RTL) strategies

(5) "Pandemic resurgence" graphic

(2) Same as (1) but with symbols rather than text, esp. for international readers

(4) Same as (3) but with symbols rather than text, esp. for international readers

(6) Same as (5) but with symbols rather than text, esp. for international readers

• My preference is to keep (1) to illustrate flattening the curve, since the concepts of raising the line (i.e. we should do more to increase healthcare capacity) and resurgence (i.e. we shouldn't stop the intervention measures that are working, otherwise it'll come back) are both simple and don't need visual illustration, and are thus better explained in the caption/article body. (3) and (5) could both be useful for Flatten the curve and other similar articles, though. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 21:18, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
• I prefer (3) and (5) in this high-level article. Note that (5) oops (3) emphasizes two important concepts in the same amount of space as (1), while (1) is better at isolating FTC for more focused articles. Also, I favor maximizing visual communication (within the graphic) while minimizing textual communication (in the caption or text); the principle is show, don't tell. Realistically, many people "only look at the pictures". —RCraig09 (talk) 22:06, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

♥ Thanks go to Sdkb and others for constructive feedback and suggestions in what has truly been a group effort. —RCraig09 (talk) 22:06, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

• Yeah I agree keep 1 and 5. I can't understand what's going on with just the symbols and words not included. I don't know what this is about people only looking at the pictures though, I read it all. Words are great. There's not too many of them and that which is being communicated is kind of abstract in nature. YelloJello33 (talk) 23:21, 14 April 2020 (UTC)YelloJello33

YelloJello33, I've just added explanation beneath 2, 4, and 6. I envisioned the non-text graphics primarily for readers outside of the English Wikipedia. —RCraig09 (talk) 03:07, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

RCraig09, would it be possible to reach out to editors who know both English and another language, ask them for appropriate translations, and incorporate the translated text into the graphs? —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 05:13, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

@Tenryuu: I don't know the answer to your question. Regardless, Wikipedia has encyclopedias in dozens of languages, and even the simplest change to these GIF animations would take a long time because someone would have to separately generate 49 unique PNG frames to simulate 'motion' in the graph, and use them to generate the GIF. To generate dozens of GIFs is not practical. That is why I generated a single, text-free "international" version so that non-English speakers could simply read a textual caption beneath the animation in their native language. They would not be distracted by what to them is a foreign language. —RCraig09 (talk) 06:01, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

RCraig09, I'm afraid I don't know much about how .gif animation is created; I was under the assumption that you could take the middle frames without wording and keep them in each animation for all languages. The beginning and end frames can just be translated easily for (3), as there is no point where wording is present when the curves are moving. I can see how (5) is a little harder. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 06:47, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Nope. Any change of language (example: "Time"-->"Zeit") requires 49 new frames. Doing it once or twice is manageable; doing it dozens of times is a challenge! But thank you for your thoughtfulness. —RCraig09 (talk) 15:15, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

RCraig09, as another suggestion (at the cost of appearing English-centric), what if other wikis adopted the animations as is, then translated the words in captions accompanying the graphs? —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 20:00, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Maybe just provide a blank version so that if editors from another language want to do the rendering of a translated version, they can? But I think the international versions are pretty good. I put them on the talk pages of a few different languages a few days ago, so not sure whether they've been adopted. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:42, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Deleting the icons would take, literally, only an additional click or two (in Inkscape etc.). Inserting foreign-language text would take a few minutes. It's generating 49 unique frames and arranging them into a GIF that would take the time. —RCraig09 (talk) 21:49, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

• I prefer (3) and (5). Like the fact that the line raises as time goes on. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:08, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

  @Doc James: this is an understandable misinterpretation of the graph in (3). Time in these graphics is represented not by the animation but by the x axis, so (1) is the graph that shows healthcare capacity increasing over time, because the line slopes upward. The animation axis represents not time but shifting attitudes, so what (3) represents is something different: that healthcare capacity will only increase if we prioritize increasing healthcare capacity (i.e. raising the line). Some concepts are best illustrated graphically, and some are better illustrated by just stating them. To me, "raising the line" is better illustrated just by stating it, since it's easy to do so clearly, whereas the graphical depiction introduces the confusion I just had to address. Similarly, I think resurgence is an important concept to include in the article, but it's so simple, it doesn't need a graph to illustrate it and slow down the page loading speed. Better to just have a sentence that says "if mitigation measures aren't sustained and are abandoned prematurely, there may be a resurgence of the virus". {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 08:12, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

It's actually not a "mis"interpretation, but a different interpretation. Strictly speaking, the animation portrays 49 different scenarios corresponding to different degrees of mitigation over time. #3 and #4 show the effect of maximizing both strategies simultaneously—as in fact we are trying to do. —RCraig09 (talk) 15:42, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Agree with User:RCraig09. There are a lot of people working to increase healthcare capacity just like there is a lot of people working to mitigate. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:40, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

• Like a few other users above, I prefer (3) and (5): (3) because it shows the relationship between mitigation and available health care more readily, and (5) for what is most likely to occur if mitigation procedures are insufficient. (2), (4), and (6) are out because they don't have text; while I myself am an icon/symbol addict and would love to use icons to spruce up the graphs, their meanings aren't clear at first glance and they don't capture the reader's attention. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 05:11, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
• I like (3) and (5). The graphs without words are too confusing. Bondegezou (talk) 09:42, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
• (3): the raising line helps visualizing the concept, text is clear, not too cluttered. I think (5) is trying to tell a much more complex story for a single image. I would include (5) only in addition to (3) where it is relevant. If we need to pick just one to visualize the concept of flattening the curve, I would go with (3). --MarioGom (talk) 13:45, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
• #1 looks great! #3 and #4 don't make sense to me. In #1, capacity increases over time, presumably as a function of increased healthcare investment, better treatments, and more healthy workers. In #3 and #4, capacity doesn't increase over time until it does? And are the two animations related or do they function independently (we could fail to flatten the curve but still increase capacity). I think I understand what is intended but I it seems more confusing than helpful. - Wikmoz (talk) 14:21, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

User:Wikmoz, #3 and #4 show, simultaneously, differing degrees of flattening the curve (FTC) and of raising the line (RTL)—multiple scenarios, different degrees of FTC and RTL, actually. These two motions could have been rendered separately, but at the expense of having to choose which mitigation strategy to perform first, when in reality we would be trying to FTC and RTL at the same time. Hence, the two strategies are executed contemporaneously. —RCraig09 (talk) 15:28, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

China's numbers

I noticed that when one hovers over "Iran" in the table of cases, deaths etc. by country there is this note:

2. Non-official sources inside and outside Iran report significantly higher numbers of infected and dead.[66][67][68][69]

If that's worthy of being noted, should there not also be a note on the implausibility of China's numbers? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 120.88.167.206 (talk • contribs)

What legislator in the National People's Congress has claimed 50 dead in Qom alone? Our official numbers claim (see Template:2019–20 coronavirus pandemic data/Iran medical cases chart) 12 deaths in the entire republic the day that legislator's claim was made. CaradhrasAiguo (leave language) 00:24, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

@CaradhrasAiguo: I'm not aware of any Chinese lawmaker admitting to something similar. Does that matter? If, hypothetically, the numbers were false, would it be expected that they would admit that? Only 1 of the 4 sources linked in the cases/deaths table re: Iran's numbers refers to the aforementioned Iranian legislator, while the rest refer to foreign speculation/deduction/common sense. With the abundance of grounds for reasonable doubt, and the fact that, in light of the rest-of-the-world's experience, the Chinese numbers are absurd on that face, how is the slight possibility of falsification not noted?

Moreover, I noticed, per Talk Archive 12, that you removed a mention of the abnormal fit to a quadratic in the early stages of the outbreak. Do you have a horse in this race?

Very insignificant change

In the infobox, it says "territories". Wouldn't it be better to have it listed as "territories affcted"? Kika.txt (talk) 03:49, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Kika.txt, "affected" is implied. We don't need any unnecessary words to clutter the infobox. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 05:04, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Need a reliable government source for the United States data in the

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.

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The infobox template listing countries data is hugely consequential since Google pulls from it when someone searches for 'covid-19 deaths' or something similar.

It is using a hugely unreliable source for the United States data.

The United States data is supplied by this website: https://coronavirus.1point3acres.com/en which states that .

The main webpage is in Chinese https://www.1point3acres.com/ which claims to be a "media-based tracker"

Following through its links you get to a medium blog post here: https://medium.com/1point3acres/about which confirms that, apparently, the site is run by Peter Sun, an undergraduate student at Duke.

Its inconsistencies are clear - the homepage claims its "media-based" but the tracker that the wikipedia page is actually linked to lists the United States Center for Disease Control (CDC) as the source of its data (here: https://coronavirus.1point3acres.com/en scroll down).

Clicking on the CDC link takes you only to the CDC's homepage.

If you actually go to the CDC's official count, their cases are significantly different

As of 5:47am EST April 15:

https://coronavirus.1point3acres.com/en count is 26,114 CDC official count is 22,252 (Source: https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/cases-updates/cases-in-us.html )

This is a huge discrepancy.

We should not allow a totally unverified webpage run by an individual take this prominence over a government source on one of the most important wikipedia entries. While Peter Sun's page includes both US and Canadian data it is only being used for the US data on wikipedia - Canada's data is CTV News which is a comparatively reliable source.

I therefore propose that the numbers and source are immediately corrected to the CDC official government page, which is what Peter Sun cites on his page for his United States level statistics, so he should not have grounds to object. N0thingbetter (talk) 10:09, 15 April 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.

"Outbreak" is not a synonym of "pandemic"

So, why are the two words used interchangeably? For example, the article reads: "The peak and ultimate duration of the outbreak are uncertain and may differ by location."

An outbreak is a sudden occurrence of something unwelcome, such as war or disease. So an outbreak of a pandemic is not a pandemic itself. 85.193.250.200 (talk) 12:39, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Locally you have outbreaks.

Globally you have a pandemic.

IMHO. Yug (talk) 15:23, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

This article used to be called "outbreak" rather than "pandemic", because WHO had not yet called it a pandemic. There were big title discussions (and right now there's a moratorium on further name changes; see the list of consensus pages at the top of this talk page) and eventually the name became "pandemic". It's possible that some wording has remained from before the name change. Careful fixes to make the usage correct and consistent between local outbreaks of the pandemic and the pandemic as a whole would most likely be accepted uncontroversially. Propose them here first if you're unsure. Boud (talk) 16:15, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

A pandemic is a type of outbreak. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:42, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Agreed with Doc James. It's useful to have more than one word available to refer to the pandemic for language variation. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 22:40, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, folks!

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.

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Yes, I'm aware of WP:NOTFORUM, but I feel this is the best place to say this, so maybe make an exception just this once?

Thank you to everyone who has worked to make Wikipedia one of the best places to get information on the pandemic, going over every detail, singling out misinformation, and providing the world with knowledge that is incredibly important during these times. To everyone who has worked on the Coronavirus Pandemic articles, everyone from the biggest contributor to the person who made a single minor edit to fix a typo: Thank you so much for helping keep the world safe. This article is of unimaginable importance, and doing it well is vital. Thank you for not just doing it well, but having a quality standard above nearly everyone's expectations.

Thanks you all. —moonythedwarf (Braden N.) 20:21, 15 April 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.

"Covidiot" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Covidiot. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. _signed, Rosguill ^talk 20:37, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Suggestion for Map

I think it would be a good idea for the map at the beginning of the article to have a higher category than just 1000+ cases, because then there is no distinction between 1,000 and 100,000 cases. ItsDaBunnyYT (talk) 21:28, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

But the map colours are per million inhabitants (eg. 1000 cases/million inhabitants). best, 81.107.215.246 (talk) 21:47, 15 April 2020 (UTC)