Talk:COVID-19/Archive 12

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IFR and WHO

Dr. Soumya Swaminathan, Chief Scientist at WHO, said that average of IFR figures presented was at about 0.6%. During a Press conference on July 3 [1]. According to several press reports, she also said it's the scientific consensus (I'm glad I found the videoclip). For those in the dark about it, Worst cases scenarios are always envisaged seriously, always dragging the mean IFR a little higher than best estimates.

I think it would be useful to add this source to our IFR chapter even if it's on youtube. I do not intend to add content. The CDC source already say 0.2% to 1.0% (mean of 0.6%) and most probable estimate at 0.4%. Having the WHO and the CDC roughly agreeing with each other gives a lot of weight to their POV in the chapter and it's good for the reader as well as future editors. And allows us to slowly cut down older sources. Iluvalar (talk) 18:34, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

The WHO has made available a written transcript of that media briefing here, so you have a good source that can be used to support content (the relevant part for CFR is after the heading "00:53:31") even if you feel that YouTube videos present problems in being used as sources. I'm sure everyone appreciates the importance of not using news reports for content when the original 'unfiltered' expert or scholarly work is available. --RexxS (talk) 19:22, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

I think youtube is just a platform. This is obviously a press conference from WHO which is not reliable at all imo. But I have no plan to affirm what they said, I just want to affirm that they said it. And they are notable enough for that to be relevant. As you know i'm on the look out for any IFR source I can find. So what is best in your opinion ? The transcript or the video ? Iluvalar (talk) 20:10, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Why wouldn't statements from the WHO be reliable? From WP:MEDRS: "Ideal sources for biomedical information include: review articles (especially systematic reviews) published in reputable medical journals; academic and professional books written by experts in the relevant fields and from respected publishers; and guidelines or position statements from national or international expert bodies." The WHO is clearly an international expert body.

Notability is what you look for when deciding whether a topic should have an article. Content is based on what the best quality reliable sources say. Because number of infections can only be estimated at present (although the population is an upper bound and confirmed cases is a lower bound) and IFR will vary from place to place, we are unlikely to get a proper picture until well after the pandemic has subsided.

You'll find that editors are suspicious of YouTube because it's a self-published platform (although that video looks solid to me), so why not use the transcript – nobody is going to argue with that. --RexxS (talk) 20:25, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

They had the source : [2] saying that 1% of Wuhan was infected. Even with a state of the art research center dedicated to Coronaviruses in it. It was 1% of the world most likely, yet they waited 40 days to call it a pandemic. Knowing fully well that it could double every week. They didn't even bother asking other countries to test the hypothesis. Covid-19 is pretty much a text book mutation of coronavirus. And honestly, I'm just really deceived about how the WHO is managing this. Each country in the world having to conduct their own research. Not even being told to do so. Just slowly realizing a month later that the WHO only wait for others researches to make an average of them. I really don't think this pandemic alert system work. Sorry for this editorial, TL;DR. I have no faith in WHO to manage this. Iluvalar (talk) 01:22, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

There are already several peer-reviewed articles that establish similar IFRs, consistent with the WHO figure above--this might even be the data they are relying on (I do not add these myself as I already got reverted once and I don't want to get sanctioned):

• A study using data out of China published in The Lancet found an overall IFR of .66%: "Estimates of the severity of coronavirus disease 2019: a model-based analysis"
• A study using data out of France published in the journal Science found an IFR of .7%: "Estimating the burden of SARS-CoV-2 in France"

Both of these are discussed in a news article in the journal Nature: "How deadly is the coronavirus? Scientists are close to an answer". Someone who knows the rules for this article/feels more confident than me should add these. JEN9841 (talk) 05:28, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Thank you JEN9841, I would say that there is a constant tendency for the IFR estimates to go down. There is an overwhelming amount of evidences that COVID have been around for longer and infected more people then previously expected. Antibody tests, old blood samples, sewage samples, the discovery of more asymptomatic cases etc. The perfect example of this is here [3]. I prefer putting more weight on the CDC estimates which have millions of cases to analyse then one based on the Diamond Princess or early Wuhan cases. Iluvalar (talk) 08:50, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

I don't think that your criticism of the WHO stands scrutiny, and your understanding of what is required for an epidemic to be declared a pandemic is lacking. That narrative has been put out to mask the inaction of governments, such as the US, during the early stages of the outbreak, and is clearly politically motivated to create a scapegoat. The current upsurge in cases in the USA is indicative of the problems that are experienced by ignoring advice. The WHO is an international body with global expertise and is at least as trustworthy as the CDC in making statements that concern health.

Both the Lancet and the Sciencemag articles are primary sources, and unsuitable for use to support biomedical information in Wikipedia. Both of them have been subject to corrections, and that illustrates perfectly why we don't rush to take on board what primary studies say. The Sciencemag article had to change its estimate of the IFR from from 0.65% down to 0.53% because three people whom they assumed would die survived. Numbers that are based on so many assumptions become not much more than guesswork, and as I previously noted, we are very unlikely to be able to get good estimates of a particular region's IFR until well after the pandemic has ended. --RexxS (talk) 18:04, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

A this point, we are simply sharing opinions RexxS. I will add the WHO transcript because it's notable, not because it's trustworthy. Feel free to disagree, as long as we agree to add the transcript. I remind you that USA increased the tests by 4 time in a few weeks. They are still detecting about 7% positives no matter the amount of tests done. [4]. The recent increase of confirmed cases doesn't mean much in that context; You can confirm as much as you test. We also yet to see the impact of recent unrest, we should logically see a bump in the data. Iluvalar (talk) 19:56, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Take a look at https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(20)31483-5/fulltext just to get an idea of a recent estimate of seroprevalence. You should be able to work out that over the last 17 days, a 25% increase of tests against a 100% increase in confirmed cases (to an unprecedented 50,000 per day), is a huge concern. --RexxS (talk) 21:23, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Why would those articles being primary sources mean they cannot be added? Their inclusion seems to be consistent with Wikipedia:Identifying and using primary sources and Wikipedia:No original research. JEN9841 (talk) 23:49, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

@JEN9841: the guideline governing sources for medical content is Wikipedia:Identifying reliable sources (medicine). You'll find the answer to your question there. --RexxS (talk) 00:11, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Ah alright, thank you. But what about the coverage of these primary sources in the article in Nature I mention? Seems like that counts as a "reliable, third-party published secondary source[]" (if contextualized the way they are in the article). JEN9841 (talk) 00:34, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

@JEN9841: I think you can work out the answer by considering why we ask for the highest quality secondary sources for our biomedical content. That content needs to be based on an analysis of primary sources that Wikipedia editors are not trusted to do. In other words, the interpretation of primary sources, the weighing of what is significant and what is important need to be done by a good secondary source. That's why we're looking for systematic and literature reviews, quality meta-analyses published in top quality academic journals, and statements from inter/national health bodies to provide the added value for us. Ask yourself what the article in the News section of Nature adds to the primary sources? The answer is not much beyond the lay explanations, and it's what is labelled popsci. You are familiar with Wikipedia:Identifying and using primary sources #Are news-reporting media secondary or primary sources?, so you have observed how news reports are often primary sources because they do nothing more than disseminate the sources they are reporting on. In the case of the Nature news article, it's in rather more of a grey area because the publication itself lends gravitas to the content of the article, and the author has reasonable academic credentials. It does some comparisons (e.g. of estimates of IFR) but note how the author is careful to keep the IFR estimates in perspective:

Several researchers, including Russell and Verity, find it interesting that a growing number of studies from different regions have estimated IFRs in the range of 0.5–1%. But other scientists are cautious about suggestions of agreement. “The trend is potentially more luck than anything else,” says Meyerowitz-Katz.

I think there may well some content that we could legitimately use, but it would need to hedge it with the same caveats as the article makes if we are to represent its conclusions accurately. --RexxS (talk) 01:21, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

The Chief Scientist at WHO, reported that the average of IFR figures presented at the Global Research and Innovation Forum on COVID-19, a two day conference virtually attended by 1300 experts was about 0.6%. This sounds like a summary, not primary research and WHO passes WP:MEDRS (specifically WP:MEDORG). The statement appears in the official transcript and is confirmed in a video passing WP:TRANSCRIPTION. The statement was notable enough to be referenced in The New York Times. JEN9841 further demonstrated that this is in line with estimates presented in respected scientific publications The Lancet and Science (even their revised estimate) so it's not a fringe or controversial estimate. Also, as noted above supported by estimates reported in Nature. I'm not sure what more is needed. We reported WHO's initial 3.4% CFR estimate, quoting the WHO Director-General's speech without requiring secondary analysis and do the same for other epidemiology sources like OWID and CEBM. I agree that the numbers will keep changing but I think it's fine to present current best estimates. Hopefully, a solid meta analysis will be published soon. - Wikmoz (talk) 21:51, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

@Wikmoz: That's what the opening post in this thread said. Statements from an expert body like the WHO are perfectly good source material for our article. I'm also not sure what else is needed, other than to say that news reports and popsci are not relevant as sources, particularly when we have solid secondary sources. You've missed the point about analysis. The secondary source does the analysis – in this case the WHO averaged a number of estimates for IFR and came up with a figure, and that's what the DG reported to the media. We don't need a further layer of analysis. Of course the numbers will keep changing as explained in the virtual press conference (pages 21-22, 00:55:00 onwards) because IFR depends on so many factors and is not a constant across different populations. It would be nice to see a solid meta analysis, but for all the reasons explained, it seems unlikely in the near future. --RexxS (talk) 11:36, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

Ah, I misunderstood the reason for deletion. I've restored the relevant text in the IFR section with the original text cited. In related news, there was a massive seroprevalence study conducted in Spain and published in The Lancet a few days ago. Hopefully, an RS will crunch the numbers and publish the corresponding IFR estimates. - Wikmoz (talk) 20:52, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

Your update looks good. I mentioned the seroprevalence study seven posts above as being particularly interesting. It looks like it yields some quality estimates of IFR for Spain, which suffered quite badly early on in the outbreak, perhaps due to the age-profile of the population. We really need some expert analysis to get those sort of perspectives, but I don't suppose that will happen for some time, sadly. --RexxS (talk) 11:56, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

Ty Wikmoz for the addition. The IFR is still a little high, but at least our chapter is start to look coherent between sources. Now I wait a source that will mention the obvious that with 1.4% of the people infected, 1.4% of all deaths will have Covid-19 accidentally (potentially 1 millions false positive per year). Iluvalar (talk) 01:38, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

Should the CDC estimate stated in the article be changed? It looks like the CDC "Current Best Estimate" for overall IFR was recently revised to .65%, more in line with the WHO and other studies: CDC: COVID-19 Pandemic Planning Scenarios; see also How deadly is the coronavirus? The true fatality rate is tricky to find, but researchers are getting closer. JEN9841 (talk) 02:39, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

The problem with the CDC COVID-19 Pandemic Planning Scenarios is the disclaimer "They are not predictions or estimates of the expected impact of COVID-19." It's difficult to decide whether they mean the parameters or the scenarios or both. On the other hand, a 10 July update is pretty recent, so it's probably worth mentioning that the CDC is currently using a best estimate of IFR of 0.65%. We won't be using user-generated news reports to provide biomedical information, so I think we can discount "The Conversation" for those purposes. It's a decent place to look for news and as a starting point for tracking down the sources we need, but I don't see it as a usable as a source in itself. It does note that "This article was updated on July 15, 2020 to reflect a change in the CDC's best estimate of the infection fatality rate from 0.26% to 0.65%", so it seems to keep up-to-date, although that is a rather big change in estimated IFR (which goes to show how volatile the parameter remains). --RexxS (talk) 20:14, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, just seeing this now. I added the revised CDC estimate to the article yesterday after another editor added it to the main pandemic article. FWIW, based on my own number crunching the Spain serology data suggests a 1% IFR in Spain through the end of April. - Wikmoz (talk) 03:29, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Vitamin D and other supplements

A recent paper, Evidence Supports a Causal Role for Vitamin D Status in Global COVID-19 Outcomes concludes "Our novel causal inference analysis of global data verifies that vitamin D status plays a key role in COVID-19 outcomes. The data set size, supporting historical, biomolecular, and emerging clinical research evidence altogether suggest that a very high level of confidence is justified. Vitamin D prophylaxis potentially offers a widely available, low-risk, highly-scalable, and cost-effective pandemic management strategy including the mitigation of local outbreaks and a second wave. Timely implementation of vitamin D supplementation programmes worldwide is critical with initial priority given to those who are at the highest risk, including the elderly, immobile, home bound, BAME and healthcare professionals. Population-wide vitamin D sufficiency could also prevent seasonal respiratory epidemics, decrease our dependence on pharmaceutical solutions, reduce hospitalisations, and thus greatly lower healthcare costs while significantly increasing quality of life." A number of doctors are including Vitamin D (as well as Vitamin C, Zinc, Thiamin and Melatonin) in their treatment of COVID-19 patients. https://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/934083?nlid=136438_2243&src=WNL_mdplsnews_200717_mscpedit_infd&uac=248460BG&spon=3&impID=2464747&faf=1p While I understand the inclination to have a scientifically unassailable level of proof for any mention of a treatment, there is a wealth of data showing that Vitamin C, D, and Melatonin are helpful (and there is strong science explaining the biological mechanisms for each supplement and why/how they are helpful in mitigating the effects of COVID-19). The risk of giving these supplements is extremely low (especially for a patient who is found to be deficient in specific vitamins and minerals), the potential benefit is great. Given the fact that there are a large number of studies underway evaluating the efficacy of these natural supplements, they are probably worth mentioning in an appropriate way in this article.Tvaughan1 (talk) 00:23, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Paper is not yet published. No to inclusion. This topic (the restrictions against the use of preprints) has been extensively covered. MartinezMD (talk) 00:51, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7276229/pdf/main.pdf - not a preprint. A mention of the causality with Vitamin D levels would seem appropriate for the Epidemiology section. Another study preprint explains that "about 58% (r2) of death rate from COVID-19 can be explained by prevalence of severe Vitamin D deficiency." Seems like important information. Tvaughan1 (talk) 01:08, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Many reputable doctors and medical facilities, such as the Eastern Virginia Medical School are treating COVID-19 patients with Vitamin D, Vitamin C, Zinc, Thiamin and Melatonin. That is worth mentioning somewhere in the article. There is no need to reach a conclusion on the efficacy of these treatments.Tvaughan1 (talk) 01:36, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

National Institutes of Health Guidelines - Adjunctive therapies Harvard Medical Schoole - treatments for covid-19 Front Line Covid-19 Critical Care Alliance - MATH+ protocol

Forget the preprints already. That issue aside, I'm not familiar with the NFS journal. Elsevier, in general, publishes quality journals. The article seems to cover the pertinent aspects reliably. It's conclusions are appropriately a little guarded, but I think if used carefully can be included. As for individual hospitals' treatment protocols, I don't think that is useful for inclusion. A lot of hospitals are throwing the kitchen sink at this illness, including azithromycin and hydroxychloroquine. As this is an encyclopedia article, and not a review of what desperate centers are experimenting with, I do not think that counts as criteria for inclusion. Stick with the secondary sources. I have no objection to the NFS article in that regard. MartinezMD (talk) 02:00, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

One Source to bring them all, and in the darkness bind them

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.

---

While Medrxiv and SSRN would usually be excluded from systematic review, given that the papers included are not peer-reviewed, during the pandemic it has been an important source of information and contains many of the most recent estimates for epidemiological information about COVID-19

— https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.05.03.20089854v4

Saddly quoted and used by the CDC here

PubMed, MedLine, and Medrxiv were searched on the 25/04/2020 using the terms and Boolean operators: (infection fatality rate OR ifr OR seroprevalence) AND (COVID-19 OR SARS-CoV-2).

I don't know what to do with this. It's already in the article. Thank you again Wikimoz for the reactivity. Iluvalar (talk) 14:31, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

@Iluvalar: What do you imagine is the problem? The preprint isn't used to source the article. You don't have to do anything beside understand that we rely on secondary sources like the CDC to review the literature that they find relevant and bring their expertise to bear on what they read. You don't have the expertise to do that, and nor does any other wiki-editor, so we work from the high-quality secondary sources that do have the expertise. Please tone down the unnecessary drama. --RexxS (talk) 15:44, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

Yes, it is used. Well, via CDC. Two of our lead IFR estimates are now officially a mean done over a google searches of pre-prints. It might get trough WP:MEDRS now trough a loophole, but it should still be concerning. I assure you that there is no drama here. Just informing everyone that we now massively rely on pre-prints. Iluvalar (talk) 17:10, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

No it isn't used. If CDC quote a figure, then it's sourced from CDC. I think you're deliberately trolling here and I'm going to ask for a sanction. --RexxS (talk) 18:05, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

Sanction for quoting the primary source in talk page ? It's crucial for us to understand that the new CDC's IFR is an average of pre-prints, because logically that mean we should not average it again. It's not the same kind of data. Not sure why you're mad at me today. Iluvalar (talk) 19:04, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

No, it's crucial for us to understand that the the CDC's value for IFR is a figure they arrived at using their expertise. We don't analyse secondary sources, and I'm failing to understand how you can't comprehend that. It simply doesn't matter how the CDC arrived at the figure. Please read WP:SYNTH and WP:YESPOV carefully and try to understand them. We never average different figures from equally authoritative secondary sources, we just cite both. Please, no more dumb suggestions, as they just reinforce the impression that you are not able to edit within our policies and guidelines. --RexxS (talk) 23:52, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

No, the University of Wollongong and James Cook University are in Australia. Why do you say it's CDC's expertise ? They might have good rationnal to cherry pick this meta-analysis. I'm not even questioning it. I'm happy we have a curated average of the best preprints. But also pointing out that's what it is. Iluvalar (talk) 03:38, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

I like the title. Thank you for the good humor. The concern is fair. Regarding the medRxiv sanction, I wasn't actively editing when it was put in place but I've read a few of the really bad studies that were published on the platform so I understand the rationale. It's a little unfortunate because a lot of great research is published on medRxiv. While we can't rely on Wikipedia editors or lay media to separate the good from the bad, we can rely on MEDRS to evaluate those studies and incorporate them into their own secondary research.

Regarding systematic reviews... evaluating existing research is generally considered a strength, not a weakness in medical research. In the case of the paper cited above, Google was used to find grey literature (specifically government reports) not published in academic databases. A screening process was then applied to ensure the quality of the data being incorporated into the meta analysis. In this case, they found 269 papers and screened those down to 26. "Two of our lead IFR estimates are now officially a mean done over a google searches of pre-prints." Which is the second? - Wikmoz (talk) 20:50, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

Well, we don't have the sources of the WHO at all, but they did an average of the estimates presented. So pretty much the same method with the same result. Feel free to disagree. "evaluating existing research is generally considered a strength, not a weakness in medical research." Yes of course, when the methodology of the trial is well defined. It's not what we have right now. Sources that I thought we discarded in the past are now part of the average. Sorry for the delay in the reply, I'm catching up of a few of these sources. Iluvalar (talk) 00:58, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

"Sources that I thought we discarded in the past are now part of the average." Not discarded but sanctioned from direct use by editors because there are some really bad papers on the platform. We can still trust the CDC to assess the quality of a systematic review, which assessed the methodology of primary research. Are there other estimates that you feel should be presented? - Wikmoz (talk) 03:25, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

It's getting exponentially difficult to keep track of everything, I can't tell if talks reach consensus in Wikipedia or elsewhere. Despite RexxS claims, averaging preprints is not new as this source just confirmed. As I recall Villa et al, is typically kept out of the average. A quick look at their sample dates (24 February and 26 March 2020) and at the recent graph of Italy which clearly plateau only around March 18 should explain it. Also their margin of error doesn't match recent averages. And before RexxS come with a ban hammer, I will say that yes i DO have WP:MEDRS source to support this.; I believe Deborah Birx coined the term "plateau" around the 15th press conference. Specifically saying that it was pulling the IFR estimates down.

As for your question, I think I still see in high opinion the may 20th CDC's best estimate. As far as I'm concerned, the only estimate emanating from the CDC. And I still trust the CDC to come up with a better meta-analysis soon. Thx again. Iluvalar (talk) 04:47, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

This is getting past a joke. Despite RexxS claims, averaging preprints is not new as this source just confirmed. I claimed nothing of the sort. I'm not sure if you're just incompetent or are deliberately being obtuse. Wikipedia editors never average numbers from different sources; secondary sources may do that. How many times does that need to be made clear to you? Of course review articles draw figures from multiple sources and may offer a weighted average for them, but that's the job of the secondary source. Boing! said Zebedee has explained that point to you below, and yet you are tendentiously arguing about it again. --RexxS (talk) 15:18, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

No need for the strong words regardless but please check the timestamps. Iluvar's above reply was made before Boing!'s reply. Iluvalar's last comment is the one below Boing!'s reply. - Wikmoz (talk) 19:00, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

@Wikmoz: There's a limit to the degree of WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT before strong words become inevitable. Iluvar's above reply was made after:

1. The preprint isn't used to source the article
2. we rely on secondary sources like the CDC to review the literature that they find relevant
3. You don't have the expertise to do that, and nor does any other wiki-editor, so we work from the high-quality secondary sources that do have the expertise.
4. the CDC's value for IFR is a figure they arrived at using their expertise. We don't analyse secondary sources, and I'm failing to understand how you can't comprehend that. It simply doesn't matter how the CDC arrived at the figure.
5. Please read WP:SYNTH and WP:YESPOV carefully
6. We never average different figures from equally authoritative secondary sources, we just cite both.
7. We can still trust the CDC to assess the quality of a systematic review, which assessed the methodology of primary research.

Yet we still get this:

• Despite RexxS claims, averaging preprints is not new followed by an analysis of the secondary source.

That clearly indicates that Iluvalar still disagrees that Wikipedia editors should not average figures, and they believe it's acceptable to do their own analysis of secondary sources. At what point does this get called "enough"? --RexxS (talk) 19:31, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Firstly, I can't believe that WP:IDIDNTHEARTHAT is a thing. That's amazing. I understand your point. Hopefully though, Boing!'s reply concludes the disagreement. - Wikmoz (talk) 19:44, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

1. We don't use the preprint as a source, yet their result is in the article.

3. This is a personal attack.

4. This is pure speculation. All they do is citing this preprint. Which is fine I guess.

6. And yet, the preprints are averaged and in the chapter already. I never blamed any wikipedian for that.

x. We are kinda bloating an otherwise calm discussion page. I'm not sure what part of my initial "I don't know what to do with this." you are contesting with that much energy. Iluvalar (talk) 22:37, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Iluvalar, not sure I understand the "preprints are averaged and in the chapter already" part. Can we discuss on your talk page? - Wikmoz (talk) 23:40, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Can we stop the pissing contest please? Stick with current policy - secondary sources, not preprints, and use the energy on the article, not debates oh who vs who please. MartinezMD (talk) 23:14, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

• Folks, I just want to make a few points clear - Wikmoz and RexxS have pretty much said it, but I've been asked for my admin input. First up, it is perfectly acceptable for us to use a reliable secondary source that evaluates and analyses primary sources that we would not be able to use directly (eg medrxiv sources). Our prohibition on primary sources, including preprints etc, is a prohibition against their direct use. An indirect use, if by that we mean using secondary sources that apply the necessary expertise to evaluating the primary sources, is exactly what we should employ. It is not prohibited, and does not constitute use of primary/medrxiv sources in the meaning of our sourcing policies. After all, if we weren't allowed to use secondary sources that themselves use primary sources whose direct use is prohibited, we wouldn't be able to use any sources at all, because there wouldn't be any left. So if, for example, a reliable secondary source picks a subset of primary/medrxiv sources and derives its own evaluations/conclusions/summary from them, we can use it. But we must use it without our own analysis of it - we must not examine it to try to determine whether we support how it uses the primary sources, as Wikipedia editors do not have the expertise to do that any more than to analyse the primary sources in the first place. And to address a specific point, we should not provide averaging of our own. So if two sources state different figures, we can quote both but must not calculate our own average - even in the absence of WP:SYNTH policy which prohibits it, anyone with any stats knowledge will understand the perils of trying to average multiple averages. Now, I'm not saying anything new here, but just reiterating what's had to be explained at great length on these pages already. Our sourcing policy is very clear here, but we have had multiple lengthy arguments against it on these Covid-19 talk pages. Continuous pushing back against those sourcing requirements is disruptive, and falls within the remit of the discretionary sanctions in effect on these subjects. I hope that's all I need to say here. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 06:38, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Thank you Boing. It may have come as ironic, but I DID say thank you to Wikmoz for the changes. It may also have been unclear but up until now is was "pushing" FOR the inclusion of some preprints which are important(source). Now that I'm doing some sort of 180 degree and push back, I do not need to be read the other half of WP:V. I'm committed to work with RexxS. Iluvalar (talk) 14:28, 19 July 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.

"Coronavirus disease 2015" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Coronavirus disease 2015. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 July 21#Coronavirus disease 2015 until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Spicy (talk) 16:39, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

Update: A consensus has been reached to delete Coronavirus disease 2015 and related redirects. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 19:41, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Suggested edit: Social Distancing not only reduced reproductive rate but also attenuates disease.

I suggest adding the sentence marked in bold to the section about social distancing in the prevention section, since this is another important finding showing that social distancing not only reduces the reproductive rate but also prevents the outbreak of the disease in infected.

Social distancing strategies aim to reduce contact of infected persons with large groups by closing schools and workplaces, restricting travel, and cancelling large public gatherings. Distancing guidelines also include that people stay at least 6 feet (1.8 m) apart. After the implementation of social distancing and stay-at-home orders, many regions have been able to sustain an effective transmission rate ("R_t") of less than one, meaning the disease is in remission in those areas.. Social distancing and hygiene measures additionally seem to reduce the rate of symptomatic patients, thus attenuating the clinical course of the disease . — Preceding unsigned comment added by Lime butterfly (talk • contribs) 07:40, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

References

 Not done The source for the change proposed is a cohort study, which is a primary source. That's insufficient to support a claim that social distancing reduces the rate of symptomatic patients. You need a high-quality, reliable, secondary source to make a biomedical claim as outlined in WP:MEDRS. --RexxS (talk) 18:46, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Interesting... we have several sources in this direction at this point. Some secondary source might pick it up soon. -- {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 18:56, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Yes, it's looking an increasingly likely conclusion. I expect it will be reported in a good secondary in the near future. I should note there are actually two claims in the proposed sentence: (1) social distancing reduces the rate of symptomatic patients; (2) reducing the rate of symptomatic patients attenuates the clinical course of the disease. The latter is not exactly intuitive, because the effect of asymptomatic transmission is not completely clear at present. --RexxS (talk) 19:09, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

The CDC (see below) just confirmed that people may had immunity without necessarily being detectable by the serology tests. Specially healthy individual who got mild symptoms. That could explain their results too. Iluvalar (talk) 19:55, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

There are several primary sources in the COVID-19 article: Just by a very superficial check of the first 100 I count at least 10. So the WP:MEDRS- criteria do not seem to be applied consistently. Why? Lime butterfly (talk) 11:30, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

Because no one has pointed them out. Tag them appropriately and we can make the correct substitutions as I've been doing. You're also welcome to add them yourself. MartinezMD (talk) 18:03, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

There are two factors at work: first, the rapid increase in articles about COVID-19 coupled with editors' desire to keep up with the latest news meant the article rapidly evolved and often used insufficient sourcing; and secondly, the huge public interest in research meant a lot of effort was made to expand the Research section. There is an argument that our reporting of research isn't subject to the same strict sourcing requirements that biomedical claims need. In other words if we say in the Treatment section "Xyz drug reduces mortality by 25%", that's going to need a high-quality, secondary source. If we say in the Research section that "Xyz drug is being trialled as a means of reducing mortality, and a large study by Smith and Jones suggested that some early results were encouraging", then we probably don't need more than the primary source as evidence that it took place and that the researchers made that observation on the results. Of course, if we get a good secondary source that discusses Xyz drug, then we use that and drop the primary. I hope that makes sense. --RexxS (talk) 20:24, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

Serology tests backed by CDC

At least 23.2% of new-yorkers were infected by may 6. This is a CONSERVATIVE number as asymptomatic cases (+40%) and mild symptoms cases (+??%) do not have detectable antibodies (CDC's Interactive Serology Dashboard for Commercial Laboratory Surveys). Our source for the 0.86% IFR in New York City is therefor an upper limit. That could very well be revised by a factor of 1.5-3. It is interesting to note that the same source [5] said "If the average IFR [...] of 0.38 percent is the true IFR, then it is very possible to argue that shut-downs of the economy were not justified." We should try to use this Serology Data "quick"(we had the pre-print in may and sat on them) as medias seem to already cover it too. Iluvalar (talk) 16:47, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

According to the CDC dashboard, the number was 6.9% based on 2,483 samples collected between March 23 and April 1 (that data is from the study published in this JAMA report). The dashboard shows another round of 1,116 samples collected from April 25 to May 6 that yielded 23.2% positive. Can you tell which study this came from? There was another study that came up with 22.7%. I'm avoiding considering the political and government policy implications when making these edits. - Wikmoz (talk) 23:22, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

Merge Prognosis of COVID-19 and Mortality due to COVID-19

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

Prognosis of COVID-19 and Mortality due to COVID-19 were merged into Coronavirus disease 2019. If necessary, a breakout may be considered in the future following consensus. Wikmoz (talk) 00:50, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

---

UPDATE: I merged all of the unique content into this topic. Where there were contradictions, deference was given to this topic's content. Some additional editing may be necessary. Two tables with dated content were excluded.

There is substantial overlap between the content in these three articles:

• Coronavirus disease 2019 § Prognosis (30,000 daily average PVs, 260 edits in prior 30 days)
• Prognosis of COVID-19 (245 average daily PVs, 9 edits in prior 30 days)
• Mortality due to COVID-19 (1,400 average daily PVs, 10 edits in prior 30 days)

The two branched articles receive little traffic and have minimal editor support. There is one table and three to four paragraphs of original content that would need to be merged before deleting. I understand the concern over Coronavirus disease 2019 getting too long but the greater concern is Wikipedia hosting out of date medical content. Lesser concerns include confusing readers with multiple versions of similar content and editor burnout duplicating updates across those topics.

The parent article isn't all that long and we can make the tables scrollable or collapsed by default. I'd propose merging both topics back into the Prognosis section of Coronavirus disease 2019. Let me know what you guys think. If there's any support here, I'll add a talk page notice to those topics. - Wikmoz (talk) 04:36, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

Additionally, substantial portion of this content also appears in COVID-19 pandemic § Deaths. The duplication here is necessary to some degree but adds a fourth location for (what should be) the same data. - Wikmoz (talk) 04:46, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

Comment: In lieu of PEIS concerns in other pages, this page, as of 12:15 AM PST on 18 July 2020:

• is operating at 72.48% of the PEIS limit
• the section, "Prognosis", is taking up 10.27% of the page's total PEIS limit

In other words, the section accounts for roughly 14.17% of the current content's PEIS.
—Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 07:17, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

Hmmm. That's a good point. Not something I was thinking about but it's important to keep an eye on. Looking at these two specific breakouts, most of the bytes are from the CFR by country table, which is already included in this topic. Of the remaining unique content that would need to be merged, I don't see much that will really move the PEIS needle. If it does become an issue in the future, we could perhaps offload that specific table to a standalone article. - Wikmoz (talk) 07:47, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

Notifying recent COVID-19 editors and the breakout article creators. @CrazyBoy826, Netha Hussain, Sdkb, JEN9841, MartinezMD, RexxS, Drbogdan, and -sche: - Wikmoz (talk) 21:45, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

The two spin off articles are redundant. Not sure both should be deleted as it will bloat the content of the parent article too much imho. I'd think merging the two into a single article would be better. Too many charts, graphs, and changing data that will create distractions from what I'd argue is a more crucial article. MartinezMD (talk) 22:24, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Initially, I had the exact same thought. However, reading through all three versions, there's not much unique content in the breakouts. We can probably safely drop the dated United States and China data tables in favor of the consolidated and current CFR by age and region table that already appears in the disease topic. I took a quick pass at merging all of the unique content. Perhaps we can consolidate/update/refine the content within this topic for a week and then discuss breaking it out? - Wikmoz (talk) 00:11, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

If that's the case, I'm okay with it. My goal is just to keep the article appropriate without minutia and definitely not to add portions that will create spin off debates where it isn't needed. MartinezMD (talk) 19:39, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

These articles have only been deemed redundant because their data have been copied over to the root article, which should not have happened. That's going in the wrong direction. The tables are out of place in that article, are not consistent of the rest of the root article which is analysis, not a data dump. Introductions to Prognosis and to Mortality Rates should appear in the root article and then refer to these two articles (e.g. "See main article COVID-19 Mortality"). Data dump tables of statistics (major countries, all 50 states) are completely unsuited for root article. Suggest fix the redundancy problem by removing excess information from the root article, keeping it in the two articles suggested for deletion, and keep both, or consolidate into one article for Prognosis and Mortality. 146.115.70.68 (talk) 06:01, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Wikmoz, I haven't spent a ton of time looking at these specific pages, but in general terms I very much agree that forking is a problem in this area. I just AfDed one recently created page I identified. Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 21:39, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

• Please note that, when content is merged, deletion is not appropriate as we retain the full edit history for attribution and reference. See WP:MAD for more details. Andrew🐉(talk) 13:53, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for the pointers! I've replaced the PROD tag with the appropriate MERGE tag. I'll wait until July 25 to close the discussion and complete the merge provided there are no objections before then. - Wikmoz (talk) 21:59, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

@Wikmoz and Andrew Davidson: Hmm, maybe that's what I should've done for COVID-19 pandemic death rates by country. A bunch of editors who have not been editing COVID-related pages have been !voting keep, so it's looking unlikely to get deleted, and we're going to get stuck with a three-main page hatnote for the pandemic article deaths section. I had thought that Wikipedia's systemic difficulty limiting ourselves to one page per topic was mostly in the project space, but with pandemic topics not being as concrete as most others, it appears we may end up with a similar situation here. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 03:12, 23 July 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.

Extended confirmed protection

Can we reduce the protection level back to autoconfirmed? - Wikmoz (talk) 02:51, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

@Wikmoz: the ECP was applied by El C on 7 July, with a reason of "Persistent disruptive editing: WP:GS/COVID19". The normal route to lower the protection is to ask El C to lower the protection level, explaining why that would be desirable (presumably the disruptive editing has ceased?). Administrators are generally loathe to reverse another admin's actions, even more so when performed under the aegis of discretionary or general sanctions. I'm sure they will spot this notification and reply in due course. --RexxS (talk) 18:01, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

Declined. I'm not seeing convincing (or any) reasons why the protection should be downgraded. El_C 19:56, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

El C and RexxS Thank you for the guidance! I'm not familiar with protection level changes. The reason for the request is that greater editor participation would help keep this topic up to date with new developments and changes in medical consensus. I see that the protection was put in place on 7 July in response to a user vandalizing the page overnight. I'm not aware of any persistent vandalism prior to that but not sure. Could we try reducing protection level to semi protected and see if that problem user returns? It would be in line with WP policy recommending the lowest protection level necessary, applied for the shortest duration necessary to address vandalism. - Wikmoz (talk) 21:28, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

No, not enough time has passed, and we have several COVID-19 LTAs operating at present for which this will be a prime target. El_C 21:34, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

Understood. Hopefully the LTAs find something better to do with their time. FWIW, the COVID-19 pandemic topic, which at least in terms of pageviews is the ultimate target has been going strong with only semi edit protection. - Wikmoz (talk) 23:35, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

Detection by dogs

"In July of 2020, a study published in BMC Infectious Diseases found that trained dogs could distinguish between human saliva samples from people infected with SARS-CoV-2 and non-infected samples with 94% accuracy."

I removed this from the article for 3 reasons - first, dogs are not actively being used in the disease treatment/detection, second it's a primary study, last there has been significant criticism of medical detection dogs. Read Canine cancer detection and Detection dog, especially the criticism section. MartinezMD (talk) 22:24, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

I've removed the section now. It definitely would require WP:MEDRS sourcing to back up a claim that dogs can be used to diagnose COVID-19. --RexxS (talk) 23:33, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, I forget to hit "publish" in another window I had open. MartinezMD (talk) 23:38, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

LOL - it happens to all of us! Thanks for your efforts here. --RexxS (talk) 23:41, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

Is not BMC Infectious Diseases MEDRS?--Nowa (talk) 00:53, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

It's "A Pilot Study" - so at best it would go in the research section as it is not an established detection method. MartinezMD (talk) 01:05, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

References

Poster in Marshallese for Marshall Islands residents

On the website of the Marshall Islands Public School System system I found a poster on COVID-19 in Marshallese. This may be useful for the incubator for any Marshallese Wikipedia edition as it shows what Marshallese vocabulary is relevant. The islands use English as the main instructional language in higher levels so ENwiki is perhaps for now, in my view, the best place for this info. WhisperToMe (talk) 17:34, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

Probably more relevant to the COVID-19 pandemic article. --RexxS (talk) 19:26, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

New details about how coronavirus affects the body

"Inside the body, the coronavirus is even more sinister than scientists had realized" Healy, Melissa. Los Angeles Times[6]— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 16:52, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

Easy. I found it on the first try. Google this: site:latimes.com "Inside the body, the coronavirus is even more sinister than scientists had realized" "Melissa Healy"

The article, itself, is here: https://www.latimes.com/science/story/2020-06-26/inside-the-body-the-coronavirus-is-even-more-sinister-than-scientists-had-realized

There's your stuff. Please consider editing the document to add the gist of the LA Times article (properly sourced, of course) to this WP one. — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 17:13, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

Ha! You removed your original note that said you couldn't find it (I don't know how to find it again. All I know is it needs to be here. It's amazing that search engines and search functions can't find what I'm looking for. Anyone who says "Google it" is as likely to find anything as to win in Las Vegas. I give up. YOU find it.). Oh, well... — UncleBubba ^{( T @ C )} 17:19, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

If you were actually able to read the article at the link you posted, you should go to Las Vegas and make some huge bets. Or are you a subscriber?— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 18:42, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

Somehow this works now, but I don't know why.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 18:45, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

Also, I don't know how to just add the information in the article. Where I do it might be the wrong place.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 18:43, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

As it's news report of a primary source that isn't even showing up om Goggle Scholar yet, I think it's premature to add anything right now. When we see the primary study itself, there might be a case for adding a brief summary to the Research section, otherwise I'd recommend waiting for a good quality secondary source to take note of it. --RexxS (talk) 19:22, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

That's what I needed to know. Thanks.

I should probably also explain why I knew so much and still couldn't find it. I clicked on the back button after I got through here and ended up on ProQuest (signing in with my library card). So I had the ability to see the article but didn't have a way to show anyone else what was there, since the LA Times' own search function had not come through for me. Which didn't matter because the link I had found earlier when I found the article, wherever it was, wouldn't allow me to do anything until I subscribed. But once I could see the title and author, the search engine actually found something not on the LA Times web site.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 19:22, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

RexxS are there any other articles where this information should go when it is appropriate?— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 19:30, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

@Vchimpanzee: Please observe MOS:LISTGAP: it's kinder to screen reader users.

As for other articles, I really would need to read the actual source to be able to make an informed recommendation. --RexxS (talk) 20:09, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

I'm not really following about the screen reader situation. I thought skipping a line for paragraphs was the right way to do it. I'm not even sure I have used a screen reader.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 20:15, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

@Vchimpanzee: You have almost certainly not used a screen reader because they are assistive technology designed to allow a blind visitor to access text on a page by reading it out to them. In brief, we use an antiquated mechanism to indent posts by turning them into list items (and increasing the indent by making lists inside lists). A screen reader will cope with that normally, but if you leave a gap between indented posts (or in any other sort of list), the MediaWiki software closes one list and opens another one, which you don't see, but a screen reader user hears. That is a very tedious process for the visually-impaired visitor, and we try hard not to make their experience worse. If you want to differentiate your post from a preceding one in the wikitext, you can indent a blank line to the same level, as I've done before this post. The software effectively ignores an indented blank line, so doesn't close and re-start the current nested lists.

An associated problem exists when we change the style of indenting in a discussion and I've written an explanative essay at WP:Colons and asterisks. It may be worth a look if you're interested in the detail of how these issues arise. --RexxS (talk) 21:11, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

Okay, I understand now. I was thinking of an iPad.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 21:28, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 29 July 2020

Add hyperlinks for all references to SARS-Cov-2 to point to: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Severe_acute_respiratory_syndrome_coronavirus_2 104.63.254.111 (talk) 04:44, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

No. Read the guidelines WP:MOSLINKMartinezMD (talk) 04:53, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

Extended-confirmed-protected edit request on 2 August 2020

The cited source does not support the claim "The first confirmed case has been traced back to 17 November 2019 in Hubei." It should say "The Chinese government claims that the first confirmed case has possibly been traced back to 17 November 2019 in Hubei." Swmpshield2 (talk) 18:36, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

The source does support the claim as written. But not according to the government, but "according to government data seen by the South China Morning Post". I don't see a reason for attributing this inline. – Thjarkur (talk) 19:54, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

Swap CFR table for outcome table in Prognosis

I propose to move the CFR by age and country table from prognosis section to COVID-19 pandemic death rates by country and replace it with the table estimating disease outcomes based on cases in France and Diamond Princess, which was in Mortality due to COVID-19 § Age before content merge. I'll correct the table in line with the erratum. I'm not sure about "Estimate of infection fatality rates (...) by age based on cases from China" table, which was also removed by the merge.

Rationale: Crude CFR has more to do with amount of testing and current dynamic of the epidemic in a country than about the disease itself (and it's the disease article). I think that hospitalization rate and IFR is much more useful for anyone to know. In contrast I cannot see much can be learned from comparing crude CFRs of countries (which are also kinda outdated).

Any objections?

Full disclosure: I created the outcome tables in the first place. – attomir (talk | contribs) 10:25, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

Firstly, thank you for creating the tables! They're amazing. For avoidance of confusion, it may be better to label it "Death/Case Ratio" instead of CFR. I'd favor keeping the prognosis by age and country table in Prognosis where it is very valuable and will get substantially more visibility. If there's an aggregate data point for the US, I'd suggest moving the state-level data to the US breakout topic to cut the table size.

The CFR by gender table is good to the extent that it showed early differences detected in France. However, from the text in the paragraph above the table, "later reviews in June 2020 indicated that there is no significant difference in susceptibility or in CFR between genders." I wouldn't suggest moving it up to Prognosis or expanding by default given the pretty big asterisk that it is specific to France, relies on Diamond Princess data to estimate an IFR, and is challenged by later reviews. - Wikmoz (talk) 01:20, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

Actually, it looks like the study authors have substantially changed their IFR estimate based on the survival of 3 cruise ship passengers who were in the ICU when the report was initially published. Maybe we can just remove the IFR data from the table? - Wikmoz (talk) 05:25, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

Yes, there is an new version available which takes it into account, I'll update it. New point estimates are still within old intervals, so it's not something that invalidates old results completely... – attomir (talk | contribs) 22:38, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

Sorry! My bad. I see now that you mentioned the update above. - Wikmoz (talk) 23:57, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

I completely missed that the French table is present under "Sex differences". I don't think it belongs there, as what is most valuable in it is to show exponential increase in adverse outcomes by age and also showing hospitalization and ICU rates. I'd still see it more in "Prognosis" than "Sex differences". And yes, the data has large limitations, I hope they are kinda obvious, given circumspect table header (estimates ... based on ...) and wide credible intervals.

You also say prognosis by age and country (...) is very valuable but you did not say why.

As for the sex differences in IFR, I don't know. The estimates from France suggest +84% more deaths among men (albeit with large error margin), and it's not the only one to suggest differences. This study, for example, found +59% increase and included 3 times more deaths than one of the reviews (which sees "no difference" in CFR) had cases. I can't say I am up to date with all the literature, but it's not clear to me that sex differences are insignificant.

Also, the CFR by country table is not mine, in case that was what you meant.– attomir (talk | contribs) 22:38, 27 July 2020 (UTC)

I updated the table. I see that there is not much support for making it more prominent. – attomir (talk | contribs) 22:23, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

The phrase "close contact" is a term of art in epidemiology and should not appear in the lead

According to WP:INTRO uncommon terms should not be used in the lead unless they are essential to the topic. The words "contact" and "close contact" in epidemiology mean the point of transmission of a disease or a person who has spread the disease at a point of transmission. Since the ordinary meaning of "contact" in the context of explaining specific proximity means a "union or junction of surfaces", i.e., to touch, the use of the phrase "close contact" should not be used in the lead. Since non-epidemiologists will assume the phase means "to touch", the phrase should be avoided and instead specific language describing the closeness of proximity required for transmission should be used. Sparkie82 (t•c) 14:18, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

But the CDC is just as much a resource aimed at general readers and states "The virus is thought to spread mainly from person-to-person ... Between people who are in close contact with one another (within about 6 feet)." Don't they worry about confusing non-epidemiologists as well? Why should we use a different phraseology from that used by our principal sources? --RexxS (talk) 17:08, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

It's not unusual for specialists in a field to use language that makes since to them but has a different meaning for a lay readership. Also, the quote you cited gives a parenthetical definition of the phase in context, whereas the lead in this WP article does not, it only provides a footnote that most people will never read. So readers who read only the lead may assume that "close contact" means touching. Sparkie82 (t•c) 00:46, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

How about changing it to The virus is primarily spread between people in close proximity? --RexxS (talk) 16:34, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

I think that would work. Sparkie82 (t•c) 01:55, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

I fixed it. Sparkie82 (t•c) 21:04, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Video

Since we know that internet users, especially those who do not have English as a first language, make extensive use of video content, I think it's useful to have the brief summary video available for them. Do others agree or disagree? --RexxS (talk) 21:40, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

I noticed that the video on this page was just removed. I think it is valuable to have these for those who wish to view them. JenOttawa (talk) 21:56, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

I agree with Gerald Waldo Luis and Sdkb's assessment of the video over at Talk:COVID-19_pandemic/Archive_37#Video_summary_--_unneeded?. It's a subpar video with low quality images and a robot-like text-to-speech voice reading off a script. And I doubt many visitors would see the video since it's hidden under the giant infobox or click play on the video and sit there for 4 minutes straight listening to a text-to-speech voice. They'd most likely close the video after about the first 10 seconds and scroll down to read the rest of the article instead.

And do you have statistics showing that "internet users, especially those who do not have English as a first language, make extensive use of video content", especially the videos on Wikipedia articles? Some1 (talk) 22:09, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

I disagree with your assessment. Removing the video gains nothing and needlessly disadvantages those visitors who cannot read English well, but who understand spoken English.

Digital inclusion for low-skilled and low-literate people: a landscape review gives an overview of the issues; there's a section explaining how visual content increases accessibility to the less advantaged.

Global digital and social media usage July 2020 discusses trends, including growth of video content.

If you can do a better job of writing the script or making the video, go ahead – it's under CC-BY-SA and the script is at Wikipedia:VideoWiki/Coronavirus disease 2019. --RexxS (talk) 22:40, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

I don't have a strong opinion either way if the video gets removed or not from this particular article, although I support the removal since a low quality video basically sullies a high profile article such as this one. As another editor put it, "If a video would be actually needed to convey the message, it means that we failed in our core discipline to explain the topic in prose." User:Tenryuu mentioned that they "didn't know it even existed until Gerald Waldo Luis mentioned it" so I wonder how many readers/visitors actually see or click on the video (and which part/timestamp of the video they decided to quit watching). It'll be an interesting statistic if Wikipedia ever decides to collect that information. Some1 (talk) 23:08, 4 August 2020 (UTC)

I have to agree on the removal of that video, since it does nothing to English as a Second Language people. It has a robotic, wrongly-paced voice and boring visuals. Who needs a video anyway? For ESL people, it seems like Simple English is their better home (although the article there is still short, it needs to be expanded). If the argument is on ESL people, that means we are treating COVID-related articles higher than others, as no other articles contain such facility. I fail to see how the video could benefit. GeraldWL 01:33, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

Not to mention, those who do not have English as a first language would rather get Covid (and any other health) information in their native language. Some1 (talk) 03:10, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

Everyone would rather get information in their own language, but as there are 6,500 languages spoken in the world today, that's not always possible. English is the lingua franca of the internet and we have to accept that our content is accessed by huge numbers of people whose first language is not English. Wikipedia has slipped from the fourth most popular site on the internet to the fourteenth over the last few years, while YouTube has risen to second. It is abundantly clear that many internet users have learned English through an audio medium, such as TV and film, not through books, and prefer their content in videos such as YouTube supplies because they understand spoken English much better than written English. If we are able to offer our content to that audience, we should be doing so. --RexxS (talk) 15:09, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

I have no trouble with there being a video on here if it is able to convey the ideas properly. Currently it does not, and both script and narration should be reworked (and possibly made more general instead of mentioning specific figures on certain dates). —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 20:44, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

RexxS The arguments you have does not make sense. If you want content to be understandable by even those who don't understand English that much, that means we should edit the entire article, and possibly every single article here to be Simple English. But that is not sensible. Why does Simple English Wikipedia exist then? Also, the statistics you show may not be the cause of lack in audio and visual medium. We have audio and visual medium (pictures, audio, video). A video summary located below the infobox may not be watched, and the content is not eye-catching. With a reasonable amount of media published in this page, a video summary being the reason views dropped would not be the reason. Views in this article dropped because tempus fugit. Also, if you want to summarize an article, that's why a lead was made. I understand that you want content to be diverse and you want Wikipedia to be enjoyable, but having a useless video summary with monotone voice and boring visuals would not be a reader's best friend. The article subject is also constantly changing, which may further prevent an effective video summary produced. GeraldWL 13:32, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

@Gerald Waldo Luis: "The arguments you have does not make sense." Then I'll try to make them simple enough for you to understand.

Different people learn and absorb information in different ways. Almost everyone can learn by visual demonstrations; fewer can learn by hearing explanations; and even fewer can learn by reading.

Some visitors are able to read English but have a small vocabulary and less ability to parse complex sentences. The Simple English Wikipedia is intended to cater for them.

Some visitors are not able to read English well or at all, but are able to understand spoken English, because they have learned English by listening to TV, film or video in English.

We need video content to cater for the latter group of visitors.

I hope you're not suggesting that internet users don't have a huge appetite for video content, because there's really no doubt about that. Once you start seeing the amount of misinformation on YouTube about medical conditions, you realise the importance of making our content available to those who can only consume English information in video format. VideoWiki is one way of making a summary of an article that can then be quickly incorporated into a video containing images and video clips, and represents one way of producing the video content that we need. There is no obligation on anyone capable of reading and understanding the article to view the video, so your dislike of the voice used is hardly a reason to remove the video, which would have been found useful by a group of visitors that you now disadvantage. Just because you have no use for the video does not make it "useless"; just because you find the visuals boring doesn't mean they are boring for everyone; the whole point of the video is that it is aimed at a different audience from you. It is indeed a challenge to produce video content for rapidly changing content, but VideoWiki represents a technology much more capable of accomplishing that than tradition methods, with much lower cost in time and resources, as well as preserving attribution and verification of the content. --RexxS (talk) 16:08, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

As an aside to "Some visitors are not able to read English well or at all, but are able to understand spoken English, because they have learned English by listening to TV, film or video in English", I can give you the example of my wife. She understands spoken English very well, but can't read or write a word of it. In her country, a lot of people use English Wikipedia because their own is relatively poorly developed, and they can understand spoken English better than they can read it. I'm quite certain they would welcome video content wherever it's available. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 16:15, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

Like I said in the previous post the software used to narrate the video is horrendous: it can't recognise periods being used as decimal points which obscures the figures to casual listeners and the tone is unnatural, which isn't going to help anyone who has ESL. It should either be removed or completely reworked. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 02:42, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

It's appallingly amateurish, adds nothing and should be removed. Graham Beards (talk) 19:49, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

There's nothing appalling about being an amateur. I'm proud of not being paid for the work I do with Wikipedia. The video adds a means of communicating information particularly to those who understand spoken English but cannot read it. With all its limitations, it is certainly better than doing nothing for that audience, and if you think you could do better, you're welcome to try. --RexxS (talk) 16:12, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

I think we're veering off into a discussion about video content on Wikipedia in general instead of focusing on this particular video on this particular article. As multiple editors have pointed out, the video that was on this article is of poor quality (voice, visuals, pacing, tone, script, etc.), adds nothing to the article, doesn't even help those with ESL, and should be removed or needs a complete rework if it were to be added again. So the video was rightfully removed.

Regarding video content on Wikipedia in general (by video content, I mean those video summary ones with a robot generated voice reading off a script), a community-wide RfC is most likely needed if editors want to debate the pros and cons of adding such things to Wikipedia articles. I’ve seen passing mentions about the videos/VideoWiki before at the Medicine ArbCom case and the links others have provided there, but I don’t believe there was a consensus or that the whole community had a chance to weigh in. Some1 (talk) 21:13, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

@RexxS, Some1, and Tenryuu: How about this: we make a renewed version of the summary with a fair level of English. I would love to make a test seeing whether people actually watch them, but frankly that sounds like a fantasy. One major flaw of the current script is that it copies the lead, which does nothing. It may be hard to make a simplified summary of a scientific thing. I could try crafting it. GeraldWL 08:25, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Gerald Waldo Luis, are you suggesting using simpler English than what was in the video? I can provide narration. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 14:37, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

Tenryuu, yes, overall, that's what the summary is made for. I am planning on making the script. I could send it here when I finished crafting it. GeraldWL 15:11, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

We would need an editor, since I can't do so. GeraldWL 15:13, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

@RexxS, Tenryuu, Some1, Graham Beards, and Sdkb: I have created a draft script on User:Gerald Waldo Luis/COVID-19 narration script. Feel free to check it out and improve it there. GeraldWL 15:54, 7 August 2020 (UTC)

If anyone wants to collaborate on making a script for a video or would prefer a spoken version of the article, let me know. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 22:15, 6 August 2020 (UTC)

"The Rona"

"The Rona" is a common colloquial name for COVID-19. Why was my edit adding it reverted? --ScoopGracie (talk) 19:47, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

It's not a scientific term and this nickname is mainly limited to the United States.[7] --Diamonddavej (talk) 22:04, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

Okay. If names must be scientific, why is corona included? --ScoopGracie (talk) 03:07, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

Because that's the category name of the virus, like herpes (from herpesvirus). It isn't shortened to "herp". MartinezMD (talk) 03:58, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

QUESTION: Worthy Wikipedia Article(s) To Add Worthy Wikipedia News?

Following news article was recently reported in The Washington Post - Not clear at the moment where on Wikipedia would be a worthy place to add the reference - Comments Welcome - iac - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 17:21, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

One place to mention it would be WP:WikiProject COVID-19, where it should give a boost to the editors who have worked so hard to keep our content accurate. It's possible that some of its content might be suitable for summarising in Wikipedia's response to the COVID-19 pandemic or Misinformation related to the COVID-19 pandemic #Efforts to combat misinformation. --RexxS (talk) 19:12, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

@Drbogdan: is it listed at WP:PRESS 20 yet? Seagull123 Φ 13:24, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

@Seagull123: Thanks for your comment - and suggested WebSite at "Wikipedia:Press coverage 2020#August" - yes - seems the WaPo ref has been added there - Thanks again - and - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 14:29, 10 August 2020 (UTC)

References

Vaccine

Someone has added an edit about the Russian vaccine. While it is accurate that it is now approved (in Russia), the grammar needs updating as the editor is presumably not a native English speaker. Also, other areas of the article need to reflect it, in addition to perhaps the notable concerns expressed by several agencies because it appears not to have finished phase III testing. MartinezMD (talk) 20:58, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

@MartinezMD: I've removed it and explained to the editor that it's WP:UNDUE in the lead, and that they should seek to include it in the Research - Vaccine section in the first place. It's an interesting development, despite international concerns. Hopefully we can neutrally summarise a decent report on the issue soon. --RexxS (talk) 21:33, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

I think it should be out of the lead, but for sure it needs to be included in the article as it would be incorrect to say that there is no vaccine. We just have to be clear about it. MartinezMD (talk) 00:25, 12 August 2020 (UTC)