Talk:COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom

Map: Cumbria.

Please color in Cumbria per https://www.bbc.com/news/uk-51738837 -- Jeandré, 2020-03-05t14:10z

Guernsey not part of UK

While it almost certainly doesn't require its own outbreak article yet (and hopefully not at all!), Guernsey should not be included as part of this article as it is not a part of the United Kingdom. —Formulaonewiki 18:00, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks. An editor has reverted the addition of Guernsey. --Wire723 (talk) 22:14, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

It was added back, so as promised in my last edit summary I'll just provide a quick, referenced (where possible) explanation as to why Guernsey should not be considered part of the UK.

Guernsey (the island, the Bailiwick, and the remaining Channel Islands) are unequivocally not part of the United Kingdom. In 2008, Guernsey (along with the other Crown Dependencies) signed an agreement with the UK including a number of clarifications regarding the international identity of the islands including, "each Crown Dependency has an international identity that is different from that of the UK".

Just to illustrate how Guernsey cannot be likened to Gibraltar: Unlike Gibraltar, whose citizen's UK identity was affirmed by extending them the vote in the 2016 Brexit referendum, Guernsey citizens were not extended such a privilege. Additionally, the UK government may/will not legislate for Guernsey; the island has it's own legislative, executive and judicial bodies entirely separated from that of the UK. For UK legislation to apply, precedent suggests this is not possible without the island's consent. (NB Whether the UK actually retains any power to legislate, even as a last resort, is doubted now – the Attorney-General of Jersey suggested this power had fallen into 'desuetude').

I should also add that the main source used for most of the data, the JH Map, classifies Guernsey under 'Channel Islands'. While I personally think that's about as helpful as having Germany, France etc. listed under 'Europe' and Guernsey and Jersey should be separated out due to their constitutional independence, it's still more correct than including Guernsey within the UK! —Formulaonewiki 10:27, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Yes, Guernsey is not part of UK. Guernsey#Constitutional_status and as it's not part of the UK, reliable sources are not going to report it's outbreak numbers as part of the UK. Sun Creator^(talk) 10:31, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

I can confirm that (original research alert) I've only seen local articles (so far) report on the Guernsey case and seen no mention of it in the BBC's UK specific updates and totals. —Formulaonewiki 10:36, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Guernsey is not independent and not internationally recognised. It is not part of the United Kingdom, but not recognised as a distinct entity. It should be included in this article along with all UK territories as is done with France and Denmark. RandomIntrigue (talk) 11:18, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

That is incorrect. See above, and the relevant articles: Guernsey is recognised as a distinct entity, is internationally recognised (has own relationship with EU for example, and has been officially declared as above) and is most certainly not a UK territory. —Formulaonewiki 14:16, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

While I fully agree that Jersey and Guernsey are not part of the UK, and should have their own entries on the main page countries table, the fact is that between this page and the main page, they fall between the cracks. Editors keep removing them from the main page, and editors will not include them here. Editors need to get their heads together and determine where they should go. Same applies to Aruba, Curaçao, Faeroe Islands etc, which are not part of the "mother" country but have separate status. Ptilinopus (talk) 21:28, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Coronavirus pandemic in the UK?

I was the person who reverted the initial undiscussed move to this name, and I missed the chance to contribute to the subsequent move discussion as it was open for less than 8 hours. However, I would have opposed the move as I thought there was only one coronavirus pandemic, and not one in each country, and certainly not one in the UK as I haven't seen the UK outbreak described as a pandemic in any of the reliable sources. -- DeFacto (talk). 19:18, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

By definition a pandemic is something that involves countries/continents around the globe. This is not established on a country level. This article describes the part the UK plays in the larger event, not an event happening in the UK alone. Agathoclea (talk) 21:43, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

I think the name is fine, but take your point as it is an epidemic in the UK. The wording of the article should reflect this, as an epidemic within the UK, as part of the worldwide pandemic. The name seems good to keep within the collection of related articles however. |→ Spaully ^~talk~  13:35, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Sourcing of death toll

On multiple occasions, the figure has been altered to contradict the cited source. Right now, it gives the figure as 10, but [1] still says 8. It's true that a source [2] for the 10 has given, which might be a pretty reliable source, but this doesn't change the fact that it's at odds with the gov.uk page.

Furthermore, there's a comment there - "Always use the GOV.UK official source for this total". But this instruction has been breached. Furthermore, looking at the gov.uk page, it states, "Eight patients who tested positive for COVID-19 have died." As worded, this is telling us that 8 of the confirmed cases have since died, without telling us whether their deaths had anything to do with the virus. This is making me wonder if we can rely on it as an indication of the coronavirus death toll.

So we have a few things to consider:

• Can we really use the referenced gov.uk page to source this figure?
• Should we allow other sources, such as BBC News, to be used if they seem to be more up to date and sufficiently reliable?
• If not, what source can we use?

Once we've figured this out, we can update the citations and comments to reflect what we decide on. — Smjg (talk) 07:46, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

The official government website is clearly only updated once a day. Do we want the number to be accurate or official? Catfish Jim and the soapdish 09:00, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

My inclination is to keep government sources for the table/graphs/maps etc., but we could allow reliable sources for more up to date changes. However, I don't feel strongly on this and generally favour pragmatism - I think if we try to stick to out of date figures there will be an endless battle over the numbers. |→ Spaully ^~talk~  13:37, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

I see it's been updated to 55. So why is it still citing that BBC News article that gives the number as 10? Meanwhile I've tagged it {{not in source}}. I see the comment has changed: "Please do not update this value with anything other than data from GOV.UK or ArcGIS". The gov.uk page seems to have stopped giving the number of deaths, and ArcGIS appears to be a subscription-based service. Hmm. Whatever we do, we need people to stop updating the number and ignoring to update the sources. — Smjg (talk) 00:44, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

ArcGIS isn't subscription only and it appears to be the only way PHE are publishing their data now, so I suggest that is the best source. I have updated the links to this UK ArcGIS page which is updated daily. |→ Spaully ^~talk~  09:02, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Herd immunity

• https://www.msn.com/en-nz/news/world/majority-of-uk-needs-to-get-coronavirus-for-herd-immunity-chief-scientist-says/ar-BB1195At

Discussion on Herd immunity is over the UK news today. Sun Creator^(talk) 14:09, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Different data reported on the NHS and gov.uk websites

As of now, the data reported on gov.uk covid infos for public are:

Number of cases

As of 9am on 13 March 2020, 32,771 people have been tested in the UK, of which 31,973 were confirmed negative and 798 were confirmed as positive. 10 patients who tested positive for COVID-19 have died.

on the Daily Indicators map we find (link:https://www.arcgis.com/home/item.html?id=bc8ee90225644ef7a6f4dd1b13ea1d67):

date	total Uk Cases	NewUKCases	TotalUKDeaths	EnglandCases	ScotlandCases	WalesCases	NICases
3/13/2020	797	207	10	645	85	38	29

Please update the informations of the wiki page: I cannot do that for privilege reasons. — Preceding unsigned comment added by PaoloMera (talk • contribs) 21:37, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Map and table

Thanks for maintaining this! I see the map has been removed. I'm guessing a lot of people will be accessing this page looking for "how many cases near me" type information, which is both a reason to have a map and a reason not to have one unless it is accurate and updated at least daily. Personally I'm interested in how the virus is spreading through the country, so perhaps a sequence of maps at clearly specified timepoints would be interesting?

As a denizen of Scotland these days I'm a little underwhelmed by the lack of breakdown per region here. Could the table be split to allow regional updates? I'm updating rounded daily totals at the viruses portal at the moment from the WHO sitreps and would be willing to update a Scotland table daily from the .gov figures if it were split out. Espresso Addict (talk) 01:43, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

@Catfish Jim and the soapdish and Espresso Addict: I don't see what the problem is here. The map uses the latest official data. It is and can be updated daily. As for accuracy, can you give an example of inaccuracy? If there's something wrong with the the figures, the script is open source and can be verified. The map can also be manually coloured. None of these are reasons for removal. Ythlev (talk) 08:25, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

(I didn't remove the map.) I'm in favour of having a map, if it can be kept up to date, and possibly even if not, as a historical time point -- eg one map a week would be interesting. Unfortunately I have no idea how such maps are created/edited. Espresso Addict (talk) 08:34, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Here is one of the maps I removed. There are 85 confirmed cases in Scotland and 60 in Wales. The total number represented on the map is 426, when we currently have 798 confirmed cases in the UK. Clearly the map is not correct. Catfish Jim and the soapdish 11:24, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

I was talking about File:COVID-19 outbreak UK per capita cases map.svg. Ythlev (talk) 11:41, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Okay, my primary objection that one was that it was sitting without any explanation of what the colours meant, but assuming dark means bad and light means good... it's misleading at best due to the inconsistent resolution. There is a blanket figure for the whole of Scotland (30 thousand square miles, five and a half million people) but you have it resolved at borough level in London, eg. Newham 14 square miles. Taking the example of Newham... it doesn't look too bad on the per capita map... compared with, say Ceredigion in wales, it's a much lighter colour. However, there have been no confirmed cases in Ceredigion yet. For these reasons it is not useful to readers. Catfish Jim and the soapdish 12:01, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

What about two maps, one for England and one for other countries? Ythlev (talk) 12:10, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

As this article is about the whole of the UK, a map covering the whole UK is probably best. -- DeFacto (talk). 12:20, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Even within England, there will always be differences in subdivision sizes. Nothing I can do about that. Ythlev (talk) 12:11, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Missed this earlier... at least in England the subdivisions will be related to the population of the area. Catfish Jim and the soapdish 18:15, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

I don't know how equal English subdivisions are, but on a per capita basis, the difference in population is already flattened out compared to case counts. Ythlev (talk) 18:47, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Any map needs to be fully captioned at the point of usage with: the colour key, what the 'subdivisions' represent, the source(s) of the data and the date the data was last updated. With any of those captions missing, the map is pointless. -- DeFacto (talk). 12:18, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Is it? When I look at a map, especially a gradient map, I generally don't need those things to gist of it. If I want more details, I would either go to the file page, or turn to statistics tables which is much more precise. The map is supposed to be a rough representation. Ythlev (talk) 12:40, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Personally I am not a fan of this map. It does not use recognised regions, why are the East and West Midlands merged together, why has the same been done to Yorkshire and the North East? --Mtaylor848 (talk) 12:49, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

This is the map that we're debating:

Catfish Jim and the soapdish 12:56, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

I think this heat map does provide useful information based on the PHE data and gives an overall impression of density of infections.

@Ythlev: - is the breakdown purely based on the regions PHE are reporting? I can see the detail for the English counties but not for the other countries, is this not being reported?

It feels like this map is being excluded for not meeting standards which are impossible to meet as the underlying data is not there - to me the question is whether it adds useful information, is based on reliable sources, and is being regularly updated. It seems like Yes to all 3 points to me so should be included until a better option is available. |→ Spaully ^~talk~  10:34, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Yes. I've added the data sources on Commons. It is really easy to update regularly. Ythlev (talk) 11:43, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, that looks like a clever script and thanks for keeping it updated. I have added the map to the timeline section as I think it is useful information and it less prominent than use in the lead infobox. Any further thoughts on this from anyone? It is difficult to establish consensus either way without wider participation. |→ Spaully ^~talk~  11:15, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Upright

Moved here from my talkpage. -- DeFacto (talk). 21:19, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Could you [DeFacto] clarify your use of upright in the coronavirus article please? I don't see anything in MOS:UPRIGHT that specifies that this setting is required, and all it seems to do is to reduce the image to 0.75 which doesn't seem to be necessary. Thanks. Philafrenzy (talk) 21:14, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Portrait-style images (height greater than width) look disproportionately large in comparison the landscape-style images (width greater than height) if the default size is used, so I was thinking of "tall, narrow images may look best with upright of 1 or less." in MOS:UPRIGHT, and 'upright' defaults to scale (0.75) which I think is more appropriate for this. -- DeFacto (talk). 21:37, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

I removed it on a couple. They all seem to appear at the same width and look very uniform now. Philafrenzy (talk) 18:55, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

@Philafrenzy: It's not uniform width that makes them look balanced though, it is uniform area. That means the width of the landscape images should be about the same as the height of the portrait images, and the height of the portrait images is about the same as the width of the landscape images - which is what the use of 'portrait' does beautifully. As it stands now, with the widths of 3:4 aspect ratio photos being equal for portrait and landscape images, the portrait image areas are about 1.8 times the area of the landscape images - which is why they look so unbalanced. -- DeFacto (talk). 20:46, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

@Philafrenzy: take a look at some of Wikipedia's best articles, and you will see that they generally follow this formula. -- DeFacto (talk). 20:56, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, I don't think the page looks wrong, despite the areas being different. I understand what you are saying but the page looks fine in practice. That's probably why the alternative is only an option, not a rule. Perhaps we see the page differently. Are your screen settings non standard? Mine are standard options. Philafrenzy (talk) 21:12, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 15 March 2020

Please will you include an indication of the magnification factor (scale) of any micrographs you publish as without this it is impossible for readers to know the size of the subject of the micrographs. The best way to indicate the scale of the micrographs is as on a road map, using a bar of a specific length and an an indication of how many nanometres or microns it is on the scale of the micrograph. It might also be useful for the public to be told that the colours in any electron micrographs are artificial. This is also true of the colours in lots of photomicrographs, especially those of biological specimens. suggestion submitted by Chris Niesigh86.215.221.142 (talk) 06:33, 15 March 2020 (UTC) 86.215.221.142 (talk) 06:33, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

I agree this is generally a good rule, though the image used in the infobox looks to be computer generated and so probably not suitable to be treated as a micrograph. I expect if/when we have a suitably updated map this image will not be used so prominently. |→ Spaully ^~talk~  11:53, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Template disabled as no specific change was included . Andy Mabbett (Pigsonthewing); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 21:14, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

WikiProject COVID-19

I've created WikiProject COVID-19 as a temporary or permanent WikiProject and invite editors to use this space for discussing ways to improve coverage of the ongoing 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic. Please bring your ideas to the project/talk page. Stay safe, --Another Believer _(Talk) 17:51, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Splitting Table

The table of cases/deaths etc. seems very large and hard to read. Would it be sensible to split it into one 'UK' table, with cases per nation and total number of confirmed cases/tests/deaths, and a 'Regional' table showing cases by NHS region in Scotland and England? Interested to hear people's thoughts. PinkPanda272 (talk/contribs) 07:53, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Should be a table of variables by council. I know the data is kept. Wallie (talk) 17:47, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Data anomalies

Totals each day do not agree with the graph. Which one is correct? Also the not yet classified column contains minus figures. Maybe some mathematical type can explain this to me. I'm sure it is confusing to readers. Wallie (talk) 17:47, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

New Imperial Report

Someone needs to add a link to the new report just out I cannot because the page is locked to me now. It's one of the most significant breakthroughs to date - actual scientists overturning the SPAD views in WHitehall. A-bj-q (talk) 08:43, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Added that 16/3 report to the existing text in the intro; should be added to body also. --Wire723 (talk) 11:30, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Data Anomalies 2

The data in the table headed COVID-19 cases in the United Kingdom by area disagrees with the data in the chart "COVID-19 cases in the United Kingdom". I see the other chart for new cases has now been removed. I don't want anything helpful like that removed, just to have the numbers corrected. Maybe we need an accountant, not a mathematician. Wallie (talk) 16:06, 17 March 2020 (UTC)