Talk:COVID-19 pandemic/Archive 31

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Epidemic curve graphics

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

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

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

(5) "Pandemic resurgence" graphic

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

• (3) and (5) Great work User:RCraig09! --Gtoffoletto (talk) 22:43, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
• Shouldn't the 'y' axis say "Number of new cases per day" or something along those lines? (Or at least active cases, but that gives another curve)--ReyHahn (talk) 10:17, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

I had considered this issue, User:ReyHahn, and I found that most sources keep this simplest axis label. The additional descriptor is implied in this context, in which all curves eventually decline to lows. A primary graphist's goal is to keep it simple! —RCraig09 (talk) 14:55, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Supplemental: I think that I'll make the next version have the axis label "Number of current cases"—more accurate, yet brief. —RCraig09 (talk) 02:43, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Update: I've changed the vertical axis labels on all three English-language animations to "Active cases" (per helpful suggestion at Commons from Sdkb). —RCraig09 (talk) 20:10, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose all as confusing. The horizontal dimension represents time, in these images, right? Progressing left to right? So what is the time dimension of the animation actually intended to represent? —David Eppstein (talk) 18:08, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

@David Eppstein: Strictly speaking, animation #1 shows a series of scenarios corresponding to progressively larger degrees of mitigation over time—along the lines of countless illustrations in news sources. Animation #3 additionally shows scenarios of progressively stronger increases of healthcare capacity (more hospital beds, etc.). #5 shows scenarios different degrees of inadequate mitigation attempts, resulting in progressively stronger resurgences. Yes, time is the horizontal dimension for each of the scenarios. —RCraig09 (talk) 02:39, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

• (3) and (5)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 00:43, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

"African" is a clumsy euphemism for "black" in a global encyclopaedia

In the final paragraph of the Xenophobia and racism subsection the words "African" and "black" seem to be used as synonyms. Obviously not all people from the African continent are black. I know racial politics in the USA has led to "black" and "African" often meaning the same thing there, but it's wrong outside that country. My impression is that the discrimination is against people with dark skin, not all Africans. We need more precision in our language. HiLo48 (talk) 23:32, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

HiLo48, mostly disagree. Most mentions of Africans in the last paragraph should stay there as they're talking about the nationality of those being evicted. I think the two mentions of "African" in the last sentence can probably be changed to "black". —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 23:41, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

"African" isn't a nationality. And I seriously doubt if those doing the discriminating are doing so against Africans from Egypt, or white South Africans. HiLo48 (talk) 23:46, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

HiLo48, nationality is perhaps the wrong word to use, but they are still from Africa. Looking further we could probably amend those as the word "black" is used to describe people, provided the references mention them as such.

And I seriously doubt if those doing the discriminating are doing so against Africans from Egypt, or white South Africans. Blacks aren't the only ones being discriminated against, according to the first reference in that paragraph:

Paul Mozur, a reporter for the New York Times based in Shanghai, tweeted that "two weeks ago I was called 洋垃圾/foreign trash while quietly eating at a restaurant. These cartoons inflame already nasty sentiment."

Link added to quote. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 23:55, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Not sure what you're saying there. Yes, others are being attacked, and we say so, but that final paragraph is all about these euphemistic Africans, which really means black people, not Africans. I imagine a dark skinned person from anywhere would cop the same treatment. HiLo48 (talk) 00:03, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

HiLo48, they most likely would, but in this case we're talking about the people that are mentioned in the sources given. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 02:11, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Half the sources are American. Sorry, but per my initial post, they don't count. HiLo48 (talk) 02:14, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

HiLo48, then supply other sources. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 04:10, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

This isn't about copying the wording sources use. It's about making that wording meaningful to readers the world over. It's about good writing. The fact is that black people are being discriminated against. That's what the sources already tell us, but the American ones describe it using a form of language that is sloppy and inaccurate because of a need of theirs to not offend anyone, and hence use a euphemism. We should simply avoid confusing euphemisms. HiLo48 (talk) 04:24, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure what the MOS says, but I'm persuaded by HiLo48 that the words aren't synonyms and that we should be precise in our language use. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 05:22, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Clean up for US domestic response

On 23 March, it was reported that New York City had 10,700 cases of the coronavirus. On 25 March, the governor said social distancing seemed to be working, as estimates of case doubling slowed from 2.0 days to 4.7 days. As of 12 April, there were 104,410 confirmed cases in New York City, and 6,182 people had died from the virus.

On 26 March, the United States was reported to have more confirmed coronavirus infection cases than any other country in the world, including China and Italy.

Is this really relevant for the domestic response section? Specially when the next paragraph already starts with figures that put the domestic response in context:

As of 12 April, 529,740 cases have been confirmed in the United States, and 20,604 people have died. [...]

I think cases and deaths in this section should be added sparingly, where they put each domestic reaction in context. There are other sections and various articles about cases and deaths timelines. What do you think? --MarioGom (talk) 20:55, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Yah support keeping this stuff here shorter. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:22, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Agree. All of that seems unnecessary but this:

On 26 March, the United States was reported to have more confirmed coronavirus infection cases than any other country in the world, including China and Italy.

--Shawnqual (talk) 05:11, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Ok. I have changed to the following paragraph:

On 25 March, the New York governor said social distancing seemed to be working, as estimates of case doubling slowed from 2.0 days to 4.7 days. On 26 March, the United States had more confirmed cases than any other country, including China and Italy.

Kept the sentence about New York governor, since it is strictly about domestic response. --MarioGom (talk) 08:16, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

References

Semi-protected edit request on 18 April 2020

Hi,

I regularly check the Google tool to follow the number of people who died from COVID 19 and I noticed this morning was at 32.000 or so compared to 35.000 yesterday. How is that possible (the main source for the Google chart is the present Wikipedia article) ?

At the same time, a top level US media said that death toll is now at 37.000 people. There is clearly a problem here... Would you correct this mistake or allow me to do it ?

Thank you and have a good day, Benjamin Bento94300 (talk) 08:39, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

There are different ways of counting. If an infected person dies of stroke, is that a corona death? Virus deaths have a high comorbidity rate, making it a hard call which ailment was the "real" cause of death. Also determining the cause of death takes time, thus initial estimates can be proven incorrect by later examination. 85.76.44.116 (talk) 12:20, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Update on proportioning of domestic responses section

The discussion here about which countries to list in the domestic responses section has never quite caught up with the article itself, e.g. there are paragraphs on France and Germany despite the consensus for there not to be, and I don't think anyone reasonably wants to remove them. The discrepancy is in part because of the switch to using continent headers rather than just country headers, and in part I think because the process was a little too formal. So let's try having a more informal conversation: Are there any countries currently given too much or too little space? And can we update the current consensus banner to something a little more resembling what's in the article itself? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 05:17, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

I think Germany should be dropped--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:47, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Reference 31

There is an estimation of 15 million dead and there is around 154,000 death by 18/4/20. It is 100 times less than the forecast. --83.38.50.205 (talk) 11:20, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Hallo, my German Landsmann, you may not have realized that the pandemic has not been stopped yet! And a lot of countries aren't able (Africa?) or even trying (Sweden!) to stop it, and even 0.37% of 8 Billion people are 30 Million. In Germany, we have a "luxury problem", the lowest death rate, by million inhabitants, in whole Western Europe (Austria just passed behind us), and an excellent number of ICU beds! --188.97.169.53 (talk) 13:31, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

My forecast is that it will kill 0.0154% of the world population each year for the next 10 years. Because that's what coronaviruses do. That's 13 million death. Hmmm, this being said, some of the forecast were "worst case scenario" designed for government to take the "right" decision and will never never happen. 15 million deaths in the next few months,no , it's unlikely. I just looked at ref 31, I don't like it... Iluvalar (talk) 15:06, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

"Normal" coronaviruses are less lethal than influenza, but this new one ist at least 20 times more lethal than influenza, maybe eben 50 times, but of course, as long as we manage to slow down the spreading, the dead will distribute on several years. Escept if they find a vaccine or the virus is stopped. To stop ist would be quicker. I was just shopping in Frankfurt/Main and saw only about 2 to 5% of the people wear a mask-or-so. --188.97.169.53 (talk) 16:14, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

I don't know where you got that 20 times figure. You might want to take a fight with Dr. Robert R. Redfield (CDC director) because yesterday in the press conference he plotted both on the same graph with quite a bit of success. Iluvalar (talk) 18:24, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Which figure is more accurate?

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

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

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

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

References

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

@Robertpedley: I did the work with just the countries that have reported "People tested", and it comes out to around 0.5849%. sam1370 (talk) 07:03, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

I think we need to be cautious about trying to calculate testing rates outselves. As already described, there are so many confounding variables that imo we're better to point people to a source to really read about it. I do think having a chart in the article is important per #10 "If you don't take a temperature, you can't find a fever." people should be able to judge which countries have good measures vs bad counting. Ian Furst (talk) 12:34, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

@Ian Furst: I have changed the phrase in the Epidemiology article to read "As of 16 April, the countries that made public their testing data have on average performed an amount of tests equal to only 1 per cent of their population", and cited the updated source that describes total tests per thousand. This not only makes the wording accurate to the sources cited, but also solves whatever problem might be left with WP:OR since all that is needed to be done is to change the # out of 1000 to a percentage and take the avg. I think this should solve the problem of trying to calculate testing rates ourselves. Your thoughts? sam1370 (talk) 19:41, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

I do see how the data does have some issues due to the problems updated on the page (actually didn't read that section until now, sorry), so if you think that's a big issue I'll concede to you two and delete my phrase in the article. sam1370 (talk) 19:58, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

I don't have a problem with the statement. We want people to know that only a tiny fraction of most populations is being tested and this statistic conveys' that. Ian Furst (talk) 20:54, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Alright, thanks. I'll wait and see if User:Robertpedley replies to add what he thinks of it. sam1370 (talk) 03:59, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

sam1370 Hi, sorry I've been busy with other stuff for a couple of days. I've just downloaded your spreadsheet and took a look at it in Excel. It's a long time since I did a module in statistics, but I'm sorry to say that this is not stuff that a statistician would recognise. I can see that you're putting a lot of work into this (which definitely makes it WP:OR) and I'm truly sorry to put the dampers on it.

As I said before, I don't even see what the numbers might tell us. Should there be a correlation between the number of tests and the quality of the response? I've sorted by % - lowest percentages are poor populous countries like Bangladesh, highest small rich countries like Iceland and Luxembourg. Very close to each other, lowest % in the rich countries are Japan (very low mortality) and the US (train wreck). There's no data for China, I suspect it would be a low % but they've got it more or less under control. Robertpedley (talk) 22:29, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

A lot of work does not make this WP:OR. If you look back at my earlier comment, the Our World In Data website has recently made it a very easy calculation by including tests per thousand people. All I have to do is take the already existing table from Our World In Data, divide the number of tests per thousand people by ten to get the percentage and then take the average of all of those. I’m not sure what you mean by “this is not stuff that a statistician would recognize” and how this relates to your argument, as these are clear calculations made by applying math to data. What the calculation of about 1.1% tells us is that on average most countries have only tested a small amount of their population, and it also goes along with the maximum amount a country has tested which is right beside it. sam1370 (talk) 22:56, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Somethings weird with the wikitext

In the lead, it says “185[5] countries and territories” even when used in the visual editor it shows the reference at the back of the sentence like it should. I think this is a bug, anybody know how to fix it? sam1370 (talk) 22:50, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Alright, I fixed it. Apparently the template auto cites itself and that led to the mess. sam1370 (talk) 23:28, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Built in optimistic figures

There are various ways to estimates rates and proportions, and important biases can be generated by the choice of denominator.

- A obvious bias toward optimism is to obtain the current rate of infection by dividing the daily number of new cases by the cumulative total of cases (as is being done now). But why include the dead and the recovered in the denominator? They should not contribute to the new cases. So, a better estimate of the disease spread (and indirectly of the efficiency of counter-measures) would be to divide the number of new cases by the number of currently active cases. That makes a big difference: Germany is at 2.5% new cases per day, but with respect to the active cases, that's about 8% (they have only one third active cases. Italy as the same "gross" daily rate, but is only 5% with respect to active cases (they have two thirds active cases). Those numbers are feeling less happy than the current ones but they uncover a slightly different reality. The practice of dividing by the total cumulative count stems from estimating the infection rate in an simplistic exponential model. This may be valid at the start of infection, but we are not in that phase any more (fortunately). The current evolution it much more complex and follows a multi-state model...

- Another case of optimism is to compute the proportion of deaths at cumulative count of deaths over cumulative count of cases. This is obviously biased toward optimism as it includes the bulk of undecided (active) cases. In the end, when everyone is either dead form the disease or recovered, it will be a correct estimate, but for now it is not. An alternative, much less pleasing but less potentially biased, number is the cumulative number of death over the cumulative number of recovered... This also converges to the correct estimate at the end of the pandemic (assuming there is an end). Obviously, those figures are much less reassuring.

In the end the truth may stand in between those various estimates because they all suffer from bias, but for now we are choosing the most optimistic estimates. Why? We should not be doing propaganda that "everything is under control", but an honest assessment of the situation. The best estimates would probably obtained by fitting the parameters a realistic mathematical model of the disease spread and natural history, admitedly that would still not correct for the biases of the reported numbers.

@Frederic Y Bois: we have to stick to reliable sources. Anything else would be WP:OR. I think the section which deals with mortality makes it clear that many of the numbers are uncertain. (PS please sign your posts!) Robertpedley (talk) 09:42, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

I understand, but this is not research really; you seem to imply that I should talk to WHO...

Robertpedley and @Frederic Y Bois: I think that if we can find a reliable source that recommends this type of calculations, then it should be included in the article along with an explanation on why we should be using this type over the more optimistic one. There are probably some out there already. And please sign your posts with four tildes like ~~~~ sam1370 (talk) 23:50, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Infectious fatality rate (IFR)

This is equal to deaths from the disease / number with the disease.

Antibody testing "might" be able to tell how many have the disease in a population. But it also might not.

It will not tell us how many have died from the disease.

Neither are clearly known currently and thus we cannot calculate the IFR precisely. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:25, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

You recently edited the following to remove everything after the comma:

Some infected people are asymptomatic and are therefore not tested or included in the total of those who became infected, making the true fatality rate as yet unknown.

If the asymptomatic people are not included in the total of those who became infected how can the true fatality rate be known?

You also edited the following:

are perfected they will be able to show how many people have had the disease, including those whose symptoms were minor or who were asymptomatic, thereby allowing the actual fatality rate to be calculated.

Replacing will with may is fine, but if these tests are able to tell how many people have had the disease why won't it allow the actual fatality rate to be calculated?Swood100 (talk) 23:47, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

I agree that we should be very cautious in framing any early IFR estimates. From what I've read, serology testing will eventually provide a reliable IFR in various regions and can then be extrapolated to estimate country-level averages. However, currently available data is nowhere near sufficient to provide an answer. There are issues of test reliability and sampling techniques, size, and population selection. I think we'll get better data in a few weeks and the necessary meta analysis to answer the question in a few months. In the short term, the numbers seem to be all over the place. - Wikmoz (talk) 04:54, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

We can tell already that depending on how well this is handled the deaths are between 2 to 5 time as much as usual for pneumonia a this time of the year. And we can also tell already that judging by the severity in lower age groups, this is likely due to extra penetration in the society (new strain) and not really from higher fatality rate. At the very least we have a strong case of Occam's razor here. But, you know, Occam's razor is not the best source I ever had here. Iluvalar (talk) 14:49, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

It is not clear if these tests will be able to give us the answers. There may be false negative (people may not develop antibodies) or false positives (may pick up other prior coronavirus infections). Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:22, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Minor reorg of 'Containment and mitigation'

The Prevention section has expanded to include a more detailed discussion of containment and mitigation approaches. I made two minor structural changes but please feel free to roll back if you disagree:

• Moved three paragraphs about contact tracing with mobile apps from the 'Prevention' introduction into 'Containment and mitigation'
• Moved 'Containment and mitigation' out of 'Prevention' and into 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic § Management

As I read it, 'Management' refers to the management of the pandemic and not strictly the disease so to me this higher level discussion belongs here rather than under Prevention. - Wikmoz (talk) 04:08, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Double underline

The headline of the article has double underline instead of one. I checked and its one of the templates before the inbox that cause it. Can someone fix it? Sokuya (talk) 13:13, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

2019-20 coronavirus pandemic by country and territory

Moved to Template talk:2019–20 coronavirus pandemic data § Sorting by recoveries

 – MarioGom (talk) 13:48, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

FranchoGonzalez: I have moved the discussion to the relevant page and fixed the issue. Thank you. --MarioGom (talk) 13:48, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Ruby Princess

Just happened to notice that there's no mention of cases onboard the Ruby Princess anywhere in the article or in the international conveyances section of epidemiology. Why is this? Cement4802 (talk) 15:44, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Maps incorrectly show Crimea separated from Ukraine

On the maps Crimean peninsula is incorrectly shown separately from Ukraine - Crimea is presented in different colour with Ukrainian mainland. It is absolutely incorrect as Crimean peninsula that includes regions Autonomous Republic of Crimea and city of Sevastopol, is sovereign part of Ukraine. The Crimean peninsula is illegally occupied by Russia since 2014. None of the international organisations, including UN, OSCE, CoE, has never recognised illegal annexation of Crimea by Russia and continue to condemn this aggressive act by Russia. Majority of states in the world further recognize sovereignty of Ukraine over Crimea and condemn Russian aggressive deed. There is no single act of international law recognising annexation of Crimea by Russia. The maps must be corrected. Euroserhi (talk) 06:30, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

The maps only match how the statistics are reported and do not imply any support or not of political boundaries. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 06:56, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Perhaps contacting the creator of the map, Raphaël Dunant, would be the best place to start your change request. Try leaving a message here. Veritycheck✔️ (talk) 22:55, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Perhaps (I'm guessing) the maps show current reporting realities rather than indicating political relationships. Alternatively, perhaps there is no specific reporting about Crimea. If that is the case, the maps arguably ought to indicate that, but that suggests implications about other subnational regions without specifically reported data. Also, there may be other map areas with disputed sovereignty (Taiwan comes to mind, and there are probably others). Offhand, I'm guessing that resolving this would be outside of the timeframe of hot interest in this article. Wtmitchell (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 23:21, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Currently, Crimea cases are reported by Russia, and the Wikipedia data displays this situation. Feel free to start a discussion on this talk page about including Crimea and Sevastopol numbers into Ukraine or having them independently. the map will then reflect this data. in the meantime, a compromise could be made having Crimea independent of the two? Raphaël Dunant (talk) 08:32, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

• The maps in the article are in fact inconsistent. Some show as part of Ukraine: [1][2], others as part of Russia: [3]. I don't think Wikipedia can be consistent here, it depends on the source used to generate the map, though probably most data is reported by Russian health services that are on the ground in Crimea. In any case, most readers won't notice this either way as Crimea is pretty small on a global and even European map.--Eostrix (talk) 08:53, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Population of the countries in the main table

In addition to the cases, deaths and recoveries it would be very interesting and helpfull to add the data of the population of the country/estity in every case, to see the real impact of the COVID-19.

OK, but it would be better to add the number of dead per capita (as someone did in the map, great!) and infections per capita, too. --188.97.169.53 (talk) 19:33, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Primary source for Brazil

Moved to Template talk:2019–20 coronavirus pandemic data § Primary source for Brazil

 – MarioGom (talk) 20:38, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Of 19, moved the discussion to the template for the cases table. --MarioGom (talk) 20:38, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Domestic responses

Would it be possible/appropriate to add the economic (fiscal/monetary) response of the different areas or countries?

Not in this article, it's an overview. There are individual articles for each country. Robertpedley (talk) 21:02, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Coronavirus Pandemic In Europe

Should the data in this article match that in the article about the pandemic in Europe?

68.96.208.77 (talk) 15:36, 20 April 2020 (UTC) Curious Feedback

odd question...--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 21:37, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Why is it odd? Is it expected to match that data or not?

Semi-protected edit request on 19 April 2020

Information to be added or removed: Donald Trump and Nobel Prize laureate Luc Montagnier, co-discoverer of HIV, believe that the virus was man made Explanation of issue: They allege it escaped from a lab in Wuhan References supporting change: this Souniel Yadav (talk) 11:15, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Nope. That source does not say that Donald Trump believes the virus was man made, and it makes it clear that Montagnier's analysis has not been peer reviewed. Please see WP:MEDRS for the support we'd need for medical claims like Montagnier's. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 11:22, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

This theory is discredited by WP:MEDRS:

• 3 February: Quick retraction of a faulty coronavirus paper was a good moment for science". The story about the retraction was followed up on an article published at The Lancet on 24 March: "Early in the epidemic: impact of preprints on global discourse about COVID-19 transmissibility".
• 14 February: article published at Emerging Infectious Diseases (journal): "HIV-1 did not contribute to the 2019-nCoV genome".
• 28 February: more at Emerging Infectious Diseases journal: No credible evidence supporting claims of the laboratory engineering of SARS-CoV-2.

Opinion pieces and non-peer reviewed claims published on generalist press do not trump WP:MEDRS. --MarioGom (talk) 12:56, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

It was not discredited. It was not credited there. "Absence of evidence" etc. Read their fine print and also their criticism (!) in other newer WP:MEDRS.

Still I agree that:

claims published on generalist press do not Trump (pardon the pun) WP:MEDRS. 

And yet on the third hand:

disinformation and misinformation can be spread through social media,[975]...

I would add:

and international health bodies...

(who are not WP:MEDRS, but political institutions, with stated agendas).

Zezen (talk) 05:01, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Zezen, adding "international health bodies" in Wikipedia voice to that list would require multiple high-quality sources per WP:EXTRAORDINARY. However, specific accusations may be included with in-text attribution where it is due. --MarioGom (talk) 09:54, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

The claim is made by a highly accomplished scientist, and especially in light of previous claims that the virus came from a laboratory, which were judged strong enough to warrant an investigation by the U.S. government, his statements should be included. Display name 99 (talk) 21:40, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Display name 99, the claim is made by a controversial scientist who prefers backing conspiracy theories on TV instead of publishing evidence on a peer-reviewed journal. He cited a preprint paper that was withdrawn and largely discredited by multiple high-quality WP:MEDRS publications that I already linked above. MarioGom (talk) 00:59, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

MarioGom, the claim is made by a controversial scientist who prefers backing conspiracy theories on TV instead of publishing evidence on a peer-reviewed journal. The guy helped discover AIDS and he won a Nobel prize, so he's obviuosly done something right. You may disagree with him, but he is clearly a notable source. I see that previous claims of an HIV claim were rejected by high-quality sources, but where does it say that Montagnier cited any rejected papers? Even if he did, that would not mean that his theory cannot be included in the article, for experts can disagree, and it would be POV to judge one claim wrong and the other right if both are made by experts in a field. Both viewpoints can be represented in the article. I would have no problem stating something like: "Theories have circulated that the coronavirus came from a failed attempt to produce an HIV/AIDS vaccine in a Chinese laboratory. These claims were supported by Luc Montaigner, Nobel Prize winner and co-discoverer of HIV, but dismissed by other scientists." Display name 99 (talk) 01:37, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Graph - Daily count by continent

Currently the daily count is shown by Country A, outside country A, continent B, continent C and others. Outside country A includes everything else. Others also includes everything else. This is incorrect.

Suggesting to use this graph to show daily count by continent as shown in ECDC

Graph showing the cumulative count and daily count by continent

Givebacktosociety (talk) 21:44, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Count of what? Please do not add more misleading "count of cases" junk. This article is already horrendously bad as it is. "Cases" does not reflect the number of infections, it reflects how much each country bothers to test for the virus. The number of infections is five to ten times as many, possibly many many more in places where testing capability is severely limited. The article already proudly parades wildly misleading misinformation in prominently placed graphs and tables, please do not add more of it. 85.76.44.116 (talk) 03:40, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

References

Does not seems like a joke ?

In article section 2020 coronavirus pandemic in Pakistan#Religion and the whole article does not mention problems in Pakistan vis a vis Religion but just a catholic church Cardinal's statement!

Are they serious ?

Bookku (talk) 16:48, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Bookku, what are you suggesting? That the current content is removed? Or that other content is added? Either way, you can post at Talk:2020 coronavirus pandemic in Pakistan to propose any change. If you propose to add new content, it should be based on reliable sources (WP:RS). Also, not sure who you mean with "they", but it's better to assume good faith. --MarioGom (talk) 17:37, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

There is a discussion @ Talk:Impact of the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic on religion#Impact of religion on the pandemic started by mfb

In that discussion the point raised by Kautilya3 religious congregations going ahead in many parts of the world (including Pakistan) & contributing to spread of COVID 19 does not seem to get due coverage and as The wub states is not only bizarre but also horrible & not responsible enough if wiki community fails to give wider & due attention. IMHO

The same point is applicable to article 2020 coronavirus pandemic in Pakistan#Religion

Bookku (talk) 01:02, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Hear, hear. I also wanted to mention it months ago. Kudos. Zezen (talk)

@Bookku and Zezen: suggest some reliable sources discussing the issue please. We can't make any edits without something to go on. Bondegezou (talk) 09:10, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

I'd have thought that section should just be removed for now, until it can be rewritten to present a balanced summary of the whole situation. With 96% of the population of Pakistan being Muslim, having a religion section which only mentions Catholicism does seem a little silly.  — Amakuru (talk) 09:26, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

• I think this discussion should continue at Talk:2020 coronavirus pandemic in Pakistan § Requesting attention, which would be the right venue to discuss content of the article. --MarioGom (talk) 10:00, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

I agree completely. Bookku, I am not sure what your point is. Your comments were difficult to understand grammatically and you didn't make it clear either in your original post or in your next post what you thought the problem was or how it could be changed. It's not clear to me why you chose to make your complaint here rather than on the talk page of the article in question. I completely agree that in a country that is 96% Muslim, more than just a Catholic cardinal's voice is needed. But in that case, I don't see why comments by Muslim leaders in Pakistan couldn't be added. This could be accomplished with little to no talk page discussion. I'm not really sure what the fuss is. Display name 99 (talk) 01:53, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Lack of coverage of reasons of failures in social distancing

While I was first surprised by lack of coverage of reasons & criticism of failures in social distancing in Pakistan, subsequently I am having the same feeling about many articles on the subject around. Except article 2020 coronavirus pandemic in Spain which covers criticism a bit better in other article it seems largely absent. For example 2020 coronavirus pandemic in the United States article mentions lot many other things including how many people traveled but does not seem to cover which social behaviors were main reasons of quick spread, same I felt about Italian article.

Even 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic also do not seem to cover failures in social distancing and criticism thereof adequately. Neither Article Social distancing measures related to the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic nor article Social distancing seem to cover the subject adequately either. IMHO

Bookku (talk) 06:45, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Inconsistent figures for USA

There is a large gap between the figures reported for the USA between this page and 2020 coronavirus pandemic in the United States. The country page has 775,663 cases and 37,429 deaths and this page 799,515 cases and 42,897 deaths, both apparently up to 20 April. The country page gives its source as "Official reports from state health officials", this page as 1Point3Acres, made by first generation Chinese immigrants. Should not both pages be using the same source and why is the source this page uses considered reliable? The official figures obviously understate the numbers, but that applies to the official sources for most countries. BTW the BBC uses John Hopkins University at [4]. Dudley Miles (talk) 10:19, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

The use of 1Point3Acres has been discussed several times before, mostly on the talk page of the template where the source is actually used. Template talk:2019–20 coronavirus pandemic data/Archive 11#Need a reliable government source for the United States seems to be the most recent substantive discussion. I don't see any relevance of "first generation Chinese immigrants" making the page.

As to why the US page is different, I don't know. But since this article covers so much and the talk is very active, it would be better to discuss that on that article talk page i.e. Talk:2020 coronavirus pandemic in the United States. If the discussion there leads to a suggestion to change what is used in the world template for the US, I suggest you bring it to Template talk:2019–20 coronavirus pandemic data but you probably should ensure you read previous discussions on 1Point3Acres and consider their points on the US article talk page before doing so.

It is possible that in the end, editors may feel it's better to use different sources for different articles even if this leads to different numbers. For example if it's felt that the overall numbers from 1Point3Acres are the most reliable and up to date, but their more specific numbers like state by state numbers are not, or they don't even have the data we want, then we may need to choose different sources to obtain these numbers.

I think even in that case, we probably should mention the 1Point3Acres main numbers in the US article somewhere, wither either a footnote or inline explanation why we have different numbers. Although there will still probably be other places where the other sourced number appear without the 1Point3Acres figures so there may always be confusion from editors who just skim the article. But again that should be dealt with on the US article talk page.

Nil Einne (talk) 12:33, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Lancet study date correction, significance

The study in The Lancet by Huang C, Wang Y, Li X, Ren L, Zhao J, Hu Y, et al. doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30183-5 shows "Published:January 24, 2020" but our article reference has "(February 2020)". The Lancet's editor Richard Horton has commented: Horton, Richard (2020). "Scientists have been sounding the alarm on coronavirus for months. Why did Britain fail to act?". the Guardian. On 24 January, Chinese doctors and scientists reported the first description of a new disease caused by a novel coronavirus. Suggest change the reference date to 24 January, and add Horton's article as a source about the initial reporting of the virus. As he highlights in a summary, the paper said "The number of deaths is rising quickly. ... Taken together, evidence so far indicates human transmission ... Airborne precautions, such as a fit-tested N95 respirator, and other personal protective equipment are strongly recommended. ... Testing of respiratory specimens should be done immediately once a diagnosis is suspected. Serum antibodies should be tested among health-care workers before and after their exposure .... Because of the pandemic potential of 2019-nCoV, careful surveillance is essential". . . dave souza, talk 20:01, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Alternative presentation of global growth in cases

Animation of global growth in COVID-19 cases by country

Would this animation be considered useful as an illustration of global growth in cases? Accounts for differences in population. E.g. India starts at beyond 1 case in 1 billion population and naturally needs to traverse further. Demonstrates that all countries will end near 1 case in 1 of population. How close depends upon the exact value of Herd Immunity Threshold for SARS-Cov-2. Daily growth is not absolute it is smoothed with kernel window of 3 days, to reduce noise in reporting process differences across countries. Daily growth lower limit arbitrarily at 0.05%. Shows relative immediate 'prospects' of each country, easily. E.g. high growth rates versus low and stable rates.

EmptyJarM (talk) 08:06, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

A little to complicated for this page IMO. Maybe ask on a subpage 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic by country and territory Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:29, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Leaked from lab

According to the United Kingdom and others the possibility that the virus leaked from a laboratory in Wuhan, China is 'no longer being discounted.'

Would want to see an actual statement by the UK government. These sources are not sufficient IMO. We have lots of theories spreading. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:07, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Leaked U.S. State Department cables have disclosed that U.S. Embassy officials visited the Wuhan Institute of Virology several times and sent two official warnings back to Washington about inadequate safety at the lab, which was conducting risky studies on coronaviruses from bats.

This is a WP opinion piece. Would want a better source. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:07, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

This was also added "Nonetheless, the possibility that the virus escaped from a virology testing laboratory in Wuhan, that was determined to have significant safety issues by U.S. scientists in 2018, hasn't been entirely ruled out and is currently being investigated."

The BBC source says "But despite rampant online speculation, there is no evidence of any kind that the Sars-CoV-2 virus (which causes Covid-19) was released accidentally from a lab." Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:17, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Definitely WP:TOOSOON. Are there any reputable sources or just gossip at this point? I haven't seen any real evidence so far. --Gtoffoletto (talk) 19:19, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Nothing super concrete, but a Taiwanese professor said 2 months ago it's very likely that the virus was man-made after noting the sudden addition of 4 amino acids. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 19:30, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Trump answered this question in one of the last 2 press conferences. He stayed vague, but certainly didn't confirm it. Statically, with what we know now about the virus, the situation in Wuhan needed about 10 000 cases just around that particular hospital to happen. Are we saying that the 10 000 infected quietly stay put in a single city waiting for the virus to be detect at least a month later ? Because it seems that some media REALLY want this to be the only possibility. Is there any scientific evidence that exclude any other country or market ? I'd love that source... Iluvalar (talk) 19:34, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

IMO there are two things here we should distinguish. The idea this was human engineered is widely discredited. It's such a fringe conspiracy theory that it's not even worth mentioning in this article as one of the wacky pieces of misinformation. The idea this was an accidental release of a virus being studied also seems to be flawed but this is on a different level from the claim was engineered. I don't think you can say it's completely discredited but it's also not significant enough to mention based on current sourcing especially since no one has presented any real evidence. Nil Einne (talk) 22:17, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Prove that they're discredited.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 100.37.79.33 (talk) 00:09, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Start with [5]. Despite the viral genome having been published for coming on to 3 months now, no who has analysed the thing has been able to publish a paper arguing it's human engineered. A number of people, like the earlier source, have published papers saying it isn't. It's clear pseudoscience at this point. Nil Einne (talk) 07:21, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Although the evidence shows that SARS-CoV-2 is not a purposefully manipulated virus, it is currently impossible to prove or disprove the other theories of its origin described here. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 100.37.79.33 (talk) 18:44, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

So you agree with me then? Thanks! Glad we could move on from the human engineered nonsense. Nil Einne (talk) 19:02, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

What part of currently impossible to prove or disprove the other theories don't you understand? I asked for a source to discredit that this was from a lab and the source itself you link me to is admitting that it doesn't. You seem frighteningly sure of yourself that this originated from animals. You work for a biology lab? Better yet, you work for the CCP? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 100.37.79.33 (talk) 19:35, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

You said "Prove that they're discredited". You never clearly "asked for a source to discredit that this was from a lab" until now. I only ever said that the claims of it being engineered were discredited, and even explicitly said that the claims it was an accidental released were flawed but "I don't think you can say it's completely discredited". I assumed your question was in response to what I said. So when you asked me to "prove that they're discredited" I assumed you were asking were asking me to prove what I actually said was discredited i.e. the claims it is human engineered, which I did say was discredited. Since I explicitly said that the claims it originated from a lab were flawed but not discredited I have no idea why you would ask be to prove something I explicitly said wasn't the case. But I'm done with this discussion since you're asking for random stuff which have nothing to do with what I said. Nil Einne (talk) 00:54, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

FWIW - Several related relevant references for possible consideration re a COVID-19 (Sars-CoV-2) virus leak from a Wuhan (China) experimental virus testing laboratory are the following: - hope these references help in some way - in any case - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 19:53, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

@MarioGom: - and others - A more recent reference is from Newsweek - iac - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 20:52, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Drbogdan, that source does not talk about the laboratory leak theory at all? --MarioGom (talk) 21:00, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

MarioGom, Thank you for your comment - yes - agreed - ref mentioned since, if the news report is true (ie, the first virus cases were not in Wuhan but elsewhere), then the initiating events may not have involved the Wuhan laboratory (or perhaps the Wuhan wet market) after all - iac - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 21:24, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Another more recent related Newsweek report (dated 18 April 2020) is as follows: - iac - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 01:21, 19 April 2020 (UTC) Let's consider sources:

1. 6 February: South China Morning Post ([6]) reports about how social media users attacked Shi Zhengli based on the hoax story that she was the creator of the virus. We have to be very cautious about this, since it is considered WP:FRINGE by the reliable source that reported about it, and it might be a WP:BLP problem if not reported as such.
2. 5 April: The Daily Mail ([7]), a source that is WP:DEPRECATED and is considered generally unreliable (WP:RSPDM), claims that an undisclosed "senior sources in the British government" said that "a leak from a laboratory in the Chinese city is 'no longer being discounted'". So it is an unreliable source that claims that according to an undisclosed source, the theory is "no longer being discounted". So it's essentially... nothing.
3. 6 April: The Science Times ([8]) just cited The Daily Mail. "There is a credible alternative view of the zoonotic theory based on the nature of the virus. Perhaps it is no coincidence that there is that laboratory in Wuhan. It is not discounted,", so, again, "alternative view", "not discounted", the same rumor about a mere theory with no backing evidence.
4. 14 April: Fox News ([9]) reports about some cables from 2018 that have "renewed speculation inside the U.S. government about whether Wuhan-based labs were the source of the novel coronavirus, although no firm connection has been established." Ok. "speculation", "no firm connection has been established".
5. 14 April: The Washington Post ([10]) covers the same story as Fox: "The cables have fueled discussions inside the U.S. government about whether this or another Wuhan lab was the source of the virus — even though conclusive proof has yet to emerge."
6. 16 April: CNN ([11]), same story, "according to multiple sources familiar with the matter who caution it is premature to draw any conclusions."
7. 17 April: Zero Hedge ([12]), a source we consider "generally unreliable due to its propagation of conspiracy theories" (WP:RSP) joins the party with some more WP:FRINGE stuff.

So yeah, there are reports about all kind of theories. Some of them are plain conspiracy theories, some of them are social media hoaxes, and some of them are about Government sources "not ruling it out". --MarioGom (talk) 20:26, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Misinformation_related_to_the_2019–20_coronavirus_pandemic#Accidental_leakage Iluvalar (talk) 20:56, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Thanks User:MarioGom Yah the Daily Mail is famous for hoaxes, especially ones that are politically motivated. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:26, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

The Fox News story that everyone seems to be talking about is [13]. It provides no real evidence, instead just quotes unnamed sources and documents Fox News did not see. They say some are more sceptical. An interesting point is that the Fox News Whitehouse correspondent John Roberts asked Trump a highly specific question, mentioning that an internet at the lab infected her boyfriend who then went on to infect the wet market [14] [15]. However I cannot find this anywhere in the written Fox News reports. (I assume at a minimum they have played John Roberts question on air.) In any case, I still maintain this is not significant enough to mention at this time based on the current source. (Although unlike I said 3 days ago, I'm more willing to concede it could belong in the US article.) Nil Einne (talk) 22:46, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

References

Disputing virus source

More articles coming in that suggest or hint this virus originated in a lab in Wuhan not far off the market they claimed where it was started. I have strong doubts that this came from bats or wildlife, so I would at least suggest pulling that section down in the infobox for now. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 100.37.79.33 (talk) 00:03, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

To make the "escaped from a lab theory" our main one, we would need quality, independent sources, not just those repeating what division fomenting politicians are saying. This has to be about real science, not political nonsense. HiLo48 (talk) 00:06, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Even to slightly suggest that there is information available about the origination, just the convenience alone of the location of the laboratory should be sufficient enough to suggest that it wouldn't be concreate to suggest it emerged from bats. If it's disputed, nothing should be mentioned. As of right now, it comes off almost like propaganda. It's not a neutral point of view. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 100.37.79.33 (talk) 00:13, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Which are you suggesting is propaganda, the lab source or the bat source? And please sign your posts. At this stage we cannot tell if the first and third post here are from the same person. We can only guess. HiLo48 (talk) 01:31, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

As I said above, everyone but the most extreme wacky conspiracy theorist thinks this most likely came through bats. Whether directly or some other fashions. Even the smarter conspiracy theorist who claim it was engineered claims it was engineered from a virus sourced directly or indirectly from bats. To suggest someone just so happened to come up with a virus similar to SARS-CoV-1 which it's widely accepted did come from bats, by random chance, without reference to something like SARS-CoV-1, is insane. And no, "convenience along of the location of the laboratory" is not evidence of anything. There's apparently some 5G in Wuhan. Whether there are any 5G towers near the market I have no idea, and it's completely irrelevant because it's not evidence. In the end, we don't care so much about "evidence" anyway, but what reliable secondary sources say based on evidence. Nil Einne (talk) 11:19, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Break

This has now been added to the history section. I have moved it here for discussion. Looks like politics claiming to not be politics.

"According to U.S. Secretary of State Pompeo, “We are still asking the Chinese Communist Party to allow experts to get in to [the Wuhan Institute of Virology lab] so that we can determine precisely where this virus began. It’s not political. This is about science and epidemiology. ...the Chinese Communist Party needs to come clean about what took place there, so the whole world can see what took place. When we do that, there’ll be a time for accountability.”"

Thoughts? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 00:52, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

I still maintain what I said above, this may belong in the US article. It doesn't belong here at this time. Nil Einne (talk) 00:57, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

User:Nil Einne yes that is my position aswell. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:19, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

“Furthermore, the notion that SARS-CoV-2 was genetically engineered is pure conspiracy, experts told Live Science, but it's still impossible to rule out the notion that Chinese scientists were studying a naturally-occurring coronavirus that subsequently ‘escaped’ from the lab”. We cannot say 100% that this did not come from the lab. We’ll probably need to mention this somewhere using scientific sources like this and not political sources like what was added to the article. Perhaps stuff the Pompeo stuff in 2020 coronavirus pandemic in the United States#Administration officials. Benica11 (talk). 01:06, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

FWIW - my current concern is that there seems to be WP:RS that the Wuhan laboratory was apparently genetically (engineering) modifying bat coronaviruses to enter human cells at least as early as 2015 afaik atm - one example, in the words of the researchers: "To evaluate the potential genetic changes required for HKU4 to infect human cells, we reengineered HKU4 spike, aiming to build its capacity to mediate viral entry into human cells" - iac - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 01:41, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

• We already have decent coverage of this topic at Misinformation related to the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic § Accidental leakage. Adding this to the main article is not due weight. --MarioGom (talk) 12:28, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

When the statement was: “According to the United Kingdom and others the possibility that the virus leaked from a laboratory in Wuhan, China is 'no longer being discounted,'” the objection was “Would want to see an actual statement by the UK government.”

When an equivalent actual statement from the U.S. government is presented the objection is that it seems to be political. What kind of statement would suffice? The suggestion here is that this is a naturally occurring virus that was found in a bat that was collected pursuant to the well-documented activities of the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) or the Wuhan Centers For Disease Control And Prevention (CDC).

• Numerous studies show that the risk of a man-made pandemic from a lab escape is not hypothetical. Lab escapes of high-consequence pathogens resulting in transmission beyond lab personnel have occurred. The historical record reveals lab-originated outbreaks and deaths due to the causative agents of the 1977 pandemic flu, smallpox escapes in Great Britain, Venezuelan equine encephalitis in 1995, SARS outbreaks after the SARS epidemic, and foot and mouth disease in the UK in 2007. It is well-documented that the SARS virus escaped from a Beijing lab twice in 2004.

• Richard Ebright, a Rutgers microbiologist and biosafety expert said that bat coronaviruses are collected and studied at both the CDC and the WIV, and that “The possibility that the virus entered humans through a laboratory accident cannot and should not be dismissed.” He noted that bat coronaviruses were studied at the CDC at Biosafety Level 2, “which provides only minimal protection,” compared to the level-4 standard claimed by the WIV.

• Ebright referred to a publically-available video that he said showed CDC workers collecting bats with inadequate personal protective equipment and unsafe practices, including exposed faces and wrists and a lack of goggles or face shields.

• The team at the WIV had published research showing that horseshoe bats they had collected from a cave in Yunnan province were very likely from the same bat population that spawned the SARS coronavirus in 2003.

• The Washington Post reports that U.S. Embassy officials visited the WIV several times and sent two official warnings back to Washington about inadequate safety at the lab, which was conducting risky studies on coronaviruses from bats. They noted the new lab has a serious shortage of appropriately trained technicians and investigators needed to safely operate this high-containment laboratory.

• Fox News reports that multiple sources who have been briefed on the details of early actions by China's government and seen relevant materials say that there is increasing confidence that the COVID-19 outbreak likely originated in a Wuhan laboratory, though not as a bioweapon but as part of China's attempt to demonstrate that its efforts to identify and combat viruses are equal to or greater than the capabilities of the United States.

• There is no doubt that the WIV was actively working on coronaviruses and bats. They posted a job opening on November 18, 2019, “asking for scientists to come research the relationship between the coronavirus and bats.”

• A Chinese researcher, currently a professor at the South China University of Technology, wrote a paper titled “The Possible Origins of 2019-nCoV coronavirus,” in which he remarked on the lax security procedures he had observed and concluded that “the killer coronavirus probably originated from a laboratory in Wuhan.” He later withdrew the paper because it involved speculation and “was not supported by direct proofs.” It has to be admitted that he would have thought that access to the records of the labs would have a scientific basis. China is now censoring any research related to the origin of the virus. Currently, "[s]tudies on the origin of the virus will receive extra scrutiny and must be approved by central government officials."

When we know that viruses have escaped from labs around the world many times, including the SARS virus from Chinese labs, that the security precautions at the WIV have been questioned by scientists, that the CDC only operates at a level 2, and that the observed bat collection practices have been criticized by knowledgeable scientists as inadequate and posing substantial risk of infection, why is it that when the U.S. Secretary of State announces that the U.S. has been asking for experts to be allowed access to the WIV so that we can determine precisely where this virus began it is said that this is probably political and not motivated by any legitimate scientific concern, and therefore not to be listed among the legitimate options as to the origin of SARS-CoV-2?

What kind of evidence or statement is needed for Wikipedia to conclude that there is a realistic possibility that the virus entered into the human population as a result of the bat collection and study practices at the CDC and/or WIV, and that therefore the request by the U.S. Secretary of State for access to lab records and personnel is not merely political? Swood100 (talk) 21:56, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Swood100, studies published at The Lancet, Emerging Infectious Diseases or a number of comparably reliable WP:MEDRS would be great. Otherwise, concrete evidence in the present (as opposed to 2018 documents) that is widely reported by WP:RS, and not labeled as "speculation" by the same sources. --MarioGom (talk) 09:44, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

MarioGom, I don't understand why you ask for a subset of realiable sources to source the accidental-leakage hypothesis. No medical source is going to produce evidence for a security breach, that would be the jurisdiction of WHO and China's CDC. In other words, the investigation must look for research logs, camera footages, interviews with researchers, and deductive tests, not for genome-sequence evidence. Given the evidence that WHO and China's CDC are not fully disclosing ther investigations on the origin of the virus, I vote for a mention of the hypothesis on this entry --Forich (talk) 14:39, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

MarioGom, the U.S. State Department's official transcript of the Secretary of State's statements has to be WP:RS. If the U.S. government has officially asked that its scientific experts be given access to WIV in order to determine the origin of the virus why isn't that noteworthy in a section about the history of the virus? Isn't it the default assumption that a request of this nature indicates that the government has determined that it has a legitimate scientific purpose here, with the burden of proof on those who suggest otherwise? Swood100 (talk) 15:09, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Swood100, the U.S. State Department is a valid source for the U.S. State Department claims with in-text attribution. In this case, for the claim that the U.S. government has officially asked that its scientific experts be given access to WIV in order to determine the origin of the virus. We cannot infere more (WP:SYNTH) and the burden of proof for further claims still lies on anyone who makes such claims, not on everyone else. --MarioGom (talk) 15:40, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

MarioGom, if we can't infer more then we can't infer that the motive is political rather than scientific. What is the objection to reporting that the U.S. government has officially asked that its scientific experts be given access to WIV in order to determine the origin of the virus? Is that not relevant to the history of the virus and to the search for the source? Swood100 (talk) 17:36, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Perhaps you could argue it belongs in the article on the virus. However this is the article on the pandemic. There is a lot we could cover, so we need to be very selective about what we do cover. Anything we cover needs to be particularly significant to understanding the pandemic. Random stuff that some government with no evidence of any significance in finding more about the origins of the virus doesn't belong. If over time, this becomes significant in some way, e.g. if multiple governments publicly come to the conclusion it originated from that lab, or e.g. if it leads to a major break in the relationship between China and the US than probably it could be added. But at the moment, no. And yes, there is more stuff which probably should be removed. E.g. it's unclear to me if the Kansas stuff is really significant enough for us to cover. Still the solution to that is to remove such insignificant details and only add other significant details rather than allowing the continued addition of details which are not significant in the grand scheme of things. Nil Einne (talk) 19:12, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Of course the origin of the pandemic is significant to understanding the pandemic. The United States is not “some government,” as if it were Suriname. The U.S. is a major player with significant influence over both China and the WHO. That the U.S. has publically asked that it be allowed access to the WIV is significant in itself.

You appear to believe that the official request of the United States is in pursuance of a baseless conspiracy theory. But how do you establish that it is a conspiracy theory? Why isn’t such a request by the U.S. entitled to be taken at face value? If the U.S. determines that China has released such viruses before; that workers from these labs have been observed collecting bats using inadequate personal protective equipment and unsafe practices; that China’s internal safety procedures at WIV were judged inadequate by U.S. experts; that qualified biosafety experts say that the possibility of a lab accident should not be dismissed; and that the virus originated in the vicinity of two Chinese labs that worked on viruses from bats; and concludes that because of these facts it is reasonable to ask to see the records of the WIV, why is your personal opinion that such a request is unreasonable sufficient to cause Wikipedia to characterize the U.S. position as “misinformation”?

For purposes of a Wikipedia article, if the U.S. government says that it is reasonable to ask China for more information on the source of a pandemic, what kind of source is needed to render the action of the U.S. government not reportable because it is baseless or is misinformation? Swood100 (talk) 23:35, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

I second Swood100 points that justify the inclusion of a mention, giving it contextual attribution and a caveat that this is still being assesed as speculation at this point. On the matter of which entry should refer to this hypothesis (virus/disease/pandemic): it does not disputes the zoonotic origin, so I am not sure of it belonging there; it does play a crucial role in the virus jumping from a bat to a human, so definitely deserves a mention at the disease entry; and it could prove to be important for the part of the pandemic in which humanity establishes responsabilities, but it may be too soon for that. --Forich (talk) 02:11, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Well I never said or implied "baseless" or "misinformation" or "conspiracy theory". Frankly, I DGAF why the US made their request. Since you've started to put words into my mouth, I'm not sure it's worth replying to you anymore. I stand by my view that at this time, there no evidence of sufficient significance of the request to understanding the origins of the virus, that it should be covered in the article on the pandemic, as reflected in RS. Nil Einne (talk) 11:32, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Updates on the coverage of this news: PBS (includes interview with an expert), Chicago Reader (they cite the opinion of scientist Bronson, saying it is valid to report on the accidental leakage hypothesis), National Post (cites expert Falzarano judging the hypothesis "plausible" but "highly unlikely"), and BBC (dismisses the hypothesis as "fake" and "misinformation").--Forich (talk) 05:46, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the additional links. The BBC page was disagreeing with the theory that the virus was engineered in a lab, not the theory that the virus was natural and they were studying it and accidentally released it. It refers to another page where BBC's science editor, Paul Rincon, says "there's currently no evidence that any research institute in Wuhan was the source of Sars-CoV-2" (which causes Covid-19). This is what the U.S. is looking for with its request for access to the WIV: evidence. That page gave example of security breaches, such as when vials of smallpox were found in a cardboard box and when live anthrax samples were mistakenly sent instead of dead spores. The story said that BSL-4 labs “generally have good safety records.” According to Dr Filippa Lentzos, a biosecurity expert at King's College London, the issue of the origin of this virus is a “very difficult question,” and added that "there have been quiet, behind-the-scene discussions... in the biosecurity expert community, questioning the seafood market origin that has come out very strongly from China." The National Post story references an interesting NYT story about the U.S. shutting down a number of labs, some of them “high-biosafety level labs” because of sloppy procedures.

References

'Natural' origins?

In the Epidemiology section, the 2nd para currently reads (emphasis added) "In March and April 2020, scientists reported that the virus originated naturally." I think this could be misleading. Yes, the virus is 'natural' as opposed to man-made, and as such the statement may be helpful in addressing some conspiracy theories. But the circumstances which led to the virus jumping species arguably aren't natural, not in the way that, say, earthquakes are. I think we should avoid suggesting that this was somehow inevitable and something that just 'happens in nature'. Thoughts? -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 07:35, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

What's unnatural about the circumstances which led to the virus jumping species? HiLo48 (talk) 07:37, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Apart from a lot of different species of wild animals which would normally never come in proximity of each other, being kept alive and slaughtered in a condensed space with questionable hygiene, and large numbers of people passing through the facility, you mean? -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 08:55, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

It would be more precise to say that there is an analysis that shows it wasn't artificially engineered so not a Genetically modified virus. Whether zoonosis occured in the natural environment, a "seafood" market, or (unsubstantiated) via lab culture/breeding/leak, is a separate and more complex topic.--Eostrix (talk) 09:04, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

The virus originated naturally. You could say how it jumped to humans is not natural, but the sentence in question is about the virus's origin, not how it got into humans, so it seems fine to me. The virus's origins were many years before it got into people. I would leave the wording as is. Bondegezou (talk) 09:08, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

I see no mention of reliable sources in medicine for either position in this discussion. Without sources, we can continue arguing forever. --MarioGom (talk) 10:02, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

WHO says "all available evidence suggests that SARS-CoV-2 has a natural animal origin and is not a manipulated or constructed virus". Are they not considered MEDRS? -- DoubleGrazing (talk) 10:17, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

DoubleGrazing, I guess it may be considered a summary of WP:MEDRS. --MarioGom (talk) 10:43, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

WP:MEDRS that supports the World Health Organization evidence assessment: We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin.

I have amended the text of the article to The current scientific consensus is that COVID-19 has a natural origin. The previous statement was misleading, since it was not just some reports in March and April, it is basically every WP:MEDRS dealing with the topic all the way from February to April. --MarioGom (talk) 11:14, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

References

Redirects (April 20-22)

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Semi-protected edit request on 22 April 2020

{{edit semi-protected|2019–20 coronavirus pandemic|answered=no}} I propose to add a new section as a part of the "Information dissemination" https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_pandemic#Information_dissemination as the following

Information gap

There is a knowledge gap between recent scientific findings and data widely communicated by national governments to general population. This gap has a key impact on the growing uncertainty about the disease in the population, facilitates conspiracy theories, and influence the epidemic spread.

The maximal incubation period as 14 days was widely communicated to the public by the WHO and mass media, but modeling study estimated that 1% of infected patients will develop symptoms after 14 days of active monitoring or quarantine, and some scientific reports suggest it could be extended up to 24 days.

Awareness about mildly symptomatic or completely asymptomatic virus carriers is not sufficient, while they consist of up to 40–50% of infected individuals, who could continue to follow a routine lifestyle and become drivers of epidemic in the absence of strict distancing measures. Borisbikbov (talk) 10:23, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

References

Semi-protected edit request on 22 April 2020

{{edit semi-protected|2019–20 coronavirus pandemic|answered=no}} I propose to add after the phrase "Many places have also worked to increase testing capacity and trace contacts of infected persons." at the beginning of the article the following:

Adherence to preventive measures is hampered for vulnerable social groups, including children, persons with low health literacy, international migrant workers, international students, persons in assisted living and nursing homes, persons with intellectual or sensorial disabilities, refugees, undocumented migrants, homeless people, prisoners. Evidence for the management of epidemic among them is limited, with lack of practice guidelines which could facilitate provision of care. Borisbikbov (talk) 10:43, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

References

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for speedy deletion

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Statistics and charts

Our charts focusing on number of cases and death rates have been very good sources of information to date.

However the scholarly analyses and quality media are moving towards excess deaths analysis as being significantly more meaningful analysis, as it allows a true like-for-like comparison. Examples are: [16], [17], [18] and [19].

We have a few of these statistics scattered across the article at the moment, for selected countries, seemingly on a random basis.

I am not sure the data exists in a simple enough form for us to use to create a table without straying in WP:OR, but I am writing this because we should keep an eye out for the ability to do this when we can.

Onceinawhile (talk) 20:33, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Covidview from CDC plot it over the 8% of all deaths baseline for all pneumonia here : [20]. I agree we should have more of those. Iluvalar (talk) 20:48, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia's response to the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic

Is Wikipedia's response to the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic worth adding to the "See also" section, or incorporating into the prose in some other way? ---Another Believer _(Talk) 15:20, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

self-promotion?--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 22:04, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

I wonder if it's worth nominating for deletion. – Muboshgu (talk) 22:11, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Article lead and Template:2019–20 coronavirus pandemic data don't seem to agree

Ok, so the article lead states that "As of 22 April 2020, more than 2.62 million cases of COVID-19 have been reported in 185 countries and territories, resulting in more than 182,000 deaths.", when Template:2019–20 coronavirus pandemic data states that the number is 225, not 185. The 185 number is provided by Template:Cases in 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic, which cites johns hopkins as its source. So, in summary, johns hopkins states that it is on 185 countries and territories when our template states 225. I've found that johns hopkins doesn't seem to be counting territories at all (like the Falkland Islands, it's on our template but it's just nowhere to be found on johns hopkins) So, if we cite johns hopkins, we definetely should remove the "and territories" part. And if we correct the "185" on our lead to reflect what our template says, then we couldn't use johns hopkins, but i don't know how it should be cited since we can't cite our template, however our template has a reference for every single entry. But phrasing it as "185 countries" could suggest that taiwan is a country, (since all entries on johns hopkins are countries, although taiwan has an asterisk, presumably due to the one china thing) Phrasing it as "185 countries and territories" could ease that concern, since it would keep things ambiguous, however, i believe that adding a note would be helpful. Pancho507 (talk) 23:24, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Grammatical clarification

Hi, in the epidemiology section, there is a sentence which says “These cases mostly had links to the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market and so the virus is thought to have a zoonotic origin.” In the next paragraph, there is a sentence which says “The earliest known person with symptoms was later discovered to have fallen ill on 1 December 2019, and that person did not have visible connections with the later wet market cluster.”

The second sentence seems to contradict the first sentence as it is suggesting that the first case did not have any connections to the wet market. Yet the first sentence is implying that the first cases were linked to the wet market. Should the first sentence therefore be reworded to the past tense or have I misunderstood what the 2 paragraphs are saying? To note, I am not disputing any of the content as I haven’t checked the citations. I am only pointing out what looks like a grammatical error. 90.196.236.105 (talk) 20:00, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

So I think resolution of this issue is that most cases had links to the Market, but the first one didn't. It certainly is confusing, and scientists aren't 100% percent it came from the wet market, but this citation describes the confusion Zoozaz1 20:07, 22 April 2020 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zoozaz1 (talk • contribs)

It's perhaps best thought of this way: the first known case has not shown any connection to the market, but quite a few others have, implying that there is a zoonotic origin for the virus. In this case, the first case can be considered an "outlier", but just because they were the earliest known person with symptoms doesn't necessarily mean they were the first to be infected. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 23:42, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

IFR

"Antibody testing in Santa Clara county, California, suggests an IFR of 01.% to 0.2%."

References

We really need better sources. This is just commentary on a primary source. We need WP:MEDRS source. We have other evidence as discussed here User:Doc_James/Mortality#Mortality_estimates that makes this estimate impossible. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 22:14, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

I checked this sentence - and the original source - a couple of days ago and it seems sound.

Secondary sources are acceptable within WP:MEDRS. CEBM and CDC - extensively cited - are both secondary sources.

On your "impossible " comment, I think your evidence predates serological testing, which has only come online in the last 2 to 3 weeks. There is a growing body of evidence of high numbers of asymptomatic cases which consequently push the IFR estimate down - Germany, California, New York, Netherlands so far, with more in the pipeline. All of these are preliminary results, not peer reviewed etc but they all seem to point in the same direction. There were initial concerns about serological tests giving false positives but I think these have been addressed. Robertpedley (talk) 07:45, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

The notion that such an estimate is "impossible" is undermined by accumulating evidence. Independent antibody testing by the Los Angeles Department of Public Health and the University of Southern California, Germany, and Iceland, all point in the same direction; toward an IFR below 0.5%, completely in line with CEBM's IFR estimate of 0.1%-0.36%. For what it's worth, since you brought it up, your analysis of mortality rates is deeply flawed. You fail to account for factors not intrinsic to the virus per se, e.g. country and response-specific factors that would make the IFR much higher in one place than in another, such as possible over-referral/over-hospitalization that helps overwhelm capacity, age demographics (Italy's population is second only to Japan in age), rates of antibiotic resistance, and the effects of air pollution. Given that Italy's apparent CFR is among the highest in the world, it's odd to use an outlier to presume a 0.12% low limit to mortality in a Western population. This is especially odd given that it contradicts data from Iceland (a western population) which suggests that the infection fatality rate there may be less than 0.1%. Global Cerebral Ischemia (talk) 16:39, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

No my evidence is reported deaths divided by total population. The only way to reduce this number is reincarnation. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:55, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Nature article on IFR estimate

I can't fathom a single reason why this sentence is inappropriate: "Antibody testing in Santa Clara county, California, suggests an IFR of 0.1% to 0.2%." Nature unequivocally passes WP:MEDRS, and the estimate is explicitly stated in the article. What's the problem? Global Cerebral Ischemia (talk) 23:47, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Update- Other major news sources are discussing these findings, as well as additional findings from the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health. This article posted just hours ago on Reason is one example. Global Cerebral Ischemia (talk) 00:03, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

This is a news article about a preprint study. There are going to be dozens and dozens of local estimates over the next month. However, we should be very cautious in framing any early local IFR estimates. Currently available data is nowhere near sufficient to provide country-level estimates. There are issues of test reliability and sampling techniques, size, and population selection. I think we'll get better data in a few weeks and the necessary meta analysis to answer the question in a few months. In the short term, the numbers seem to be all over the place. I'd recommend against citing every new preprint study based on limited data. - Wikmoz (talk) 01:17, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

This is simple commentary on a primary source. We are looking for high quality secondary sources. It is undue weight without all the discussion of its limitations.

It is not just the publisher but the type of source. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:22, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

This is a completely ridiculous double-standard that would mean most of the information in this article should be removed. Essentially all of the news coverage and secondary sources cited are of highly preliminary findings where issues of "reliability and sampling techniques, size, and population selection" apply. Let me just be clear: Nature is a reliable source. The authors of the Santa Clara study, e.g. John Ioannidis, are internationally recognized experts. Undue weight does not apply to a press release on the website of the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health regarding a study the department undertook with the University of Southern California. These are reliable sources. No standard regarding news coverage of preprint research has been previously or consistently upheld here. Global Cerebral Ischemia (talk) 16:01, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Here is more coverage of the Santa Clara and Los Angeles findings from many of the same reliable sources that are already heavily cited in this article: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/21/health/coronavirus-antibodies-california.html https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2020-04-20/coronavirus-serology-testing-la-county https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-usa-serology/los-angeles-coronavirus-infections-40-times-greater-than-known-cases-antibody-tests-suggest-idUSKBN22234S and one addressing the controversey https://www.sciencemag.org/news/2020/04/antibody-surveys-suggesting-vast-undercount-coronavirus-infections-may-be-unreliable It's worth noting that the article characterizes the criticism as originating in "twitter threads" and "blog posts." The twitter threads and blog posts aren't reliable sources, but reliable secondary sources reporting on their content are...just like secondary sources reporting on pre-prints, press releases, and corroborating preliminary research (ironically pointed out by the article on the twitter/blog backlash). Global Cerebral Ischemia (talk) 16:29, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

This lists the current deaths per 100,000 in NYC as 114 (which translates into 0.11% of people in NYC are already dead from this disease).[21] You find it at the bottom of the page under rates by sex. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:42, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

I'm sorry Doc James, but I have to say Nature is a sufficient source at the moment. I was going to add "IFR estimations have been revised down over time. An antibody testing in Santa Clara county, California, suggests an IFR of 01.% to 0.2%. But there are concerns among scientists about the validity of those tests.". which come from the exact same source, but you reverted me before I could. Iluvalar (talk) 04:25, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

I don't think we can necessarily claim there's a trend in the direction. The data are still too random and location-specific. - Wikmoz (talk) 05:07, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

This is a pre print. Not even peer reviewed yet.[22]

And here is an analysis of the math within the paper. It appears they got it wrong.[23] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:09, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

The problem is that a wordpress blog post doesn't carry more weight as a reliable source than coverage in Nature or the press release of a corroborating study undertaken completely independently by USC and the Los Angeles County of Public Health. There is zero reason why these can't be included in the article. Global Cerebral Ischemia (talk) 16:01, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Another issue is that this preprint does not take unreported deaths into account. There are a lot it appears.[24] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:21, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

It does account for them, the results suggest 20% of the population infected and it's only half of the curve, one could expect another 20% before it's over for this year. Were in a normal year we expect 1/7 (14%) of the population to be affected by a cold. We are experiencing the peak of it right now. Iluvalar (talk) 05:37, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

There's every reason to believe that deaths are overreported, perhaps vastly so, as noted by CEBM at Oxford and Walter Ricciardi have recently pointed out. Global Cerebral Ischemia (talk) 16:01, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Okay so if we disagree regarding including "an IFR of 0.1% to 0.2%" do we want to have a RfC to bring in further opinions? Might be best for you to draft what text and what references you want to use to support it. We already have "The University of Oxford's Centre for Evidence-Based Medicine (CEBM) estimates a global CFR of 0.72 per cent and IFR of 0.1 per cent to 0.36 per cent" A press release on a pre print is not a sufficient source. CEBM is attributed to them. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:58, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

References

Semi-protected edit request on 22 April 2020

I request that the following template be added, given that this pandemic is a current event:

108.85.152.134 (talk) 23:23, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

It hurts to say this but that template is only meant for short-term use. Please see Template:Current. There it says that "Generally it is expected that this template and its closely related templates will appear on an article for less than a day; occasionally longer" Pancho507 (talk) 23:28, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

This has been discussed over at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject COVID-19 under its general consensus: There is no current consensus about whether to use Template:Current at the top of articles covered by this project, although the matter has previously been discussed here. The de facto practice has been to include them for less-trafficked articles but not for the most heavily trafficked ones. There is also a more specific template for use, {{Current COVID}}. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 23:53, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

It's also consensus item 3 for this article specifically (see the top of this page). It hasn't had a big discussion affirming it, but my sense from editing patterns is that the status quo is the pretty solid consensus. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 06:19, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Inconsistent figures for France

Why is the number of cases for France in this article about 25% less than that in the article about the pandemic in Europe?

The French government's website[25] currently lists 114,657 confirmed cases, and 40,726 probable cases in non-hospital care facilities (nursing homes, etc.). It appears that 2020 coronavirus pandemic in Europe uses the total of confirmed and probable cases, while other articles use only the confirmed cases. Either number could be valid if clearly identified as to what it includes, but since the Europe article clearly says that its table is for "confirmed cases", I think it's an error for that table to include the probable cases. 68.7.103.137 (talk) 17:27, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Update: I've corrected the Europe article. 68.7.103.137 (talk) 17:52, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

French government reports confirmed cases. Other sources report confirmed cases together with probable cases. That's where most of the current confusion in some articles originates. MarioGom (talk) 12:44, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

France has no official and continuous count of cases. At least twice cases from nursing homes where added with delayed higher counts. Usual numbers sometimes are based on counts from the hospital system only. Thus there is a major gap between the official numbers and the total numbers from other sources. Traut (talk) 06:09, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Traut, France has official reporting (yes, mainly based on hospital cases). It can be checked here: [26]. Some sources, such as JHU CSSE, add cas probables en EHPAD et EMS (probable cases, 40,726 as of 20 April 2020). This is not incorrect per se, unless reported as "confirmed cases" ("probable cases" are not "confirmed", per official definitions). Other sources, such as Worldometer, also add cas confirmés en EHPAD et EMS to the total, which is wrong because they are already included, so they are double counting. MarioGom (talk) 10:42, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

You differ between worldometer and JHU, concerning data from France? I feel that JHU does use worldometer data for the last weeks. --Traut (talk) 12:46, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Navbox broken

I notice the navbox isn't rendering on this specific page, but others fine. Inspecting the HTML, I see a comment talking about a post-expand include size. Opencooper (talk) 15:52, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Yep. This article is so big, with so many templates, that it's hitting technical limits. I offloaded some less-central content to other pages, e.g. reducing the size of the 'misinfo' section, and reduced several excessive / redundant citations. The table still seems to be the biggest thing. Perhaps it's time to discuss offloading it ... -sche (talk) 16:08, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

@Opencooper and -sche: I switched to the short version of the navbox (adding |short=yes), which fixes it for now. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 13:16, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Decreasing article size

I think we should delete this template in the international response section and replace it with a note when editing. There are numorous discussions about how many bytes this articles takes up, and every byte counts. Zoozaz1 20:13, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Just as another suggestion if things get really out of hand. As of now the references take up more than a third of the entire byte count, so how about (or even could we) create an entire other page just for references, link it at the bottom, and just have numbers on this page that refer to the other page. Zoozaz1 20:20, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose. The software tracks how many references are in the article and will reorder them if they are removed or added. Adding a reference somewhere in the middle will bump the numbers of all the ones following it by 1, so another page would have to be constantly edited manually or else the sources won't match with what they're going to cite. Sources that talk about multiple items should be used to cut down on clutter and sections should be reduced, giving only a brief overview while linking to the main article that talks about the sub-subject more in-depth. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 20:28, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

  I'm not sure if I've misunderstood what you are saying but automatic reference numbering shouldn't be an issue. You use Help:List-defined references or something similar. The order of the references in the list doesn't matter. The software still automatically orders them according to when they are first cited. Remember that already some of the references are not even defined in this article but in templates, hence the first ref in the first paragraph of the first section "Epidemiology" is number 324 not because we have 323 refs in the leader but mostly because of the large number used in that table template. And even without using list defined references, it's hardly uncommon for a reference to only be defined after it is first cited. Especially for references in the lead.

  To give a very simple example see User:Nil Einne/sandbox. I've moved all the references to User talk:Nil Einne/sandbox, you will have to view the source/edit to see them. I intentionally put the last 2 references on the top of my reference list in the talk sandbox but you can see they are still ordered correctly in the list of references in the main page. (I'm not sure if they way I did it is the best way, it's just a quick example. Probably someone more familiar with templates and references will know the best way to do it. I also have the vague idea this was tried before on some article that was also very long.)

  Note I'm not saying this is a good idea. IMO it's still too confusing and will make things difficult for people using the visual editor etc. I think list-defined references are confusing for many even when the list is defined in the page itself.

  Nil Einne (talk) 13:34, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose both, per Tenryuu for the citations, and since I think the better way to get rid of the long section tag is to just make the section shorter. I do appreciate the attention to keeping the article size under the limit, though. That's going to be an ongoing concern. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 06:17, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 22 April 2020

Please update the image caption under section "Domestic responses" to match File:COVID-19 Outbreak lockdowns.svg. In particular, add #66e080 (light green) for "Former subnational lockdown". Right now mainland China is in light green and without this caption, viewers might be confused. Verkanto (talk) 17:34, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

 Not done for now: China now has a subnational lockdown. Note to all editors, once a country becomes green on the map, please update it on the legend. Benica11 (talk) 13:44, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Challenge “Source”

For source it says bats, however, as of today April 22, 2020 there has been no verifiable evidence that it came from a bat. While the virus itself has the same makeup as those in previous viruses that belong to this specific animal, the actual source of COVID-19 is unknown. Can this be clarified somehow since this is not yet actually known?

Galendalia (talk) 04:03, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Galendalia, I agree it needs some clarification. Latest evidence suggests it is not so likely that pangolins were the intermediate animal. Unless there is something I missed, WP:MEDRS are quite consistent about bats as the likely source. --MarioGom (talk) 11:41, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Galendalia, MarioGom, I went ahead and did this edit based off WP:MEDDATE. Benica11 (talk) 14:10, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Does this disease cause Anemia?

Doc James, Does this disease cause Anemia? What is the cause of the shortness of breath?—Souniel Yadav (talk) 08:05, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

SOB is from infection of the lung from what I understand. Anemia is not typical. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 08:26, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Doc James, is the SOB due to the Covid19 virus or due to super added bacterial infection of the lungs?—Souniel Yadav (talk) 11:01, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

As I understand it, it's start with mucus. Then muscle pain from the constant expectoration then the inflammation come into play. It can turn into cytokine storm in the worst cases. The might be complication, but Covid19 is definitively responsible for a cough normally the first symptom noticeable. Although many patient can recall retrospectively small symptoms on previous days which could include Anemia. Is this enough info ? We are not a Medical service here. Iluvalar (talk) 15:45, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Redirects (April 23-25)

Redirect spam here. Grouping by date so the above can be auto-archived. - Wikmoz (talk) 00:06, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

"Covidivorce" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirect Covidivorce. Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. Soumyabrata ^{stay at home} _{wash your hands} ^{to protect from coronavirus} 05:44, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

More attention appreciated at 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic in mainland China

I would encourage editors here to also give some attention to 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic in mainland China if possible. -Darouet (talk) 13:38, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

thank you for posting--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 00:32, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

@Darouet: Many of the country sub-articles need work. For China, one thing that hasn't been fixed yet and that directly affects this page, since the image is transcluded, is that the map uses a misleading color scheme that fails to communicate how strongly concentrated cases are in Hubei. See here. This should be a very simple fix for anyone who knows how to edit map files. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 04:02, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Deaths per capita map

Hello - I just noted that the Deaths per capita world map that's linked in the infobox today is almost a month out of date. Its author made a comment here that he didn't think he could update it again. Can somebody please look into this? Regards, PKT(alk) 14:31, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

He said: "I am unlikely to update the map daily any more". --Traut (talk) 14:35, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Huh? It looks like it's being updated regularly. See File:COVID-19 Outbreak World Map Total Deaths per Capita.svg revision history. Am I missing something? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 04:05, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

lowercase sigmabot III

The "Leaked from lab" section was archived April 23 at 6:06 by lowercase sigmabot III. However, this section included posts dated 12:44, 22 April 2020, or not even 24 hours old. How does this happen? Swood100 (talk) 18:52, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

it happens, its a bot...--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 00:31, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Hmm, that's odd. I wonder, are we ready to go from 24hr archiving period to 36hr? The editing pace has (blessedly) continued to slow bit by bit. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 04:07, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Precision of "death rate"

Please disregard this, the new numbers as of 24 april make my previous edit(s) obsolete. Delt01 (talk) 04:40, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

@Delt01: Please also be aware we do not accept original research, let alone unsourced claims that you made in your original post here. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 04:41, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

@Tenryuu: Please be aware that what i originally posted can easily be verified by anyone with a computer (or even a basic calculator) in front of them. Delt01 (talk) 04:44, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Delt01, and again, there are no sources provided. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 04:46, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

@Tenryuu: ...so, what "sources" do you need to verify that 187330 divided by 2682225 is 0.06984[...]? The "source" code of my calculator program (unix bc) maybe? Delt01 (talk) 04:52, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Delt01, the numbers you're getting aren't sufficient to get a reliable calculation for IFR. This has been discussed previously. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 04:57, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

"British English" or "British English Oxford Speeling"??

The article was used to be written in British English Oxford Spelling (suffix -ize is used instead of -ise.), but someone reverted it without clear consensus. 114.134.185.188 (talk) 23:54, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

It has been British English back till before 25 January 2020‎. That is when I put that procalamation on the edit notice, and there was a request and discussion on the talk page about it prior to that. British English Oxford Spelling may have been used on some other pages, but I don't know about that. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 04:36, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

See Talk:2019–20_coronavirus_pandemic/Archive_2#Why_should_the_article_be_written_in_British_English? and the section before it. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 04:57, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

See diff and its edit summary for an explanation. -sche (talk) 06:12, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

"Corona in X" listed at Redirects for discussion

An editor has asked for a discussion to address the redirects that take the form "Corona in X". Please participate in the redirect discussion if you wish to do so. -- Tavix ^(talk) 13:34, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 23 April 2020

The English on one line in the second paragraph does not sound correct. It has to be improved. "After breathing out produces these droplets, they usually fall to the ground or on to surfaces rather than remain in the air over long distances.[10][14][15]" I can be better said as: "These droplets are produced when exhaling, talking, coughing or sneezing and usually fall to the ground or on surfaces rather than remain in the air over long distances. [10][14][15]"

Kohsa.ayay (talk) 23:11, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

 Not done: I cannot find the text to change; it may have already been edited. Please reopen this edit request once you are positive you know what needs changing. Aasim 17:15, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Why so many errors ??

Cite error: A list-defined reference named "Santé Publique France" is not used in the content (see the help page). Cite error: A list-defined reference named ":4" is not used in the content (see the help page). Cite error: A list-defined reference named "AutoQ7-1" is not used in the content (see the help page). Cite error: A list-defined reference named "StraitsTimesFourthCase" is not used in the content (see the help page). Cite error: A list-defined reference named "BBC-first-case-europe" is not used in the content (see the help page). Cite error: A list-defined reference named "AutoQ7-2" is not used in the content (see the help page). Cite error: A list-defined reference named "apnews0673301985" is not used in the content (see the help page). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 104.249.225.137 (talk) 11:20, 24 April 2020 (UTC) I see the problem User:Sdkb added all the non working sources [27] — Preceding unsigned comment added by 104.249.225.137 (talk) 11:51, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

I have removed those unused refs. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 12:01, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

@Graeme Bartlett: Thanks. I was copying over from the France article and forgot that some of the intro references won't be used here after streamlining. Everything looks good here now. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 18:50, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Look at National responses to the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic they did the same thing — Preceding unsigned comment added by 104.249.225.137 (talk) 12:03, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

IP, that's actually the opposite issue, since that's an excerpt where the references weren't defined in the lead. That's a problem with excerpts. Ugh. If you want to fix it, go to the France article and make sure the references are defined in the lead there. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 18:52, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

How can we fix this? The page is locked how do I request that someone fixes your mistakes? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 104.249.225.137 (talk) 20:41, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

IP, 2020 coronavirus pandemic in France is not currently protected, so you can edit it yourself if you're comfortable enough with the wikitext. Otherwise someone else will fix it soon enough; I left a hidden text message in the section. Many coronavirus pages are protected, so I suggest you create an account if you'd like to continue editing in this area, and you'll become able to edit those pages within a few days. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 21:19, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Why won't you fix what you made wrong? Who should I ask to get your edit fixed? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 104.249.225.137 (talk) 23:35, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

It's fixed now. Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 01:25, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Image layout

@Ahecht: Your rearranging of the image layout looks good in some cases, but in some others it seems to have introduced MOS:SANDWICH issues. Could we address those?

I've seen people remove images moved to the left on this page in the past, so to anyone considering that, please don't; just move it back to the right if you have an issue. Readers always want/value more images than editors think we need, and the ones on this page have all been vetted and are valuable. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 18:39, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

@Sdkb: The only other options I see to avoid MOS:SANDWICH are either removing images, adding {{-}} (which adds whitespace), or drastically reducing image and caption size. As it was, images rarely lined up with their accompanying text on 1080p and wider screens. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 18:42, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

@Ahecht: The lining up wasn't too bad previously — the images were normally still in the same section, even if not exactly next to their accompanying text. But since I've been spending a lot of time on the images in this article, perhaps I just need to get used to the change and will come to like it. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 18:58, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

Gallery images

In my opinion they should be at a size so they can mostly be made out... Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:51, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

For context, I tried to make the galleries of graphs for the cases/deaths section smaller so they'd fit onto two lines/one line respectively, and Doc James reverted me. @Doc James: I agree, although for some of them that's a lost cause. The current size is, for me, leading to there being two images per line, with a big white space on the right side, which doesn't look great. Pinging BrandonXLF and anyone else good with HTML layout code: is there a creative/better solution here that might resize the images based on the size of one's screen or something like that? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 18:48, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

User:Sdkb When you say "fit onto two lines/one line respectively" you mean fit onto two lies / one line for who? They fit onto 4 lines and 2 lines for me right now and I think that looks really good as I can make out much of them. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 23:20, 24 April 2020 (UTC)

@Sdkb: You could resize the iamges using TemplateStyles, but those shouldn't be used in the mainspace since every editor doesn't know how to edit them and it can create confusion etc. I think the gallery should be centered using mode="packed" as it would split the white space between the left and right, making it less noticible and making the gallery look nice IMO.– BrandonXLF (talk) 04:45, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

 Done. Good suggestion! It seems someone made the second gallery smaller again, so it's now 3 on one row and 1 on the next. I'll make it 2x2 again as Doc James had it. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 04:58, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Semi-Log Graphs

I can imagine that the article's information might be intended not to be looked at cursorily, however, whenever I look at the page I find myself thinking twice about the graphs which appear to show curves flattening but do so only because of the logarithmic scale.

From my understanding of curve flattening, it means for graphs to begin to have smaller gradient on standard, linear axes.

The only reason I can see to use a log scale for an educational article aimed at the general public is to fit the lines on the graph more easily. I think this is not outweighed by the possible confusion from the graph's cursorily appearing to show the curves flattening.

I, of course, might be wrong in my assumptions about the article's target demographic, what "curve flattening" means, how the graphs appear to a cursory reader, or anything else!

68.96.208.77 (talk) 20:28, 24 April 2020 (UTC) Constructive Feedback

Semilog graphs only flatten when the underlying exponential graphs also peak. But they also show important information about the rate of change that linear graphs do not. In particular they can show how long it will be before the values come down to manageable levels. Look at the Chinese graph for an example of this.

It's true that people are less used to reading them, but there is a mix of linear and semi-log graphs that should help with this. We need to cater for all types of reader. Chris55 (talk) 08:27, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

you are perfectly right to use the term "semilog" here - but it's an example of being more exact than required. The purpose of a (semi-)log chart is to have an exponential increase to be shown with a straight trend line. However, since measurements where successful to stop an exponential increase and make it less than linear again, the log scale flattens the latest numbers and does not provide any new information any more. The (semi-) log scale is still helpful for explaining the unflattened and exponential growth in some countries. --Traut (talk) 10:22, 25 April 2020 (UTC)