This is an archive of past discussions about COVID-19 pandemic in Spain. Do not edit the contents of this page. If you wish to start a new discussion or revive an old one, please do so on the current talk page.
In the article's paragraph about March 6, on the Canary Islands it is said: "In Canary Islands a new case is reported, male in San Cristobal de la Laguna, Gran Canaria,[105] Another three italian female tourist and another person in Tenerife tested positive, raising the total to 13 active cases and 3 recoverys, 9 of them in Tenerife and 4 in Gran Canaria.[106][107]"
But San Cristobal de la Laguna is not on Gran Canaria but on Tenerife.
Please change "Gran Canaria to Tenerife.
(On Gran Canaria there is a place named San Cristobal, but without La Laguna. The local authorities' bulletins also mentions that the case is on Tenerife.) Detlefx (talk) 17:36, 7 March 2020 (UTC)
ISCIII.es (summarized charts of cases and deaths based on a range of variables)
Notes:
^Until 2020-04-15, active cases include PCR-confirmed cases for all regions, and serological tests for some regions. Starting on 2020-04-15, a change of methodology led to a split in both figures for some regions. By 2020-04-18 most regions had switched to the new methodology except for Galicia, which made the switch on 2020-04-28; from that date onwards, active cases refer to PCR-confirmed cases. Negative numbers denote corrections due to cases that were subsequently declared negative.
^Figures for recoveries have not been updated since 2020-05-17.
^Figures for 2020-05-20 do not include data from Catalonia over issues on their validation.
^Figures for 2020-05-21 include corrections from several autonomous communities after a process of data debugging and updating of their historical series.
^From 2020-05-23, data is consolidated at 14:00/15:00 rather than at 0:00. This means the register for 2020-05-22 is included within the data of 2020-05-23.
^Figures for 2020-05-24 to 2020-06-17 include corrections in the validation of past data from several autonomous communities as a result of the transition to a new surveillance methodology implemented from 2020-05-11.
^From 2020-07-06, data for weekends is communicated on the next Monday, unless the country's epidemiological situation requires for this communication to be advanced.
^From 2021-01-04 until 2021-08-26, data has been submitted in bulk from cnecovid.isciii.es/covid19/#documentación-y-datos due to a lack of daily updates
Data and maps about deaths per (million?) inhabitants
It would be good to show this data. By the end is the most important to see the impact.
Also it would be good to use the same ranges in the regional and province maps of cases per million inhabitants. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.151.33.230 (talk) 14:25, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
On 2 March two cases were confirmed in Portugal, both in the city of Porto. One was a doctor that had returned from holiday in northern Italy and the other a worker from Spain.[1][2][3]
Not only Portugal: The first case in Equatorial Guinea was announced on 14 March, a 42 year old woman who returned to Equatorial Guinea from Madrid.[4]
Can I ask editors to note that "positivo en coronavirus" translates to English as "(tested) positive for coronavirus." Prepositions are used differently in English and Spanish. It will save other editors having to constantly copyedit this. @JulenBengoitia @Alsoriano97 Thanks a lot! Valenciano (talk) 12:03, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
I’ve seen various different numbers being used, even across this one page.
Can we make sure we at least reference to source when we update them? Otherwise the page is giving conflicting information (supposedly because it used data from different times that day) and it’s hard to make sense of it.
The central government’s numbers come out at 11:30. If there are other sources they should be listed. Kroepke (talk) 19:44, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
Region statistics update
I have updated the region summary table with latest figures from RTVE. I also removed columns for recoveries and active cases. We have no reliable and up-to-date sources for this. If we kept them, we would have incorrect/misleading figures for most regions and obsolete figures for others. It's a pity we don't have better sources, but we cannot just make things up. --MarioGom (talk) 16:01, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
"Origin: Germany"
The top-right-corner box says "Origin: Germany". That gives the misleading impression as if the virus had been introduced to Spain from a single country, whereas the day-by-day history makes it clear that there have been several first cases in Spain independent from each other (without direct contact) and originating from various sources (Spanish people having travelled to Italy, British tourists staying in Spain etc.). I'd recommend deleting or correcting it. --2001:A61:35B5:9801:896A:B179:E35F:7C53 (talk) 12:18, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
I absolutely disagree with this edit because a graph has to show all the cases and deaths, not only the last ones. Therefore, I propose to revert that change and maintain the style and data of the graph we had before. Thanks --Mcsmp (talk) 20:25, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
I have removed the disputed charts. They are redundant and low resolution. It is also quite impractical to keep all charts up-to-date and referenced properly. --MarioGom (talk) 11:39, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
I agree with that the graphs were bad quality and should be updated (See other section below), but I strongly disagree with "referenced properly" on the graph at the top of the page. Quite the contrary, it's very difficult to see which numbers are from where. I think it's worth having the RTVE/worldometer data at the top as that is updated more frequently, but I also think it's worth listing the official numbers including some graphs. The statistics section repeated itself quite a bit, so I want to consolidate it. Kroepke (talk) 12:40, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
Mistake in the map for the provinces of Catalonia
Today on march 19th 2020, the map of provinces of Catalonia is still clearly wrong. The four provinces are coloured as if they were more that 1000 cases on each province. This is false. The error might be due to political interests in order to hide the enormous numbers in Madrid. — Preceding unsigned comment added by EduardVivesSE (talk • contribs) 10:13, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
The map is wrongly colored for the provinces of Catalonia. no-one of the 4 them reach 500 cases still.
Another mistake in the total sum of the table for Madrid, that is over 3000 cases. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.151.33.161 (talk) 07:07, 15 March 2020 (UTC)
To keep the mistake with figures that would imply 2000+ cases in Catalonia only means this map is anti-Catalan propaganda. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.151.33.52 (talk) 05:00, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
First of all: YES there is an updated map with cases at the province level (https://www.rtve.es/noticias/20200319/mapa-del-coronavirus-espana/2004681.shtml). There are only two autonomous communities (Catalonia and the Balearic Islands) whose governments do NOT facilitate distribution by province. In any case, it is for this reason that the map specified that the color in the case of Catalonia indicated that it was the data at the level of the Autonomous Community and not the provinces. I believe that conspiracy theories on political ideologies should be left out on these issues, and about those who put them out... A map at the level of Autonomous Communities is scarce given the few territorial divisions that exist in Spain, unlike France or Germany, and therefore these data do not give an idea of the real scope of the pandemic, something that at the level of provinces can be seen. That is the reason why all of Catalonia appears in the same color, and not another. I have been thinking for days about how to solve it better, but since from here I am accused - falsely - of having a certain political tendency, I will leave the experts to go ahead with the map. --JulenBengoitia (talk) 16:43, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
In the case of the Balearic Islands, the autonomous community only contains one province, so we do have per-province data; It's the same as at the regional level. Pablodiazgutierrez (talk) 14:05, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
The caption of the map in the infobox is "Map of provinces with confirmed coronavirus cases (as of 18 March)". So, is a map of provinces, but the data of the 4 provinces of Catalonia is not the data of the provinces themselves, it is the data of the whole region of Catalonia. Therefore, it has to be changed, I propose use the CCAA instead of the provinces. --Mcsmp (talk) 21:42, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
As I said in the thread below, we really need to use a CCAA map. We do not have reliable sources at province level. --MarioGom (talk) 13:45, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
Today the map has not been updated, Castilla y León, Castilla La Mancha and Comunidad Valenciana are now over 1000, Galicia and Navarra are over 500, and Cantabria is over 100. Almost a half of the map is outdated. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.151.33.244 (talk) 20:01, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
Sex table
Good morning everyone,
I suggest to include the "sex" figures in the classification of the table of Statistics.
The way I see it, those graphs should come out of the same data as the statistics table, right? If so, I can take a look at that and use a nicer format for them instead of the images they are now. -- Kroepke (talk) 20:19, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
I agree with you and will thank you if you correct the data. The current format of the graphics is more than ok for me, but I'm looking forward to seeing that nicer format. @Kroepke: --Mcsmp (talk) 21:56, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
Once I have a bit of free time, tonight, hopefully, I will look at all the data from the official updates and repair both the table as well as look at getting the graphs back in shape. I think this section should mostly reflect the official data where available. Other sections can use more frequently updated sources, but I believe it's worth reflecting the official numbers somewhere, too. Kroepke (talk) 12:32, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
I have already downloaded all the "Actualizaciones" published by the Ministerio de Sanidad. Have initially updated from the 5th of March onwards. @Kroepke:Bendiwiof (talk) 12:44, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
I was going to fix a mistake I did with the calculation of Active Cases (I had not substracted the dead) and I have seen that @Impru20 has reverted my changes stating "Health Ministry official reports are not accurate for each day, since in most cases they relate to a specific time of the PREVIOUS day. Data reported here is also official, but updated". @Impru20, what official source more accurate and verifiable are being used then? I cannot see these numbers on the mentioned sources. The fact that they are off by one day can be fixed easily. One of the good points of these reports is that they are available to download so are easily verifiable. @Kroepke:Bendiwiof (talk) 14:30, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
RTVE (Spain's public broadcaster) keeps updating the numbers at every hour in this source, with data from the Health Ministry itself. The issue is that the data you added to the chart corresponds to the ministry's daily report, published only once a day, and which does not correspond to that day's total figures because it is published throughout the morning (in fact, for some days the figures correspond to the previous day, but this is not always the case, so you can't do a valid comparison between them). It is also not the only figures released by the Ministry, just the ones given at the midday press conference. Then Worldometer keeps track of the figures reported by RTVE (which comes in handily because RTVE only updates it without preserving old data). The sources are very visible in the chart so I wonder how is it that you say that you can't find them. Impru20talk14:36, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
I think Ministry of Health reports should be used for past days. It represents latest consolidated data for previous day at 21:00. RTVE can be used for the very latest data for present day in the lede and infobox. --MarioGom (talk) 14:44, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
Not always, some reports collected data from the same day's early morning as well. Further, initial reports from the Ministry of Health are incomplete, so you may end up not having any data for several days in February and early March. In fact, this was exactly what was done until a couple days ago: a chart made of a mixture of various and different sources, just being a bunch of WP:SYNTH. We must be consistent on the data that is given or this will be an absolute mess, and currently we can gather the data from a single source (Worldometer) collecting the data from RTVE. Impru20talk14:46, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
First, @Impru20 sorry about the confusion with the sources and my respect for your work on Wikipedia. I saw the sources, but not where the numbers came from. It has taken me some time to see exactly what was being extracted from wordometers.info. I fully agree that the data has to be consistent, and now I understand that it is. What misdirected me was the sources stating "From 2020-03-06: Ministerio de SanidadActualización Nº 48, 2020-03-18". That source is not being used and as a consequence, I got the impression that the data was a mess. My bad. I would take out the reference to the Ministry if it is not being used. But then, I agree with @MarioGom in the fact that for historical data it would be better to use the Ministry data. Even if its not strictly given every 24 hours, it is an official source and more verifiable. HTH. @Kroepke:Bendiwiof (talk) 15:41, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
But again, the Ministry data is missing for several days from 6 March, because it was not until later than it was turned into a daily report. And if we are going to resort to mixing up data from different sources to make up for the ministry's gaps, we should just use a source that keeps track of all data for consistency. Also, the data given by RTVE is not less official; as said, it is also Ministry data, the only difference being that it is simpler (i.e. not disclosed by autonomous community and such) and not contained in an official report. But one that is being updated at a constant rate. Impru20talk16:25, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
@ChaTo, I have undone your changes on the medical cases chart. Please discuss here if you want to change the sources of the data. Also, if we want to use data from the Ministry, it is better to link to the place were the data is published instead of an intermediate github account. @Impru20:Bendiwiof (talk) 12:41, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
This has been already explained previously in this discussion: the "official daily reports" are by themselves inconsistent because these do not report the full figures of the day (Catalonia and some other areas update their daily count after 21:00) and misses numbers for some days. The alternative for it was suggested to use numbers from different sources to account for the absence of data from the Ministry, a combination of data from different sources which is outrightly synthesis. Figures currently used are those reported at the end of each day, coming from reliable sources as noted in Wikipedia:WikiProject COVID-19/Case Count Task Force (mainly RTVE). These are perfectly consistent and comparable with each other because are each day's latest results. Cheers. Impru20talk13:31, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
@Impru20 if you are synthesizing from different sources, that synthesis should be verifiable. So, everyone should be able to check if, e.g., the number of cases for March Xth is correct or there was some mistake when transcribing it. Do you agree? If that is the case, we need somewhere a table with the synthesized data, in which each row references the appropriate sources from which a figure was synthesized. Do you agree with that? If yes, where can we find such table? -- ChaTo (talk) 13:50, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
Yes, you also have Worldometer giving the daily numbers worldwide (with the sources from which these are extracted), and for the case of Spain it uses the data given by RTVE, Spain's official broadcaster. The currently used numbers have not been extracted from "different sources": they are all extracted from RTVE, being kept updated daily. This has been already stated in this very same discussion previously and we do not need to keep going around in circles on it, but using the Ministry's "official daily reports" and using other sources to make up for the missing data (which was what was being done earlier on) is pure synthesis, and you would agree with me that such a situation is entirely undesirable and that we can't use incomplete data. Impru20talk14:01, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
If that is the case (RTVE as source, with updates throughout the day) then the last percentage shown in the chart is misleading. It may seem, e.g., in the morning, that the number of new cases is de-accelerating, while indeed, it is just because we are comparing different time periods (between day-1 and day-2 it is 24 hours, but between day and day-1 is less. Shouldn't we perhaps omit that last percentage, indicating that it cannot be computed until the end of the day (e.g., in a comment)? -- ChaTo (talk) 14:46, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
The last percentage corresponds to the last data available. We keep updating it every time it gets updated in the source. It will be fully accurate by the end of the day, but I understand that we can't just anticipate as of yet unreleased data. I thought there was a footnote indicating this situation, but it was removed? Impru20talk14:50, 27 March 2020 (UTC)
Map of Spain
Hello, I would suggest to include a map of the provinces and CCAA of Spain that show the deaths per million of inhabitants.
Can I please ask why Mg27127 has unilaterally decided that figures should not be sourced, by keeping adding data without reporting the source from where they are extracted or keeping removing actual sources? WP:VERIFY must still apply. Thanks. Impru20talk13:02, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
Worldometers is not an accurate source, I keep putting the RTVE source in and it is not being kept and is changed almost daily to Worldometers, the main page says use RTVE.Mg27127 (talk) 13:15, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
Worldometers is just reporting on the data reported by RTVE, but keeps it complete by preserving data for previous days rather than merely replacing previous reports with new ones. You will notice that it keeps reporting the exact same figures than RTVE but with a slight delay. Can you explain why it is not accurate? You are not sourcing any edits and I've had to find the sources myself because the whole chart was a mess full of unsourced/invented/incomplete/wrong figures up until yesterday. Impru20talk13:17, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
Worldometers had some glitch/problem today (March 30th)? At the bottom of the page, "Latest Updates", it is reporting 5085 new cases with source ISCIII while the figure in ISCIII at that time was 6398, which is the actual figure in report 60 of March 30th. On previous days it never under-reported figures, so this is strange. -- ChaTo (talk) 14:51, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
+5,085 is the comparison with the latest figure from the previous day at this hour. This is correct with the RTVE and the published numbers, though I don't know why it only links to the ISCIII source which basically shows the Ministry's daily report figures. For other days, Worldometer uses the RTVE source at the very least, and in a number of cases several sources; possibly they will update it later. Impru20talk15:14, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
Disputed claim in introductory section: 350,000 tests?
The claim "and more than 350,000 tests for COVID-19 have been conducted" in the introductory section, backed by reference 9, is highly contested and has very low credibility:
It would be interesting and informative to understand why/how Spain has become 4th country in the international table for tested cases.
Is this due to population/cultural behaviour, international travel/influx or is there a climatic factor?
Noting that Madrid is has the highest number of cases but how do these numbers compare in terms of percentage of population?
If Madrid is the hotbed then like London and Paris then is population density and public transport key factors in the contagion?
Would it be useful incorporating a section specific to this perspective?
I am looking into the angle and welcome collaboration. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Paul Millsom (talk • contribs) 07:58, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
Paul Millsom: To the best of my knowledge, there are still no reliable sources necessary to discuss that in a Wikipedia article. There are a few reasons being discussed, such as the lack of measures during +1 month of epidemic (e.g. lack of extensive case tracing in early stages, lack of restrictive measures later stages), but it's quite early to have some serious comparative study to say anything conclusive. --MarioGom (talk) 09:51, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
If the full picture is not available yet, there are some known facts:
for locations, 2757 out of 5690 fatalities (48%) are in Madrid region (#Statistics) and 1070 out of 5690 (19%) in Cataunya while few part of Spaniards leave in Madrid and Catalunya.
for dates, it appears the big steps where on 2020-02-29/03-01 and 2020-03-07/08 when occurred various events such as:
on 28 February, the Swiss government banned all public and private gatherings of more than 1000 people until 15 March, including cancellation of the Geneva International Motor Show
Number of people hospitalized or an in an Intensive Care Unit (ICU)
Please note that the data from the Ministry of Health (e.g., Update 62 of 2020-04-01) does not say how many people are currently hospitalized, but how many people have required hospitalization. The same happens with the number of people in an Intensive Care Unit, which is the number of people who have required to be in an ICU, which are also counted in the number of hospitalized. So, for instance it would not be correct to say that there are 5,872 people in an ICU as of 2020-03-31 21:00 using official data as a source, as some of those people may have died or recovered, as the report itself notes. -- ChaTo (talk) 11:20, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
Not sure. It's true that the timeline is proseline. However, I would suggest to first separate whatever can be separated by autonomous community into subsections as in the 2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_Germany (there, the timeline is per state). That would make this timeline more useful, I think. Then, the events that don't refer to a specific autonomous community could be summarized and placed above. -- ChaTo (talk) 14:11, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
I am thinking in separating the timeline per autonomous community as in the German article, with one subsection per community, keeping events related to the entire country at the top. I would also add links to specific articles for the communities that already have them (Madrid, Asturias, Ceuta, Melilla, Canary Islands). Opinions? -- ChaTo (talk) 11:41, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
I disagree that this would fix the problem. A lot of the "events" are things like "VIP X announced that they caught it", which would be better to handle on a dedicated timeline article then try to keep it on this page. I don't object to sourced summaries on progress in the autonomous communities, but it has to be prose rather than timeline style. buidhe20:10, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
Let's find a compromise? Can you suggest specifically how to improve the Timeline section without moving it to a separate article? -- ChaTo (talk) 22:52, 4 April 2020 (UTC)
All I'm saying is that splitting to a separate article is the recommended action by MOS (MOS:LONGSEQ) when a list section overwhelms a prose article, while MOS:LISTBASICS notes that we "Prefer prose where a passage is understood easily as regular text." We also have to consider lasting significance and due weight when writing articles. So, the long February section (when the outbreak wasn't having much effect yet) will likely have to be trimmed, and we'll get rid of the blow-by-blow such as, "In Castile and León a new case in Burgos, a young woman, raise the total positives to 14." In 20 years, will it seem significant which day Ana Pastor was diagnosed with the illness? Such info may be appropriate for a dedicated timeline, however. That's why I recommend a split, with the remaining timeline prosified and changed to "History" or similar. buidhe00:03, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
I see that the article's timeline is being prosified, that's great; I would suggest section names that are not months but periods, such as "Initial cases", "First lockdown (13 Mar - 29 Mar)", "Non-essential activity shutdown (30 Mar-9 April)" or similar. I agree with you that the following would be more valuable in a separate "Timeline of cases of the 2020 coronavirus pandemic in Spain" or similar article: (1) most updates on the number of cases in Spain or in a community by a certain date, with the exception of the initial few cases, and (2) most updates indicating that a VIP has caught it. I think the rest of the events in the timeline, including the imposition of lockdowns or quarantines, announcements of relief measures, release of new studies or analyses, cancellation of privately-organized and public events, and similar should be prosified and remain in the main article for now. -- ChaTo (talk) 09:07, 5 April 2020 (UTC)
Symptoms and other data about cases, hospitalized, in ICU, or dead
Currently we're including data from the daily reports from the Ministry of Health about cases (including hospitalized, ICU, dead) by age and gender, but there is more data available. There are periodic reports from Carlos III Health Institute based on an analysis of about half the cases (63K currently). They indicate which symptoms people show (Table 2: 77% fever, 76% coughing, 41% pneumonia, 36% chills, 26% sore throat, 30% diarrhoea, 10% vomiting, 6% acute respiratory distress syndrome, 9% other respiratory symptoms, 2% acute renal failure). They also indicate outcome for certain groups of people (e.g., 91% of those deceased had some pre-existing condition or a risk factor). Should we include this data somewhere? Where? -- ChaTo (talk) 14:28, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
ChaTo, General info about which people have which symptoms is probably a better fit for coronavirus disease 2019, which already has some info on this. Demographics of deceased vs. recovered may be reasonable to include here because, to a certain extent, it varies by country. I believe average age of the dead is higher in Spain than China or Italy, for instance. You could add a paragraph discussing this in the statistics section. buidhe14:35, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
The sentence "A state of alarm and national lockdown was imposed on 14 March." I would suggest changing this to "A state of alarm was imposed on 14 March." I believe that all we can say definitively is that a state of alarm was imposed. National lockdown is not well defined in this article and probably most commonly is assumed to mean business shutdown and non-essential workers staying at home, which did in fact happen on March 29. Also, the news article referenced just mentions the "state of alarm," and as far as I can see, did not mention a "national lockdown," unless I'm missing something in the Spanish article. Just trying to make this article clearer. If no objections, I can make this change tomorrow.--Beezer137 (talk) 19:21, 6 April 2020 (UTC)
Agree that the lockdown is when non-essential workers must stay at home (from 29 March), the 14 March can be considered a partial lockdown. -- ChaTo (talk) 08:01, 7 April 2020 (UTC)
I don't think lockdown necessarily means that non-essential workers stay at home. There are many types and levels of lockdown. For example, lockdown in some regions outside Spain was initially centered around prohibiting travel between regions, or leaving a specific region, etc. In any case, the article should be clear about what kind of measure was taken at each point in time. --MarioGom (talk) 18:52, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
Historical present
Just FYI to contributors to this article, historical present is much more used in Spanish than English. To achieve encyclopedic tone in English, all past events should be narrated in past tense. See also MOS:TENSE. buidhe16:23, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
I think the case of Ortega Smith is significative because it caused the closure of several political bodies. There are other politicians and public figures mentioned (including Baltazar Garzón, for instance). Regarding the 8-M women's March, please see the discussion above. -- ChaTo (talk) 11:14, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
Data quality issues and additional statistics
I think it's good that the Statistics section begins with a discussion on data quality, to warn the reader about how to interpret the data. Then, if there are additional statistics, they can go in the next subsections: by autonomous community, day, age, gender, pre-existing conditions, or something else. If you have additional statistics please add them to a subsection (or to the main article if they are simple enough and illustrate a point). If you have additional data quality issues to reference, please add them to the beginning of the Statistics section. -- ChaTo (talk) 11:13, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
I think tables could use some footnotes. See {{2019–20 coronavirus pandemic data}} for some examples. Note that the data quality issues are an almost universal problem. The opening sentence Ministry of Health statistics are inaccurate and incomplete. is not really supported by the cited source. I think it is partially WP:SYNTH and could be more accurate, as well as using in-text attribution. --MarioGom (talk) 14:03, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
MarioGom: Will check the footnotes you suggest, thanks! I agree that data quality issues are universal, and that the opening sentence of the data quality subsection makes it sound as it is a problem exclusively of Spain, which is not, or that data in Spain is particularly very bad compared to that of other countries, which I don't think is the case. That paragraph relies too much on this news article, which is cited in three sentences of the same paragraph, which I don't think is a good idea. I tried to improve this paragraph some time ago but got my edit reverted so I didn't try again. Can you give it a try? -- ChaTo (talk) 17:26, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
There's no need to add redundant references that don't have new information. The more references are added to the article slows it down significantly for readers with slower connections. If the other article had new information or a different perspective, however, then it would be adding value and worth adding. buidhe12:17, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
Buidhe: Statements that can be contentious benefit from references to multiple independent reliable sources, even if they are redundant. References should not be a problem in this article in terms of byte size. When the article grows too big, then we should consider further summarizing of some sections were split to other articles already or applying further splits. --MarioGom (talk) 09:04, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
Well, references could be removed in some sections like "Travel restrictions", where they are completely exaggerated and redundant. But we don't need to trim elsewhere so strictly, IMHO. --MarioGom (talk) 09:08, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
I agree with MarioGom on this, I don't think the argument on reducing the number of references to decrease page loading time applies to the section we're discussing. -- ChaTo (talk) 10:36, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
Duplicate source was added to support the assertion that, "Deaths by coronavirus are also underestimated because they only consider confirmed cases, and many people die at home or in nursing homes without being tested." Since there aren't any RS that contradict this, and many that could be cited to support it, I don't think it's an especially controversial statement. buidhe16:47, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
It's not because of the statement being controversial, it is because there are three references to the same article very close to each other, it would be better to have diverse references. -- ChaTo (talk) 10:15, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
Large number of deaths not included in the official data to hide the Spanish lead worldwide in deaths and to manipulate the data for the regional distribution hiding the real data of some regions like Madrid
The "Travel restrictions" section has a list of countries or territories have imposed some kind of travel restrictions on Spanish citizens. However, most countries in this list have restrictions on travel from any origin and the cited source does not even mention Spain. At this point, this is almost every country. As it currently stands, the section is not very informative. I would suggest to rewrite it as follows:
Initial sentence/paragraph with a summary of countries that applied early travel restrictions explicitly to Spanish citizens.
Next sentence/paragraph explained that "as of X date" most countries apply travel restrictions to citizens from most countries. Possibly listing exceptions.
Then a timeline of countries that applied travel restrictions explicitly to Spanish citizens or travelers from Spain, next to the date when the restriction came in to force.
I think that would be an improvement, but I would also consider due weight and try to use secondary sources when possible. buidhe18:27, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
"Morir de" is correctly translated as "to die of" not "to die from". I have fixed a few instances of this in the article. buidhe17:16, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
Impact on children
Perhaps there could be an "Impact on children (or similar)" subsection of Impact. There is some text On 28 March, children and young people who obeyed social distancing by staying at home were applauded by Spanish residents for doing their part to combat the epidemic at the beginning of the Impact section that probably belongs elsewhere, perhaps together with something on the effects of confinement on children and on the recent measures to allow them to go on accompanied walks. -- ChaTo (talk) 20:53, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
The cases in Spain were incorrectly reported on the days listed above. Reuters reported (citing the Spanish Ministry of Health) that cases topped out at 188,068 on Friday. This means that today there was an increase of approximately 4,499 cases today. Check the page for yourself, but based on tracking the curve, COVID-19 spread in Spain, and other factors that play into the spread of the disease, it is nearly impossible for that drop to occur in such a short amount of time. I would like to edit the chart, hence why I am posting this on the discussion. Do I have permission to edit the data?
Hi, the charts are based on these reports published daily by the Ministry of Health. If you find a mismatch between the chart and the figures on one of those daily reports, please correct it. Note that on 17 April the Ministry of Health announced they will have to retrospectively revise the series, when they publish the revised series, we can bring that in. -- ChaTo (talk) 10:12, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
The numbers from 2020-04-17 until 2020-04-24 are completely messed up. It is not explainable by the fact, that within that time antibody tests where also counted, while some days later only the PCR tests are confirmed only. The official announcements are just crazy. But there's a second line of informations from https://covid19.isciii.es/resources/serie_historica_acumulados.csv. This sums up pretty well, but dropped 2020-04-18 from 190 008 to 188 578.
It started with minor differences on 2020-04-12, had 7 366 less cases on 2020-04-18, almost the same on 2020-04-19 and 2020-04-20, but 8 634 more on 2020-04-21. Current difference is still above 1 000 cases. It's FUBAR... --Traut (talk) 09:07, 30 April 2020 (UTC)
Datadista posted on 1 May a corrected time series. It transcribes data that was handed to them by the Ministry of Health. I haven't updated the tables or charts yet with the corrected time series. Will do that if I can find the time to do so, because it has to be done consistently (i.e., not correcting just the parts of the series that to the naked eye look anomalous, but correcting the entire series). -- ChaTo (talk) 07:45, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
Madrid and 8 march. A critical link widely understimated.
Strangely enough, nobody really noticed, or wanted to notice, how fondamental was the feminist manifestation on 8th march 2008.
One protester held a sign that read: "Machism kills more than coronavirus."
Indeed, the number of cases, only 200 about in 8 march in Madrid, jumped from 202 cases and 8 deaths, to about 5,600 cases and 400+ dead only ten days later. This mean 28x and 50x.
In the whole Spain, the number jumped from 674 and 17 death to 14,000 and 638 death just ten day later. This means 21x and 35x so cleary in Madrid there was a major incidence: on 8th march Madrid had only 30% cases, 47% dead; on 18th, Madrid had 40% cases and 60% of the overall spanish toll. This numbers (official) don't lie. Madrid became the hub for COVID and happened swiftly after 8th march manifestation.
This fact is exacerbated as Covid was present since one month earlier, and failed to spread noticeably, until 8-15 march.
Also a spanish minister was involved in the manifestation and became infected as well.
Remember, only the next day any public manifestation was forbidden, on 9 March, the Government of the Community of Madrid approved extraordinary measures, including the cancellation (to be enforced from 11 March onwards) of all in-person classes in the Autonomous community of Madrid at all educational levels; so why the hell on 8th march more than 120,000 still roamed in Madrid streets? It's evidently that this (highly politicized) event, did a remarkable 'effort' for virus spreading. With hindsight(?) this event should taken in much more account than it has in the article. Therefore i would recomend that this event should have greater space than it did in the article. Cheers
62.11.3.98 (talk) 18:38, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
The link you provided does not claim any particular cause-effect connection between these marches and the increase in the transmission. The same weekend there were a lot of mass gatherings in Spain (marches, congresses, football matches). No doubt mass gatherings fuel transmission, but a specific impact of this one particular march is unknown. --MarioGom (talk) 18:47, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
Agree I think it's OK that the women's march is mentioned in the article as one of the last events before Spanish and autonomous governments started to impose some measures, but so far I haven't seen research on this, just speculation (along political lines, sadly) -- ChaTo (talk) 10:56, 10 April 2020 (UTC)
New info on this topic on 20 April: based on a forensic report, a judge ruled out a possible causal link between authorizing the 8M march and an increase in coronavirus cases.[1] -- ChaTo (talk) 14:01, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
The references to 8M should be removed, or be posted on all countries specific articles. There is not a single link between the two events on the rest of the country specific articles while it was a worldwide event.[2] -- (UNSIGNED)
I disagree with the parent unsigned comment. It was a one of the last massive events before cancellations and closures started to be mandated. -- ChaTo (talk) 14:18, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
If someone has time to do it, I think it would be useful to include in the de-escalation section a table with one row per autonomous community, and two columns: one for provinces/sanitary regions on phase 0, and one for those on phase 1. -- ChaTo (talk) 12:30, 11 May 2020 (UTC)
I have my doubts if positive antibody tests really should be listed as cases, especially as active cases, as they just start to get positive after a week after symptoms started. So I guess that many, if not most of the positive antibody tests are recovered or even false positives if the tests reacted to another coronavirus. Most countries don't include these tests in their statistics.
I'm not sure though how the situation in Spain is exactly though. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Mimikry11 (talk • contribs) 10:42, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
In general positive PCR tests are people who have symptomps, while positive antibody tests include people who have recently the disease, are asymptomatic, or have already recovered. For the global figure of cases given at press conferences and in the reports, as far as I know the Ministry of Health in the past has counted both as confirmed cases, and continues doing so. However, for new daily cases, and to compute the daily growth in cases, the Ministry counts only positive PCR tests, for the reasons you mention. In the charts, I'm now separating both for the days for which there is data. In the tables, I added a note. -- ChaTo (talk) 16:19, 24 April 2020 (UTC)
There was a change, it seems, and from 26 April (Update 87) the official report does not include the number of cases confirmed by antibody tests. I'll update charts to be based on PCR tests only. -- ChaTo (talk) 09:34, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
Is it true 33% of Spaniards (15 million, this includes infected case statistics from Catalonia) and 40% of Madrid itself could been exposed to SARS-CoV-2? That's the world's highest concentration of the pandemic by percentage, but by population, it would be New York State when they estimated 2.7 million out of 22 million people would been exposed. Spain has 200-220,000 cases while NY state has 300-320,000 cases as of May 1st. Italy is said to be 25% exposed out of 60-62 million people, primarily in the northern half of the country centered in Bergamo province in Lombardy. It's amazing Western Europe and the Northeastern USA (the continent and country have over a million cases each) was harder hit by Covid-19 than it's place of origin Wuhan, Hubei, China. 2605:E000:100D:C571:7D82:A683:E434:DB3D (talk) 00:40, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
ChaTo: Actually asymptomatic patients with positive antibody tests are not included in official data. The Instituto de Salud Carlos III (see #Latest statistics) adds this note:
NOTA 3:Se excluyen de la serie las notificaciones de personas con anticuerpos positivos sin síntomas en el momento de realización de la prueba en los que no se puede establecer un momento de contagio ni si han padecido o no la enfermedad.
Also note that in previous dates, symptomatic patients without PCR tests were included in totals. I'll expand on the breakdown in the thread below. --MarioGom (talk) 17:18, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
The latest serological antibody tests confirm the possible total percentage of Spaniards, like other European countries, was 5%. It would be also true for China and the USA. We're having a clearer and more accurate picture of how much the pandemic spread before the lockdown. 2605:E000:100D:C571:6DCE:ABEA:BC50:DF93 (talk) 21:16, 18 May 2020 (UTC)
Update
Dear all,
Please update this article, you’ve forgotten, haven’t you? I would appreciate it if you could correct this issue, thank you, Pablothepenguin (talk) 20:18, 20 May 2020 (UTC)
Daily plots becoming too wide
The per-day new cases, new recoveries, and new deaths is becoming too wide. Now it has a scrollbar, which I don't think is ideal. Any suggestions on what to do? (a) keep the scrollbar, (b) keep the latest say 30 days only, (c) transform into a linespoint plot instead of bars to use less space, (d) plot weekly increases instead of daily ones, (e) other? -- ChaTo (talk) 12:33, 19 May 2020 (UTC)
From a personal point of view I find that the bar chart is more readable than the charts on the Italian Covid page for example. You get a fuller picture here. Maybe we could insert a slider? WizzardRO18:55, 22 May 2020 (UTC)
"Update" message
Hi, there is a Template:Update message on top of the page that does not refer to this talk page, nor mentions which part of the article needs to be updated. Please can someone move it to the section that needs to be updated or indicate in this talk page what needs to be done? Otherwise the message is useless. Thank you. -- ChaTo (talk) 13:06, 25 May 2020 (UTC)
Statistics section
What the heck is going on here? We now see entries for decreased cumulative death toll beginning on May 24 and also on May 25th. I'm referring to the horizontal bar chart towards the top of the page that also lists cumulative cases and deaths. Please fix or at least provide an explannation, whoever is maintaining that chart. Skeptical Realist (talk) 16:46, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
I'm maintaining the "Statistics" section consistent with the daily consolidated data of Spain medical cases, as explained in the sources of that table and at the beginning of the "Charts" section. These are consistent: the table and the charts show the same data for each of the time series (cases, deaths, recoveries, per-community cases). This means that each number for each day has a reference to an official daily report by the Ministry of Health, which appears in the last column of the large table. I understand that it is OK that the timeline at the top of the page and text in the page can be updated throughout the day with new figures made available by RTVE and El País among others, which are available more often than daily, as requested by User:Bendiwiof and User:Impru20. I reverted edits by 2001:1c05:3208:3b00:f938:dea1:a2ac:fcde and 2001:1c05:3208:3b00:8c46:b5d2:ce6e:b409, probably the same user, who updated the last data point of one chart (new cases) without updating the charts on recoveries, deaths, per-community cases, or the table, and without explaining on the article any change on how these charts are done. -- ChaTo (talk) 14:18, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
ChaTo: I think we should use RTVE/El País for the lead paragraph and the infobox, but all tables and charts should rely on the "verified" daily statistics. Otherwise maintenance would be nightmare. --MarioGom (talk) 23:13, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
MarioGom: Agree. RTVE/El País data helps keep the lead paragraph and infobox updated throughout the day. Daily data from the Ministry of Health used in the tables and charts provides maintainability, but most importantly series that are consistent with each other (e.g., the total number of cases equals the sum of cases per autonomous community) and that are verifiable as each data point in a chart and each row in a table has a permanent reference. -- ChaTo (talk) 08:22, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
ChaTo: Agreed. Consistency between regions in time is also important. Before we used Ministry of Health reports, one of the tables had a daily update for Catalonia in the evening. That meant that the table represented data for day N at 21:00 for all Autonomous Communities, except for Catalonia which had data from day N+1. This disparity between regions can be misleading. --MarioGom (talk) 08:27, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
Request:
Please change the data for April 26: Include 17 854 individuals who tested positive on the antibody test. Reason: The status of the people who tested positive in the past (17 854 individuals) does not change, even if no new cases are added. The decision of the Ministry of Health to only publish data on the antibody test sporadically simply means that the numbers of people who tested positive with this method will only increase every couple of days. Thus, the increase changes from a gradual one to a stepwise one, but that is the only change. The people who tested positive in the past do not simply disappear on the days where no new cases are reported. Thank you!!!! Kathrin — Preceding unsigned comment added by Kathrin.komp (talk • contribs) 19:54, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
I would tend to agree that the figures are still useful even if they're not being reported each day. However, that only makes sense if they haven't discontinued reporting them at all. buidhe21:54, 26 April 2020 (UTC)
Latest statistics
What's the exact data source we are currently using for the cases and deaths charts? There was a recent revision of the whole series, fixing data errors and inconsistencies between regions and so on. I guess the revised series are those that are available for download at the ISC III website (bottom left corner). Should we align Template:COVID-19 pandemic data/Spain medical cases chart with this source? It should be the most accurate data for the historic series. Ping Impru20, ChaTo. --MarioGom (talk) 14:03, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
Current depiction is far simpler. Further, the split within the "active cases" field has only took place in practice since mid-April. Going backwards with a figure that wasn't used back then to split the columns into "active cases" and "PCR-confirmed cases", considering that all active cases at that time were PCR-confirmed, would be further confusing. Impru20talk20:15, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
Ugh... I have checked the whole numbers day-by-day and they have indeed changed the whole series. I think we can update it with the new numbers, and change the PCR/Serology up to 15 April (which is when the first figure for Serology-cases came out). Before that date, it is simpler to consider all active cases as just that, active. Impru20talk20:38, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
Impru20, before 15 April, some regions included serology-cases, some others did not (Madrid, Andalucia). Between 15 April and 18 April, it is even more confusing. After that, all regions are split in both categories. I think the chart should reflect the most accurate data that is available as of today, rather than reflecting what was reported the same day in the past. There is no problem with updating historic data with the most up-to-date criteria and fixed errors. Also, in the updated series, the error in Catalonia recoveries was fixed properly, so there is no decrease and the second footnote could be removed. --MarioGom (talk) 20:54, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
Yes, I was not discussing updating old figures (which can be easily done) but how to properly represent it, since until 15/18 April all active cases were shown as "active" rather than making any distinction between them. In the chart we should keep this until 18 April and we would save ourselves of the headache of differentiating between PCR and serology cases, since this distinction was not officially reported before then even if it was conducted in some communities (that was my point). Between 18 and 27 April it seems that all regions except for Galicia made the division correctly (there is a duplicate figure on 28 April though, where both the separated figures and the aggregated totals in Galicia are shown, thus showing an abnormal decrease in the total number of cases the next day). I'm unsure how to properly represent this. Maybe leaving Galicia in the "active" category until 27 April? Impru20talk21:06, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
Impru20, I see your point. I think that any representation that uses a single date as the cut-off between "cases" and "PCR/serology" is quite tricky. It involves either getting regions that decrease cases at some point, or we report PCR+serology for some days when it was never reported this way either... Anyway, doing active=PCR+serology until 17 April and keeping Galicia in the active category until 27 April sounds like a step in the right direction IMHO. Although I think it would be preferable to use the series for cases/PCR/antibodies with less postprocessing, closer to the underlying source. MarioGom (talk) 21:33, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
Edit: the total number of cases would never decrease if it includes serology. And it is not appreaciated in the national totals anyway. --MarioGom (talk) 21:37, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
Ok, I did the change and updated the whole table.
I think that any representation that uses a single date as the cut-off between "cases" and "PCR/serology" is quite tricky. Possibly, but it would be even more tricky and hard to understand for people to separate between "active cases" and "PCR-confirmed cases"~, considering "active cases" would encompass both of them (and also because it's tricky to calculate even from the source itself, as you'd have to do it for every region). It makes more sense to set a cut-off date from the time when data for serological tests is officially separated, since that adds sense to making such a distinction. Further, this needs to be easily compared to other countries, since it's a fairly common practical exercise, so the simpler we can show it the better. Impru20talk22:58, 7 May 2020 (UTC)
With respect to the large table in Template:COVID-19_pandemic_data/Spain_medical_cases ("Confirmed cases, recoveries, and deaths by day and autonomous communities"), I have not yet updated it with the updated time series from ISCIII, but I plan to do it if I find the time to do so; but feel free to do it if you can. In the meantime, I will keep adding rows with the official reports and adding footnotes as needed. -- ChaTo (talk) 08:13, 8 May 2020 (UTC)
I just pdated the underreported deaths figure, all media outlets are echoing the latest MoMo report (the Ministry of Health monitoring system on daily mortality) on how, appart from the official death figure (of around 28,000), there are 12,000 more deaths (unexplained yet) in Spain when compared to the same period of the previous 2019 year. The previous source stating 5,700 underreported deaths was a link to El País which is updated every day and is now reflecting the 12,000 figure reported by the MoMo -- Jasandia (talk) 12:13, 27 May 2020 (UTC)
Rounding of small percentage change in infobox
According to the infobox on the top of the page, there has been one reported death on 26 and 27 May each, yet there is an equality (=) sign shown for the percentage increase on the previous day, as that increase is rounded down to zero per cent. I find the equality sign a bit confusing, and wonder whether there is a general policy prescribing this or (if not) how this could be improved. --CRau080 (talk) 22:52, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
With the current template design, the daily percentage increase is calculated automatically by the template itself. I don't know why it chooses to use an equality sign rather than just saying "+0.0%" (in practice it is more like +0.003%. Almost zero, but not zero), but I'm unsure whether we can do something about it. Impru20talk23:03, 1 June 2020 (UTC)
Spanish Government Seroprevalence study
I am including the information released this very day on the Seroprevalence study which will cover around 90,000. I am going to include it in the introduction of the article, as well in a new section, but I do not know if this is the right thing to do. If you deem otherwise, please change how the info is arranged. -- (Jasandia) (talk) 17:30, 13 May 2020 (UTC)
Thanks, I think it's valuable in two parts: as a milestone in the timeline, indicating these early results, and as an indication of the underreporting of cases. I'm including parts of what you added in these two places. -- ChaTo (talk) 07:19, 15 May 2020 (UTC)
I have updated the second wave, both in the intro of the article and in the body of the article (in the Underreporting section). -- (Jasandia) (talk) 17:30, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
@Jasandia Where do you get the number of recovered people from, is there a source for that figure? It is not in the daily updates from the Ministry of Health. -- ChaTo (talk) 10:52, 28 May 2020 (UTC)
@Chato Unfortunately in the last 2 weeks they have removed those figures from their reports, so now it is impossible to know both the number of currently active cases and the recovered people. It is not possible to updated anymore. Perhaps they should be removed from the table... There is nowhere to found that data now. Even unoficial sources are not accounting them anymore, just placing an N/A such as https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ -- (Jasandia) (talk) 18:12, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
Outdated Stats
I've noticed that the information in the article is NEVER the latest, the stats section is constantly out of date. When someone does add in the info, the source publishes new information after a FEW HOURS. I don't know how someone can update the info then not do it in a few hours. Ex updates 115 to 118 are added but then 119 comes in shortly after, 119-123 are done but then 124 comes in. 173.176.119.221 (talk) 14:17, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
I'm trying to keep the statistics section up to date. This was easier when Datadista was providing machine-readable versions of the official reports, but given reports are changing format and methodology too quickly, those machine-readable versions are no longer up-to-date. Hence, I've to enter data manually which is time consuming. I'm trying to do one update every few days. Help is most welcome. -- ChaTo (talk) 09:36, 7 June 2020 (UTC)
I've noticed that the information in the article is NEVER the latest, the stats section is constantly out of date. When someone does add in the info, the source publishes new information after a FEW HOURS. I don't know how someone can update the info then not do it in a few hours. Ex updates 115 to 118 are added but then 119 comes in shortly after, 119-123 are done but then 124 comes in. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 173.176.119.221 (talk) 13:49, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
To ChaTo (talk·contribs), Are you aware that Spain publishes new data a few hours after you usually update the sections? just check the source a few hours after you do the updates and you'll see
Up-to-date source for number of recoveries? And for cases per age and gender?
Does anyone know of a current source for (a) number of recoveries, and (b) number of cases per age and gender? For the former the latest official figure we have is for 16 May and for the latter 22 May. Thank you. -- ChaTo (talk) 11:01, 22 June 2020 (UTC)
Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. QueerFilmNerdtalk 04:51, 13 March 2020 (UTC)
Not sure. It's true that the timeline is proseline. However, I would suggest to first separate whatever can be separated by autonomous community into subsections as in the 2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_Germany (there, the timeline is per state). That would make this timeline more useful, I think. Then, the events that don't refer to a specific autonomous community could be summarized and placed above. -- ChaTo (talk) 14:11, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
Agree and for the timeline a sortable table (by country name and by date) would be useful. -- ChaTo (talk) 11:47, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
