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 Superseded by #9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 Superseded by #7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 Superseded by #16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)

Remove duplicated content

The previous discussion on this topic was archived following extensive discussion and mostly positive feedback. This article remains a complete mess. So let's recap and try again.

Problem: we are currently not following the established HIV/AIDS standard for virus topics. We have 3 pages with overlapping content and a lot of unnecessary duplication.

We can compare:

• Epidemiology of HIV/AIDS vs. COVID-19 Pandemic (virus/disease is not touched in the article or the lead. The page should relate only to the epidemiological aspects of the virus)
• HIV/AIDS vs. COVID-19 (this page should the disease caused by the virus - medical/clinical aspects)
• HIV vs. Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (this page should treat only the virus - virology)

Solution: to realign this page to the HIV standard we have created a SANDBOX PROPOSAL for this page (please consider the modifications are based on the content from some weeks ago. We would reapply them to the current content to keep any relevant edit).

The proposal is structured as follows:

• Before lead: introduce the About template stating: This page is about the worldwide spread of and responses to COVID-19. For detailed information about the disease, see Coronavirus disease 2019. For the virus that causes the disease, see Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2.
• Lead: clean up to only treat epidemiological content

1. Epidemiology
2. Transmission
3. Signs and symptoms
4. Cause
5. Diagnosis
6. Prevention
7. Mitigation
8. Treatment
9. History
10. National responses
11. International responses
12. Impact
13. Information dissemination
14. See also

No content will be lost. As everything we are removing is already treated in the other pages (and usually better) and is just unnecessary duplication (with sometimes contradictory/out of date information).

I'll ping some of the users involved in the previous discussion. I hope I have summarised the arguments from the previous discussion and that the proposal and the rationale behind it are clearer now. Tenryuu Moxy Bakkster Man Ovinus_Real Sdkb RealFakeKim Doc James. - {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 13:21, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

• Support - see proposal and rationale above -- {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 13:21, 16 November 2020 (UTC)
• Ambivalent. Let me point out concerns/opinions on the sandbox proposal:

1. No hatnote. It's agreed that we don't need any hatnotes.

2. The lead ultra-shortening is gonna be controversial. Personally, I support it. As I've stated before in other talk sections, I want the xenophobia statement to be shortened, since it will be vague to reserve a chunk of bytes for an incident that don't seem to deserve a chunk of bytes in the lead.

3. Why? Understanding how COVID-19 spreads, the symptoms, and prevention is an important part. The H1N1 pandemic article has "Signs and symptoms," "Diagnosis," "Cause," and "Treatment," so why not this? I think it's fine and there's nothing particularly vague. Sure this article must focus on the EPI, but a little context would suffice.

GeraldWL 14:01, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

@Gerald Waldo Luis: thanks for the comments. I'll reply point by point.

1. The hatnote is optional (I've removed from the proposal the other ones which have been since removed). I think this hatnote help users and editors understand where to find the information they need.
2. This is just the initial restructuring. To avoid major discussions we are simply removing duplicated content at the moment. We can then continue editing the finer details starting from those new foundations.
3. The COVID-19 disease article covers spread, symptoms and prevention etc. (just like HIV/AIDS). This page is about Epidemiology/Overall Pandemic (just like Epidemiology of HIV/AIDS). The H1N1 pandemic is treated differently than the HIV/AIDS precedent because I don't think there is a specific article regarding the disease caused by H1N1 (it is a general Influenza-like illness). So we basically have a 2 article structure with the pandemic and the H1N1 virus article instead of a more complete 3 article structure like HIV/AIDS and COVID-19. There is no H1N1 disease article so some related content is within the H1N1 pandemic article. We could still add a small single section describing the general info regarding the disease if we want to "tie in" the other articles but we shouldn't have 50% of the article duplicating the COVID-19 Disease article. -- {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 15:44, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

• I still Oppose the current sandbox proposal, as the concerns I and others articulated remain unaddressed. Since you reiterated yourself, I'll reiterate my objection (with slight copy edits):

This would be a really drastic change. While I agree with the general thrust of reducing the amount of information in this article that pertains mainly to the disease, the current sandboxed proposal uses less of a scalpel and more of a massive sledgehammer on this page, cutting out a ton that pertains to the pandemic, not just the disease. You're proposing cutting out lines like (from the lead) COVID-19 mainly spreads through the air when people are near each other long enough, primarily via small droplets or aerosols, as an infected person breathes, coughs, sneezes, sings, or speaks, and the entire section on a vaccine, which is fully about its development within the context of the pandemic. I could support there being less information about transmission/symptoms/diagnosis/prevention/treatment, but just chopping out those sections entirely is too much. Similarly, for the diagnosis section, efforts to improve testing are inherently related to the battle to control the spread of the pandemic, and thus fit within this page's scope. I'm sure I would find additional examples if I looked more thoroughly. I also have concerns, on a public health level, about removing entirely information like the fact that ventilation can reduce transmission—we can reduce the amount of that information here, perhaps transcluding high-level summaries from other pages, without eliminating it entirely.

The one thing I'd add is that I don't find the HIV/AIDs precedent argument all that compelling. COVID-19 pages have presumably received orders of magnitude more attention than those pages, so if anything, they should consider following the precedents we set here. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 17:21, 16 November 2020 (UTC)

@Sdkb: The sentence you quoted is a perfect example of what we are duplicating and the problems related to that. That's a verbatim duplication from the COVID-19 (disease) article. It says nothing about the pandemic. It should be treated (thoroughly) in the disease article. The other example relating to the vaccine section is another good example. It should absolutely not be a duplication. The topic should be treated very differently across the two pages (disease=medical aspects of the vaccines, pandemic=epidemiological aspects of the vaccines). Once again: this article is about the pandemic. Not the disease. Otherwise we should just merge the two pages and be done with it. In essence that is what you are proposing, a merge of COVID-19 and COVID-19 Pandemic, which I would oppose. -- {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 10:31, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

• Relevant discussion: Wikmoz has proposed merging Symptoms of COVID-19 back into Coronavirus disease 2019#Signs and symptoms with some transclusion in this discussion. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 20:34, 16 November 2020 (UTC)
• I support the proposal but I have to point out that there is no "standard" for virus articles. Graham Beards (talk) 10:46, 18 November 2020 (UTC)
• Ambivalent is a good description of my feelings.
  • There is no "precedent" or "standard" that we need to be following.
  • If we were going to follow a precedent, then HIV isn't the obvious one, IMO. The articles in Category:2019 measles outbreaks or the featured article 1966 New York City smog would make better models, as they deal with a temporary flare-up of an endemic health problem.
  • I think the most important thing is that a person who comes to this page is able to get a complete picture. WhatamIdoing (talk) 17:07, 18 November 2020 (UTC)

@WhatamIdoing: If you look at the measles example (I don't think the NY City Smog case is comparable) it follows the exact logical structure proposed here:

• Epidemic/Pandemic 2019 measles outbreaks
• Disease page Measles
• Virus page Measles morbillivirus

This is simply the most logical structure to follow so most other virus/epidemics follow this structure. This page should not "give the complete picture". Otherwise we would need to merge Pandemic and Disease into a single page. And the topic is too vast and complex to do that. -- {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 10:15, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

Comment: I strongly agree with the premise that content duplication within COVID-19 articles is bad and we should attempt to resolve redundancy. However, I'd suggest a more surgical approach that takes each section under consideration individually. It's definitely more time consuming but I think it will lead to a better outcome. I kicked off a discussion here to address 'Signs and symptoms'. Maybe similar planning discussions can be had for each of the above-noted sections. - Wikmoz (talk) 21:15, 20 November 2020 (UTC)

@Wikmoz: as I mentioned in the other discussion [1], since this page is about the pandemic and not the disease, sections called "signs and symptoms" or "Transmission" have no place here. I think the most we can have if we want to give some context is a section condensing the primary info regarding the virus/disease. Asection called "Cause" might be appropriate with a very brief overview. But everything else must go. Do you see any information in the sections removed in the proposal that relate to the pandemic and not the disease/virus? I think we all agree the duplication must go. We need to move past this FOMO. We are not loosing any content. Let's move on. -- {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 13:03, 22 November 2020 (UTC)

I think we're solving the duplicate content problem correctly by transcluding. To the broader point you've made about the pandemic topic including content about the disease, I think it's necessary and helpful to readers but can be improved by reducing disease sections to one or two paragraphs. I took a pass at a first step reorganization of COVID-19 pandemic that consolidates the disease-specific sections (note: I missed transmission in the mockup). No content is deleted. It makes the logical distinction clear and consolidates the disease content. Let me know what you guys think. The next step would be to shorten/transclude where appropriate. I've left Prevention alone as I think the section is equally relevant to the disease and pandemic. - Wikmoz (talk) 02:11, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

I think brief overviews should be given to provide context for the pandemic and the transclusions help in doing that, as long as they're one or two paragraphs (not that I think we'll actually break PEIS again, but I'm thinking very conservatively here). I think a question we should ask ourselves is: "How much information should we be giving a somewhat interested reader who won't click on any links to more relevant articles?" —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 06:19, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

From a recent experience over at COVID-19 pandemic in the United States, citations that are being transcluded in an excerpt should not rely on a named reference outside of the excerpt. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 06:21, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

I agree this goes in the right direction but is still too much (as Tenryuu said in more technical terms). It is basically a small duplication of the COVID-19 article within the Pandemic article. If the pandemic article references the COVID-19 article then it should only include its lead (the summary of the most important info). And nothing more than that. Wikmoz could you try a version like this?-- {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 09:48, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

p.s. the lead of the pandemic article should be trimmed of all content that does not relate to the pandemic/epidemic such as signs and symptoms of the disease or we will have fixed the duplication in the body but the lead will keep its duplication problems. -- {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 09:52, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

It's very a small step. Just wanted to be sure it's in the right direction. If there are no objections, I'll roll it forward tonight. The discussion can continue on how much content is appropriate for inclusion in the 'Disease' section and how it's summarized in the lead. I still think it's helpful to readers to keep brief summaries of key disease details (and links to relevatnt disease articles) available within the pandemic topic. And if it's organized under a single H1, it's easy to skip. - Wikmoz (talk) 18:25, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

@Wikmoz: I agree it's a step in the right direction (although you forgot to include the transmission section within the disease section). If there are no objections I would start taking this first step. I've used this discussion to propose a second full proposal below. -- {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 19:52, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

Second Proposal

Some of the feedback lamented a lack of context in the proposal above. Based on the discussions I have added a new "disease" section that transcludes the lead from the COVID-19 article. This avoids content duplication while offering users information on the disease and a convenient way of finding out more if that's what the reader is looking for.

• Lead: clean up to only treat epidemiological content

1. Disease (only lead of COVID-19 transcluded)
2. Epidemiology
3. Cause
4. Mitigation
5. History
6. National responses
7. International responses
8. Impact
9. Information dissemination
10. See also

Bold text shows differences from current page structure

See the second proposal in action here. - {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 19:54, 25 November 2020 (UTC)

• Support - see proposal and rationale above -- {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 19:54, 25 November 2020 (UTC)
• Comment - I don't have a strong opinion but I generally don't see a need to eliminate the disease subheadings. The content is very relevant and helpful to see at a glance without having to navigate to other pages. Given the large number of different 'main article' topics for the disease, the subsections with links are really helpful. Now that the disease sections are consolidated under a single heading, it's easy to skip on mobile web. I do think we need to merge and shorten the content under Diagnoses and Treatment. There's a bunch of original content here so a careful merge will take some time. - Wikmoz (talk) 23:57, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

Now that we have consolidated the disease section (a big step in the right direction) the most pressing matter isn't removing those subsections but cleaning up the lead of the article. It should not duplicate the COVID-19 page and focus exclusively on the topic at hand: the pandemic.

Even after consolidation the reason why I would still clean up the disease section is the following: the table of contents currently contains 60 elements! This page is about the pandemic so it isn't true that this content is very relevant. From the pandemic page if you want to know more about the disease you should skip to COVID-19 not directly to the specific subpages discussing in detail the symptoms for example. You would first start with a general overview and then move even deeper from there. Remember that on average people read an article for a few minutes and only read the lead (see: WP:MOSLEAD). The COVID-19 lead covers the crucial aspects of the disease. A person can then delve deeper from there and we would simplify this article a lot. Less is more. -- {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 12:13, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

Johns Hopkins University's Student Newspaper

FYI

 – Heading has been refactored by Juxlos. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 02:59, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

Johns Hopkins University Student Newspaper JHU News-Letter:

“Surprisingly, the deaths of older people stayed the same before and after COVID-19. Since COVID-19 mainly affects the elderly, experts expected an increase in the percentage of deaths in older age groups. However, this increase is not seen from the CDC data. In fact, the percentages of deaths among all age groups remain relatively the same.”

Source: https://web.archive.org/web/20201122214034/https://www.jhunewsletter.com/article/2020/11/a-closer-look-at-u-s-deaths-due-to-covid-19

Reliable source fan (talk) 23:55, 26 November 2020 (UTC)

This is by the The Johns Hopkins News-Letter, the student newspaper of JHU and not the university itself. It should also be noted that this article has been retracted - in fact, the article on that paper specifically mentions how this specific archived article has been used as a misleading source and hence has been retracted.. Juxlos (talk) 00:00, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

Many wikipedia articles cite the Internet Archive because the original source has been retracted. Reliable source fan (talk) 01:01, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

I don't believe the JHU Newsletter is WP:MEDRS-compliant, is it? —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 01:29, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

I doubt it even passes regular RS checks, being a student newspaper. Retracted articles on a student newspaper should not even need to be mentioned. Juxlos (talk) 02:44, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

Intro update re: vaccines needed

I am not an experienced editor but I think an update is needed and request help

Introduction section now reads "There are several vaccine candidates in development, although none has completed clinical trials."

This is not up to date. The correct up-to-date information is available at the end of the "Vaccines" section:

On 9 November, Pfizer Inc announced that its vaccine was more than 90% effective in preventing COVID-19,[218] and on 16 November, Moderna revealed its vaccine was 94.5% effective.[219] On 23 November, the University of Oxford in collaboration with AstraZeneca, announced positive results from an interim analysis of their ChAdOx1 nCoV-2019 vaccine, with efficacy between 62% and 90%.[220][221] — Preceding unsigned comment added by BeholdMan (talk • contribs) 05:15, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

FWIW, none of the cited clinical trials are complete. They've completed enrollment, they report that they've completed interim analysis, but the trials are ongoing with plans for many months of follow-up to determine/refine efficacy and durability of immune responses, as well as safety analyses. So, the current language is not wrong. How many details from press releases to include in the lede - I'll defer to more experienced WP editors. — soupvector (talk) 12:41, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

We need to be more careful with claims of vaccine results. Press releases are not WP:MEDRS compliant sources and we should stick to those for any claim of efficacy. -- {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 12:51, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

I concur. Until there's peer review on the study results and/or approval from major health organizations, the current language is accurate. It's possible we'll be updating this in the next few weeks, but not yet. Bakkster Man (talk) 16:53, 27 November 2020 (UTC)

I'd say the current language is correct but it doesn't really give the full picture. If we want to re-word to give indication that the vaccine trials have shown promising interim results, I'd think that'd be okay. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 07:00, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

How about from "There are several vaccine candidates in development, although none has completed clinical trials." to: "There are many vaccine candidates in development, although none has completed clinical trials. Three vaccines, developed by pharmaceutical companies Pfizer, Inc., Moderna and AstraZeneca have been announced by the companies as safe and effective. As of 28 November, those claims are still being verified by regulatory agencies." — Preceding unsigned comment added by BeholdMan (talk • contribs) 06:32, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

• Wikipedia shouldnt do science by press release --49.180.100.63 (talk) 10:10, 29 November 2020 (UTC)

I understand. The problem seems to me that we don't have consistency between the lead intro section and the main vaccine section of the page. If Wikipedia shouldn't do science by press release, which is a reasonable policy, then the main vaccine section should be edited or removed, because it is based on press releases, not peer reviewed work at this time. If press release IS acceptable, then the intro should match what the main section currently says. The problem is that a reader could come upon the page at this time, browse the lead section and conclude that no trials have concluded; and then scroll to the vaccine section and see that trials have concluded with results being certain numbers. That seems to me to lower our credibility. I hope that makes sense.

India 2019 Origin

Another origin via The Lancet pre-prints The Early Cryptic Transmission and Evolution of SARS-CoV-2 in Human Hosts 2020-11-17.

The least mutated strain can be found in eight countries across four continents ... The statistical analysis of the SARS-CoV-2’s strain diversity in different countries/regions shows that the Indian subcontinent has the highest strain diversity. Furthermore, based on the SARS-CoV-2’s mutation rate, we estimate that the earliest SARS-CoV-2 transmission in human hosts could be traced back to July or August of 2019.

Chumpih (talk) 07:32, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

There is definite evidence building that the virus originated earlier then thought. But nothing definitive yet I would say. -- {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 20:15, 28 November 2020 (UTC)

• I think it's very likely that Lancet pre-print will be found to be misleading due to erroneous phylogenetic rooting - it's a pretty classic error. Let's see what high-quality secondary sources say, but I think this is another paper challenging the current narrative - which can be scientifically useful but is not encyclopedic. — soupvector (talk) 01:52, 29 November 2020 (UTC)