Talk:COVID-19 pandemic/Archive 19

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Informative graphs

Hi, I have proposal to include links to following graphs:

1. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-deaths-covid-19-who?yScale=log&time=2..51&country=Worldwide+IRN+ITA+KOR+CHN

2. https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/daily-cases-covid-19-who?yScale=log&time=1..50&country=CHN+IRN+ITA+KOR+Worldwide

They are very informative, at least to me.

Licenense is https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.139.109.2 (talk) 07:54, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

I support replacing the current graphs with this one. I think the format is much more standard and also it is more readable to the general reader. Can just copy it and attribute with their license, avoiding all concerns about WP:CALC and WP:OR --Almaty (talk) 07:51, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

First paragraph which says :- "Simultaneously, the WHO stated that this is the first known pandemic that can be controlled" is stated wrong. The real statement from WHO from the hyperlink attached to it is :-And we have never before seen a pandemic that can be controlled, at the same time. There is a difference , the present published statement says that it can be cured whereas statements from WHO were just general idea of past Akshat Bhardwaj 2265 (talk) 09:49, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Addressed, I hope, below --Almaty (talk) 10:23, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 15 March 2020

RMCD bot messed up with the heading.

The correct header should be:

<noinclude>{{User:RMCD bot/subject notice|1=2019-2020 COVID-19 pandemic|2=Talk:2019–20 coronavirus pandemic#Rename article to "2019-2020 COVID-19 pandemic"}}
{{User:RMCD bot/subject notice|1=Coronavirus pandemic|2=Talk:2019–20 coronavirus pandemic#Move to "Coronavirus pandemic"}}
{{User:RMCD bot/subject notice|1=Wuhan Chinese Coronavirus Pandemic|2=Talk:2019–20 coronavirus pandemic#Rename Article to "Wuhan Chinese Coronavirus Pandemic"}}</noinclude>

CoronavirusPlagueDoctor (talk) 13:03, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

It's not clear what you are asking for. Please be specific about which header or heading *(which is it?) should be changed and why. - MrX 🖋 14:33, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

@MrX: The main page should have contained those headings before each of the discussions were closed, but as they were closed, this is redundant. CoronavirusPlagueDoctor (talk) 16:21, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose. “Disease” is unnecessary, since this coronavirus outbreak is obviously a disease. “COVID-19” is not as clear a title as “coronavirus.” --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 21:00, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

The name should stay the same as the common names has been mostly “Coronavirus Pandemic” or “COVID-19 Pandemic” Efuture2 (talk) 21:02, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

A new column for the table

Is there a way to put a new colum on the table to put the deathor recovery rate by each coronavirus case? I presume, the rate of US would be higher then most.

Comparison of COVID-19 and Influenza

Hi, ANBI (the Italian National Association of Biotechnologists) changed the creative commons on their charts after my request. I have various versions that I can upload later, I have started with this first one. I hope it can be useful.--Alexmar983 (talk) 18:49, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Oh no ^^ You can't do that... There is 60 million of people in italy, each catching a flu every 5 years in mean. Simple math tell us there is over 200'000 Italians with flu at any given time (in mean probably 2-3x more during the season). If you think there was only 100 patients with flu in the entire health system of italy, your wrong. very wrong. The reality is that most people labelled as "dying from old age" does so while sick with a minor illness such at a flu or a cold. Unless there is a pandemic and special efforts to test, usually no such test are conducted.

Also, i'm will go in the OR territory but, the curve of case on that graph is absurd. It's obvious that italy had more cases before that no one bothered testing. Which again boils down the the real problem with the data : They need serious analysis because the tests are partial and arbitrary. Iluvalar (talk) 03:54, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Map of total reported cases as of 16 March 2020

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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The map would look COMPLETELY DIFFERENT if it would consider a RATIO of the number of people living in the particular country TO the number of the infected! Has anyone thought about that? This looks pretty disinformating.

Yes, there was a per capita map until recently, but it was removed by Almaty since we haven't found anyone to correct the formatting and fix the errors; there is extensive conversation in the section above. I disagree with the removal, but the simplest fix is just to get someone to get it to a state where it can be uncontroversially included. To centralize discussion, please make any further comments in the section above. Sdkb (talk) 04:02, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Deaths and Recoveries are not updating today

Reported no deaths and no recoveries for today

Stucked at 7174 deaths and 79883 recoveries until least 13:00 (UTC) time, next new deaths and recoveries will be announced between 13:00 and 16:00 (UTC) time.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 112.213.209.244 (talk) 05:24, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

We do not give advice

A well-intentioned editor added a hatnote ("Follow the advice of the World Health Organisation on how to help you and others from preventing the spread of the Coronavirus: here") to the top of the article directing readers to WHO. Such notes do not fit the purpose of an encyclopedia. - MrX 🖋 19:35, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

We can include what the WHO advice is, but yes, we can't advocate. – Muboshgu (talk) 19:39, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

We cannot include what the WHO advice is, because it is too long. We should provide the information that WHO (among other) give vital advice(s) in many pandemic topic, because it is encyclopedic, and we should do it right, because it is vital.

The way to write it to make it "encyclopedic" is up to you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.185.254.81 (talk) 20:01, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

A link to World Health Organization is sufficient for anyone who wants to know more about WHO, and whether their advice might be useful to a particular reader. Our job is to create an article that contains concise information about the pandemic. Although it is undoubtedly a worthy endeavor for someone, we are not in the business of advising readers on how to deal with the pandemic, the disease, or their health. - MrX 🖋 21:15, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

We can include a note in See also along the phrase of The World Health Organization has published advice on how to prevent the spread of the coronavirus. The advice can be found[<link> on their website]. CoronavirusPlagueDoctor (talk _{about the coronavirus}/Contributions _{about the coronavirus}) 21:22, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

We can include a neutrally and concisely phrased link in the External links section (not the see also section). Something like "Coronavirus disease (COVID-19) outbreak information from World Health Organization" - MrX 🖋 21:42, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Shouldn't we include a link to the article about the WHO? Or is that not needed due to the fact that everyone knows who the WHO is? CoronavirusPlagueDoctor (talk _{about the coronavirus}/Contributions _{about the coronavirus}) 01:30, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Other major sites like Google, Facebook, and Twitter have all surfaced or pinned prominent links to WHO and CDC (or other local health authority) when displaying COVID-related content to ensure their users have easy access to critical information. I'm in favor of allowing a direct link to CDC or WHO to be placed within the text where appropriate as a substantially smaller percentage of readers would find the same link in the External links section or citation. However, this was discussed previously and consensus was that it violated WP:EL. - Wikmoz (talk) 06:05, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Proposal: Series Sidebar

I feel like there's so many footer templates at the bottom and this article has gotten so hard to read. Is it time to visit creating a template sidebar that's used for things such as the US 2020 presidential elections series, LGBT sidebar, & the Emmy Awards sidebar, and breaking up the article more? GeekInParadise (talk) 08:10, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

EDIT Working on it over here, if anyone wants to join in.GeekInParadise (talk) 09:09, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Strongly support the new edit on wp:boldavoid and wp:redundancy

The article now reads like a breath of fresh air —Almaty (talk) 12:43, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

• Almaty There is no such policy as wp:boldavoid. Victionarier (talk) 13:43, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
• u know what I mean lol :) —49.195.179.13 (talk) 09:29, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Views lost

17:23, 11 March 2020‎ Amakuru moved page "2019–20 coronavirus outbreak" to "2019–20 coronavirus pandemic." Hence the page started counting views from zero. Where can I find the lost views? --Maxaxax (talk) 04:10, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Graeme Bartlett (talk) 06:14, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Graeme Bartlett In source code I can see that you put a link there, but I can't make it work. In view mode it's invisible (at least on my device) Robertpedley (talk) 12:42, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Maxaxax: try this:

(I get empty boxes for both on preview). Boud (talk) 14:45, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

thank god it’s less than a million daily there, I thought for a second we might become authoritative on the subject!! —Almaty (talk) 08:42, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

@Almaty: Wikipedia typically is the single most requested, published, accessed, and consulted source of information on a topic. There is no reason to believe that anything is more popular than Wikipedia for this or any other COVID-19 article. Blue Rasberry (talk) 20:10, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Meaninglessness of map of cases per capita

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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• No definition of "cases per capita" is indicated, so it remains unclear whether total number of infected, current number of infected, deaths, or anything else is meant.
• The boundaries in the legend are open in one direction, so in principle all the world could rightfully be coloured with the lightest colour, and it would strictly speaking still be correct.
• But such colouring would make the map meaningless.
• The remark by Monopoly31121993 saying editor with China objection states "strictly speaking the colouring is not wrong" so removing image is unwarranted at his/her re-introduction of the map does not include a discussion of the above.
• I propose removal of this particular map until:
  • a clear definition is stated by the author;
  • upper boundaries are added in the legend, in the form of: between 0.1 and 1.0 cases per million inhabitants.Redav (talk) 12:18, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

I think the map is actually helpful, since a ratio of cases to population is a better representation of the coronavirus’ impact on a country than numbers (such as those indicated on a map) without context. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 12:21, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

I would agree as soon as the definitions and colouring legend are clear and leave no room for misleading. As the situation is now, the map can - and seems to - be used to misrepresent and downplay the state of the COVID-19 outbreak. What would you say to this?Redav (talk) 12:38, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

I removed the map for now. Victionarier (talk) 18:13, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

The map had issues, but it was also very helpful. --Calthinus (talk) 18:20, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

We need another editor to make an alternative, as the one who made the incorrect one is being rather evasive. — Goszei (talk) 19:06, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

This discussion is somewhat of a duplicate of the discussion at Talk:2019–20_coronavirus_pandemic#Potential_changes_to_the_maps; can we try to centralize, please? There seems to be no major desire there to remove the per capita map, so I'm going to restore it for now. I'll leave the data parsing to those with more expertise, but the impression I'm getting is that there are improvements that could be made to the per capita map, but we need something and there's no so egregiously wrong as to make the current map unusable. Sdkb (talk) 05:29, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Cases per capita map is very wrong

The map uses 5 colors (excepting grey) but the legend contains 6. The bright red is missing from the map. I think that the beige in the map actually corresponds to >0.1 cases per million, the bright pink is >1 case per million and the dark pink is >10 cases per million. As it is now, lots of major countries are off by a factor 10; Russia, China, Finland and so on. Even if the legend was fixed, Iran has 165 cases per million and should be darkest red. As it is now, it is very misleading, and I'm removing it from the articles it is used in until this issue is fixed. See discussion on the image page –St.nerol (talk) 12:49, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Someone needs to address this. USA is incorrect. Right now it is about 1 per 70,000 based on case #s, map suggets otherwise. --152.132.9.196 (talk) 21:34, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

I agree with both Jim and Rich. They shouldn't have put the year in the title but it's okay too because people should know when it began. So yeah, no need to argue. Y'all are both right :-P Zukz 13 (talk) 18:05, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Mobile wiki posts replies to the wrong place

Is that a known fault? Or because of the volume of talk? I’m mostly mobile so would appreciate any wiki gnomes helping me out. Thanks 🙏🏼 Almaty (talk) 01:19, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

that's a technical question--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:31, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 16 March 2020

UPenn has 3 students testing positive from traveling abroad spring break and socializing: https://penntoday.upenn.edu/announcements/message-penn-students-benoit-dube

UPen also cancelled its 2020 commencement: https://penntoday.upenn.edu/announcements/message-penn-community-major-changes-commencement — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2604:2000:1484:436:7156:8718:F57C:825A (talk) 22:55, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

please see [1]--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:35, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

 Not done: According to the page's protection level you should be able to edit the page yourself. If you seem to be unable to, please reopen the request with further details. Alucard 16_{❯❯❯ chat?} 06:13, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

This Page is too Old. Please Update it

https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_Germany — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.108.149.192 (talk) 08:15, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Patience is a virtue. The editors who update this page are rather overwhelmed at the moment from the rapid evolution of the pandemic. If you have a problem with waiting, you can update the page yourself. WP:JUSTDOIT! Mgasparin (talk) 09:37, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Nevermind, it's protected. But please post your "update requests" on that article's talk page. Mgasparin (talk) 09:39, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

it was done, but with everybody home... it is lazy — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.108.149.192 (talk) 10:25, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

This is the English Wikipedia. It is hardly suprising that unpaid editors do not update the page about German events as quickly as local reporters turn out stories (they speak German, have sometimes access to government sources, and it is literally their job to produce articles). Tigraan^{Click here to contact me} 13:12, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 17 March 2020

Change number of deaths in the UK from 69 to 71 160.5.77.30 (talk) 17:36, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

 Not done The government of the UK (our source) says only 60 have died so far. Mgasparin (talk) 19:33, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Belgium's recoveries

Hello,

it is said that Belgium now has 15 recoveries, instead of 1 : however you might want to check before changing the number, as it says that 14 people have left the hospital.

Hello, I'm from Uruguay and I just wanted to relay the fact that schools and universities have been closed nationwide for more than two weeks, starting around a week ago, so the map should really be updated (please sign your post)

I have updated Belgium per the source used. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:59, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 17 March 2020

change Turkey cases 47 to 98 and Turkey deaths 0 to 1. Kaan2801 (talk) 21:11, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Someone has done it thank you. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:00, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 17 March 2020

Change the number of cases in the countries list on line "Morocco" from 38 to 44. 196.75.204.209 (talk) 21:15, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

I have updated it, thank you. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 22:03, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

On the page "2019-20 coronavirus pandemic in Brazil" you say that the acumulative cases in Brazil are 359.But in the page "2019-20 coronavirus pandemic" you say that the acumulative cases in Brazil are 301... Adjust it!

Stop removing the map without consensus

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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Please stop removing the map without having consensus on the talk page. As you can see, one editor has voiced their desire to remove the map and replace it with a simple aggregate map of all cases (Almaty) and a second who has not contributed on the talk page here (Goszei) would like the same outcome. Everyone else (Dan Polansky,  Ohc , Voorlandt, Roman, Sdkb and myself) has opposed this. That means there is not consensus for removing it so please use the talk page to discuss any issues and don't just remove the map. Thank you.Monopoly31121993(2) (talk) 10:25, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

I've never removed it, only tagged with a disputed tag, once. And that is fair enough --Almaty (talk) 10:30, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

But whilst it is still under dispute, and has been removed 3x in 24 hours once by MediaWiki, the disputed tag should remain. --Almaty (talk)

Disputed tag back. I would respectfully ask that you dont remove that without consensus. --Almaty (talk) 10:38, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Can someone point me to the policy where disputed tags are somehow allowed to be removed these days without consensus? Back when i edited a lot circa 2006 that was not the case. --Almaty (talk) 10:59, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

I think, with an article as prominent as this, the WP:BURDEN shifts a little. Placing a tag is normally used to draw attention to an issue that might not otherwise get noticed, whereas there's no question everyone is paying attention here, and there's a downside to adding tags in that they clutter up the page (especially in an infobox). And from a brief skim of the convo above, I'm not sure I'm seeing consensus that the tag should be added from editors other than yourself. It looks like the per capita map was removed somewhere in the blizzard of edit history on this page (please use edit summaries, folks, c'mon!), so I'm going to restore the map as the WP:STATUSQUO while this discussion plays out. Sdkb (talk) 17:35, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Given the amount of edits that are being made without edit summaries, the ability to use the tag is necessary —49.195.179.13 (talk) 05:28, 16 March 2020 (UTC) Where are we at with this now? The article needs the per capita map. Regardless of how accurate we judge the figures to be, there's no reason the per capita map would be less useful than the total cases map. But the caption should specify clearly that it's confirmed cases per capita, not an estimate of the actual numbers. GeoEvan (talk) 05:30, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

This is insanity. Please CTRL+F my username on this page and read my objection to the map on the grounds that China is colored 2 orders of magnitudes off (this is not a minor flaw). Also, plese read the talk page for the file on Commons, where I point out the same issue. — Goszei (talk)

We need to remove the one per capita map that is inaccurate, not because it is per capita, but because the coloring was done wrong, and so far as that, I agree with Goszei. But we need a correct per capita map. --Dan Polansky (talk) 06:59, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

I am in favour of removing the map again, since the restorers (a.o. Monopoly31121993 and Sdkb) have in the past couple of days not given any argument with respect to the contents of the discussion that I am aware of; their arguments seem rather formal and on the line of: there is no consensus, therefore you may not remove the map. This argument could easily be used the other way around, by the way. I am in doubt about their underlying motivations since, well, I can see no discussion by them of the contents and arguments to the contra. As long as the quality of the map is not up to standard, it deserves to be and stay removed, or at the very least, tagged. As the map is now, it is of the same value as a statement that 1 is bigger than 0, and we all knew that already.Redav (talk) 11:12, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Just to be clear: I would agree with including an accurate up-to-date map showing cases (of a well-defined(!) kind) per capita, since that would indeed give valuable information. According to me, that would mean: both lower and upper limits for the colouring, correct calculations that are not off by (more than) an order of magnitude, and - of course - correct colouring. Unfortunately, the per-capita map(s) that I found in the past couple of days did not meet those criteria. Unfortunately too, I lack any experience in creating digital maps with division(i.e. country, province)-wise colouring.Redav (talk) 11:33, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

I have published script to calculate per capita figures from Wikipedia pages (List of countries and dependencies by population and Template:2019–20 coronavirus pandemic data), in User talk:Dan Polansky#Covid cases per capita. What I do not have yet is the creation of the SVG and I am tired. --Dan Polansky (talk) 11:47, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

This looks interesting news to me, even if I do not know how to run a script. I can now better understand why one would like to have the list with the COVID-19 numbers correspond to the list of divisions (i.e. countries, dependencies, etc.). A problem I can see with this is that not always the sources of numbers (e.g. public health authorities) operate according to the list of divisions. E.g. the "Netherlands" in the list of divisions does not seem to correspond to (the country of) the Netherlands - for which the public health authority RIVM collects and publishes numbers - but to the Kingdom of the Netherlands, which includes three more countries, namely Aruba, Curaçao and Sint Maarten, each with their own public health authority. A similar issue may hold for other divisions such as Guernsey and Jersey with respect to the United Kingdom. It might, however, in some sense be a minor issue. I will try and indicate in the list of divisions that the Kingdom (rather than the country) of the Netherlands is meant there. As soon as the list of COVID-19 pandemic data is fully organized in the same way, meaning that somehow the data are presented in there according to the same divisions, the outcome in a map created along these lines may actually be very helpful. I am not sure how the instances of non-correspondence of areas of control for public health authorities / sources that publish number data are going to be resolved, though. Furthermore I would welcome a clear indication of whether the number of cases corresponds to all current or the aggregate of all past and current cases.Redav (talk) 12:59, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Dan Polansky, how about using the list in https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population_(United_Nations) lather than the list in List of countries and dependencies by population? At least the four constituent countries of the Kingdom of the Netherlands are treated separately there!Redav (talk) 13:12, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Am I the only one not to see it? What consensus is there against the per capita map? Flawed though the latter map may be, it's infinitely less misleading than the current map in which the geographically expansive countries such as China and Iran are covered in dark red based on absolute figures, thus dramatically and misleadingly amplifying the infection rates of these countries. -- Ohc ^¡digame! 13:56, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

To me, accurate absolute numbers per country of a well-defined quantity and indicated according to a legend with both lower and upper boundaries per colour, are not misleading, although extra information would certainly be provided by an accurate map for a well-defined (relevant) quantity according to a legend with both lower and upper boundaries per colour. (I do seem to get little or no response on the issue of intervals with limits at both ends. I wonder why, since I think this is an essential point in the misleadingness discussion.)Redav (talk) 16:28, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

@Redav: Given how sprawling this page is, I can understand that you may have missed some of my comments. My motivations for reverting were policy-based (which becomes important on a page as huge as this), but I also do think it's important to have a per-capita map for the reasons I explained in the per-capita vs. totals section above, as well as on the commons file page for the per capita map. Sdkb (talk) 20:02, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

@Sdkb: (Thanks for showing me how to address someone more directly.) O yes, I may have missed things, but I never disagreed with having a cases per capita map in principle, as long as what is presented is a) well-defined, b) meaningful [with e.g. lower and upper limits to intervals, otherwise the open intervals may overlap (and will certainly do so as soon as there are more than two) and anyone could with whatever intentions choose colours to their liking; in that respect I cannot say I am completely at ease with certain developments regarding this map], c) accurate, and d) verifiable / falsifiable. I am afraid the current map still does not meet all these criteria, which I consider essential and critical if we are going to share information (rather than something else). I am afraid I cannot find a lot of addressing these issues by those who seem to wish to retain a cases per capita map, even if it is arguably off.Redav (talk) 01:09, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

I found the mistake!!! Turns out with so many shades of red you can really end up scratching your head for a while until to you see that somehow I forgot to use #c80200 so everything is one order of magnitude off. Please note the following: 1) The map is intended to reflect active cases (so yes, 8 in 1,000,000 in China is correct), 2) I have removed the old map from the map, 3) I will try to correct this as soon as possible.Monopoly31121993(2) (talk) 15:30, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Addressing the issue(s) as to the content, as you seem to be doing now, is very helpful. And if you succeed in creating and adding an accurate map for a well-defined (relevant) quantity according to a legend with both lower and upper boundaries per colour, that too would be helpful indeed. But I seem to have to object to the number of 8 active cases per 1,000,000 for China, on the basis of simple mathematics. From the table in the article (from https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Template:2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_pandemic_data) I take the numbers indicated there for China: T(otal) = 80,880; D(eaths) = 3,213; R(ecovered) = 67,819. From https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/China, considering the number of inhabitants for 2010 as 1,339,724,852 and the estimated number of inhabitants for 2018 as 1,427,647,786 - both given there - I estimate the current population in China as roughly I(nhabitants) = 1,445,000,000. Elementary arithmetic then gives as a result for the per capita number of active cases A(ctive cases per capita) = (T - D - R) / I ≈ 7 per million.Redav (talk) 16:28, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Here's is the new map updated with 16 March data.Monopoly31121993(2) (talk) 17:26, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Active Cases per-capita of COVID-19 16 March 2020

I very much appreciate your efforts to address several issues with the active cases per capita map for COVID-19! Could you mention both lower and upper limits with the colour legend? (Or do you prefer leaving that to me?) And the colouring for China now seems of in the opposite direction compared to previous versions: > 1 case per 100,000 inhabitants corresponds to > 10 cases per 1,000,000 inhabitants. On https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Talk:2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_pandemic is my estimate (and data) from my calculation for China which results in approximately 7 cases per 1,000,000. What causes the difference?Redav (talk) 17:39, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

With the map the definition indicates that it is about active cases. That part is clear. What is not clear from the definition is that / whether it is about confirmed cases only. Another issue, I am afraid, is with the accuracy for at least China (already mentioned above) and the Kingdom of the Netherlands as well. This kingdom has T = 1,417, D = 24, R = unknown, and I ≈ 17,700,000. (For the definitions of these symbols, see above.) That would result in A ≤ 78,8 per 1,000,000 i.e. between 1 per 100,000 and 1 per 10,000. Is there a bug in any software you have run to create the map, are the input data off, or what else could be the matter?Redav (talk) 17:54, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

I propose including in the title for the cases per capita map the following text: "reported active cases per capita", interpreting an "active case" as a person that has been infected and is still infected, thus excluding the non-infected, the recovered, and the fatalities.Redav (talk) 19:14, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

do we have sourcing as to who defines when a case is active? It will be very inconsistent worldwide reporting, as recoveries are very inconsistency reported. We must stick to case number with one simple calc at the absolute most or we are in direct violation (not my strict interpretation, direct violation) of WP:CALC —Almaty (talk) 02:54, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

@Almaty: The WHO seems to have solid numbers with their daily situation reports, available here: www.who.int/emergencies/diseases/novel-coronavirus-2019/situation-reports. What's wrong with using those? Also, to everyone, please put some work into commenting in the correct section to keep the sprawling mess of this talk page a little more organized. Sdkb (talk) 03:54, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

@Sdkb: they don’t say active cases. I strongly propose that yes we can indeed include daily new cases, and daily new cases per capita... no one knows active cases. Only if there is one division only, straight from the WHO. —Almaty (talk) 05:16, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Also as mentioned above, the long-term map should be "peak" active cases, not current active cases which would obviously become irrelevant at some point. Ythlev (talk) 04:06, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

per capita map currently very incorrect, should it be removed? There are currently many problems in per captia map, I feel that it should either be quickly changed or removed, it shows completely misleading information. For example, Australia currently has about 1 case per 70,000 and somehow it is shown in the 1 per 10,000 category, this cant even be explained by the use of old numbers, Australia has never had 1 per 10,000. This map is blatant false information. Just your average wikipedian (talk) 20:55, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Transmission

The last paragraph of the 'Transmission section that refers to cites unpublished papers. As far as I can tell, this does comply with WP:MEDRS. Can someone more familiar with this guideline comment? - MrX 🖋 12:19, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

why do you see it as not complying?--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:10, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Regional outbreaks should not be named pandemics

I suggest that regional outbreaks should be named outbreaks or epidemics rather than pandemics. For example 2020 coronavirus pandemic in Wisconsin should be renamed 2020 coronavirus outbreak in Wisconsin. [Perhaps Done.] And 2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_the_United_States should also be renamed. There is only one pandemic ongoing, which per definition is global. In Wikidata, these outbreaks should be classifed as "part of" rather than "instances" of the global 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic Tomastvivlaren (talk) 12:37, 17 March 2020 (UTC).

I can see both sides of this argument. On one hand, instances of coronavirus around the world are all connected, so Wisconsin (as an example) is just part of the broader pandemic, rather than an outbreak of its own. On the other hand, the situation isn't a pandemic in Wisconsin, so an article title including "pandemic" is misleading. --Comment by Selfie City (talk about my contributions) 12:51, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

I can see both sides. This is like "the pandemic as it appears in country X" Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:52, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

It is clear to a reader with elementary English skills that Wikipedia is not suggesting that there are multiple simultaneous pandemics of the same disease, any more than a page "World War 2 in Algeria" would suggest that there was a world war 2 in Algeria as well as the more famous global one. A pedant might go for "Wisconsin during the 2019-20 Coronavirus Pandemic" which is how most WW2 pages are named. 165.225.81.57 (talk) 17:01, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks 162.225 great comparison. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:28, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Virology - Pangolin paper no good

The paper "Isolation and Characterization of 2019-nCoV-like Coronavirus from Malayan Pangolin" has not uploaded any sequence data to genbank; and within the paper there is no reference to doing so. Because this doesn't meet normal standards I wish to not use this paper at least until the authors or another team submit the sequences. Polypipe Wrangler (talk) 10:37, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

I suppose it can be replaced by this view on pangolin from Nature [2], which says while the animal may be a prime suspect, there is no proof yet. Hzh (talk) 11:36, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Yes, a good solution. the "Isolation.." paper only claims to have sequenced several genes. Regardless, not submitting data to genbank is unacceptable. Polypipe Wrangler (talk) 21:36, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Recommendation (on request): set a max width for the countries and territories column

Hi, article content is outside the area of the Foundation, but since the presentation here was reported as a technical problem in phab:T247702, where it was pointed out that parts of this article are currently not as accessible to a lot of our readers on mobile as we'd prefer them to be:

A very good step would be to set a max width for the countries and territories column in the table in the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic#Epidemiology section. This would help fit all of the content on the screen without readers having to scroll horizontally. /Johan (WMF) (talk) 19:19, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Just FYI, table has been updated in this direction (for screens < 650px). Bawolff (talk) 22:41, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

The Summary/Blurb/_ at the top of the page has conflicting information for incubation

The section at the top uses the 2-14 days number from the U.S., "Symptoms of Novel Coronavirus (2019-nCoV)". CDC.gov. US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. 10 February 2020. Retrieved 11 February 2020.

but other sources have put it from 1-27 days, which is referenced in the Wiki article later under the signs and symptoms section. "Q&A on coronaviruses (COVID-19): How long is the incubation period for COVID-19?". WHO.int. World Health Organization. Retrieved 26 February 2020. "Coronavirus incubation could be as long as 27 days, Chinese provincial government says". Reuters. 22 February 2020.

Since this is a range of possible length of time for incubation and not typical length, we should go with the longer one. I think this is just an oversight, so if someone who has access to editing can adjust this, that would be helpful.

It also might be helpful to change the wording since infection occurs directly after exposure (if infected and if the virus is to begin incubating).

At the very least, both sources are about a month old and it wouldn't hurt to update. I think this is very important since most people won't read the whole article and not fixing this is almost the same as spreading misinformation.

Thanks — Preceding unsigned comment added by 122.196.174.54 (talk) 11:27, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

I don't think we should use the longer incubation figure because the Chinese provincial government says it could be as long as 27 days. We should use numbers from impeccable medical sources or secondary sources who have gathered this information from impeccable medical sources. - MrX 🖋 11:37, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Agree with user:MrX Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:37, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Active cases

It would be great if the tables can show the active cases in each country = total cases-cured-deceased. This will be a better indicator of the current situation rather than the total cases. How relevant are the December cases in China at present, for instance? Harikrishna.srirangam (talk) 07:46, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

this question has been raised before....please use the search box at the top--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:08, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

There's been no consensus on that..not as far as I could find anyway (maybe i didn't search long enough) . Just things such as the fact that since some countries have the number of recoveries private you can't properly calculate their total active ceases. But most don't have that information private and I completely agree that it would provide a much clearer image of the current situation on top of the current tables . We still have china on the top of the list even though it's fallen far below other countries in the number of current active cases. Romdwolf (talk) 20:34, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Consensus is no more columns as wide enough already Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:40, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Effective disinfectants

I expanded the list of effective disinfectants taken from the J Hosp Infectarticleby Kampf and coworkers. It is open access. All data was directly from that article, which was already cited for ethanol. I chose the agents that I think would be most common (I omitted formaldehyde, for example), and took guidance from the abstract and the authors’ conclusions as to what agents and concentrations to include.

The edit was motivated by someone mentioning having purchased a large amount of gluconate, which he said could be added to hand soap. This paper says chlorhexidine is “basically ineffective”. For this reason, if this edit is to be reverted, I’d encourage editors to include, in some way, a list of agents that are effective. The most conservative statement would be limiting the list to agents formally recommended by WHO. Roches (talk) 09:04, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

• "Myth busters". www.who.int. World Health Organization. Retrieved 18 March 2020.--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 00:16, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

(Cool, automatic doi cites now) Scott McNay (talk) 02:38, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Number Of Indian Patients

The number of patients shown for India is incorrect, Please check the official home minister website and correct the values Also add the contributions of India in Southwest Asia— Preceding unsigned comment added by Hardaat Singh Baath (talk • contribs)

why do you suggest the number(s) are incorrect?--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 00:26, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

I have changed it based on WOMC, govt web site is behind. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 03:00, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

The first known pandemic that can be controlled

Each time added over the last 5 days, have had thanks, and each time removed without discussion? That’s exactly what the WHO said and says. Pls explain removal and discuss —Almaty (talk) 11:59, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

The spread of Spanish flu was controlled to some extent: some placed managed much better by practicing social distancing. What does WHO mean by "controlled"? Each pandemic can be subjected to control, that is, a combination of measurement and intervention measures in part based on the measurement. --Dan Polansky (talk) 12:04, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

The content in the lead should be removed if only on the grounds that it is not summarizing content in the body. GMG^talk 13:50, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

It is old news already. It was controversial when they said it. And it is becoming less and less possible as time goes on. Undue weight for the lead. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:32, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

What is your source that it is less and less possible, and that it was controversial when they said it? They still say to control it, it can be controlled, the Asian countries repetitively show this Almaty (talk) 00:17, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Who says it was controversial? ping:doc James we have to have our heads clear on this, whilst the numbers go up, medrs sources say it can be controlled. South Korea and China appear to be controlling it well in my opinion. But we need to use the sources. Also you do know that worldometer is a proprietary, private algorithm that is an estimate only? Almaty (talk) 00:43, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Are you proposing that the pandemic may not be controlled user:doc james? Can I please see some sourcing on that? —49.195.179.13 (talk) 00:48, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Sure http://www.cidrap.umn.edu/news-perspective/2020/03/slow-covid-19-spread-california-county-turns-mitigation California moving from containment to mitigation. Basically it is complicated Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 02:19, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

that’s the US. The pandemic has been controlled in China and sth Korea, so it can be controlled. That’s the WHOs point. —Almaty (talk) 02:57, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Here is another ref[3]

All pandemics can theoretically be controlled / contained with the proper political will. I think most fell it cannot be contained as that will does not exist in many places.

If it cannot be controlled in most / all places it cannot be contained completely at this point in time. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:17, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

yes theoretically all pandemics could be controlled. However, this is the first known pandemic that has proven control ability at the outset. That is extremely important information. —Almaty (talk) 03:35, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

No it is not important. That was days ago and is no longer true. WHO has not repeated this.

It simple does not belong in the lead. Lots of good sources also say it cannot be controlled.

So if we discuss it, it should be in the body were both sides can get equal weight. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:48, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

do you want to draft it then, User:Doc James? We all have to be mindful that our national governments have been saying different things, and this is a global page. I think you’re overresponding to the American situation. As another example, Australia called this a pandemic in mid February but I was very careful not to include that opinion, until the international community supported that definition. —Almaty (talk) 05:29, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

I obviously agree with Doc James. I see no reason to given undue weight to political statements of WHO. This beast was a pandemic long before WHO declared it to be one. The apparent level of incompetence on part of WHO is alarming. Like, do you see WHO anywhere publishing the two-peak flatten-the-curve graph showing that mitigation is worthwhile? Or do you see WHO publishing graphs with logarithmic scale? Has WHO published an estimate showing that the actual cases are 10x to 100x times higher than the reported ones in most countries? I mean, "WHO says X" is revealing about WHO, but not necessarily much about X. --Dan Polansky (talk) 06:03, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

we aren’t talking about the reliability of the WHO here. —Almaty (talk) 06:27, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

If "controlled" means "mitigated and slowed down", then it is obvious, without WHO, that covid can be "controlled", and so could the Spanish flu, so covid is not "first"; if "controlled" means "contained" in the sense that e.g. no more than 5% of population becomes infected, then it is very unobvious that it can be so "controlled/contained", and WHO statements do not change that. But it does not really matter since even if the beast can only be slowed down, that is very much worthwhile since it can drive the death rate (ratio of deaths to infected cases) down e.g. from 5% to 0.5% (the numbers are unreliable!) via avoiding overloading the healthcare system. So for practical purposes, it does not even matter whether it can be "controlled"; it can and should be "mitigated" and "slowed down". --Dan Polansky (talk) 06:44, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

your average influenza season can be mitigated and slowed down. Controlled is a very different word. —Almaty (talk) 06:48, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

So what do they mean by "controlled"? Do they mean "contained"? It is very unobvious that the beast can be contained worldwide; it is very unobvious that e.g. African countries can implement the South Korean track-and-isolate method; even European countries probably cannot properly implement track-and-isolate, so they have to resort to lockdown, lacking the South Korean experience and infrastructure. Who cares about what WHO says? It is very unobvious that the beast can be contained. --Dan Polansky (talk) 07:08, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

it’s complicated but controlled is their word and a far stronger word than contained. —Almaty (talk) 07:29, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

It is not all that complicated, and in so far as we do not know what they mean by "controlled", their statement is not even wrong: it is meaningless, having no semantics. The current development is not about political handwaving, throwing around "strong words" that do not mean anything. It is about what words mean, not about how strong they sound, and it is about what we can actually do, and in fact, we can do a lot. --Dan Polansky (talk) 07:41, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Anyway, the statement "[Covid-19 is] The first known pandemic that can be controlled" is either wrong or meaningless, and it should not be in the lead. WHO should not be taken as a reliable source for these kinds of statements. --Dan Polansky (talk) 07:48, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

As for "controlled is [...] a far stronger word than contained": I don't see that. --Dan Polansky (talk) 08:00, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

although they’re common words, they’re technical words too. Don’t have time to cite, feel free to reply with cites —Almaty (talk) 08:44, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

I see, so you don't have resources to spend (time, attention), so you ask me to spend my resources. From what I can see, you have no idea what you are talking about, and neither has WHO. The controversial statement does not belong to the lead, and in any case, there is no consensus on this talk page that it should be in the lead. Case closed, I hope. --Dan Polansky (talk) 08:50, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

this is a collaborative project dan, I don’t have the time and maybe you do. Please keep your comments less argumentative. —49.195.179.13 (talk) 09:31, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

'Can be controlled' - the claim is way too assertive for this moment in time. Magna19 (talk) 14:50, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

User:Almaty It simple does not belong in the lead. If you want to write up balanced content for the body go for it. But it is simple not notable in that it has no real meaning or effect. I have better things to do. WHO can claim all they want but if few countries listen to them, it is simple them wasting energy shouting into the wind. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:44, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Agreed. I prefer not to include this anywhere in the article, as to say it is controlled is not a mainstream view as far as I'm aware. Certainly such a statement should be strongly nuanced if at all. Almaty is skirting close to the 3-revert-rule in repeatedly reinstating this now.  — Amakuru (talk) 21:58, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Old news and controversial

This can be discussed in the body "as the first known pandemic that may be controlled"

This level of details is too much for the lead "Coronavirus cases with twice as many active cases of any other country including China and Iran combined at 20,603 active" Plus WorldOMeter does not say this and we are doing original research.

Plus the number of cases in Iran is controversial.

Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 15:23, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

agree with editor--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 15:50, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

@Ozzie10aaaa and Doc James: See "The first known pandemic that can be controlled" section above. GMG^talk 17:28, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

please note that worldometer is a proprietary algorithm that is an estimate and not even admitted by its publisher to be verifiable —Almaty (talk) 04:13, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

User:Almaty not sure what this pertains to? Did you mean to post it here? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:15, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

User:Doc James yes I’m replying to your comment that “Plus WorldOMeter does not say this” —Almaty (talk) 05:09, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

I replaced it with another source. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 05:15, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

I did come dangerously close to breaking 3RR, so would highly appreciate it if you had the time User:Doc James or anyone else for putting it in the body. I have an opinion that it can be controlled, and I declare that. Also I’m on wiki break from directly editing the page. But you may also note that I now prefer “exhale” to the CDC’s sneeze, and think that should be further discussed, as previously it was just you and me agreeing and I’ve changed my opinion. Thanks. Unprecedented times. —49.195.179.13 (talk) 03:31, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

I have no strong opinion about it going in the body one way or the other. Exhaling is not the primary way. Happy to remove sneeze. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 03:34, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Text

An additional path for the virus to reach the lungs was recently reported: acoustic meatus, middle ear, pharynx, larynx, lungs. This path occurs in a percentage of the population with tympanic membrane patency, genetic of traumatic.

Ref is this one https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339943615_URGENT_REVISION_OF_PROPHYLACTIC_MEASURES_AGAINST_COVID-19

What journal was it published in? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:50, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

It appears to be a preprint. Does not appear to have been accepted anywhere yet. Bondegezou (talk) 07:54, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

References

Lead sentence - editing dispute

It seems that myself and User:ABigBeast05 disagree as to the proper formatting in the lead; I thought I should put a few of the options up for discussion.

1. The 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic is an ongoing pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2).
2. The 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic is an ongoing pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2).
3. The ongoing pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) is caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2).

Personally, I disfavor #1 on the grounds of MOS:AVOIDBOLD and redundant wording, and I don't think #2 is a valid styling. Comments or suggestions? — Goszei (talk) 17:30, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

I definitely think that option 1 is the most suitable, it suits the article in terms of the layout and looks more encyclopedic-like. It sounds more right to say option 1

• Support #3 I agree that #1 and #2 are redundant. #2 is particularly bad for the lack of bolding. As an example that supports #3, the 2002-2004 SARS outbreak article's lead doesn't say "The 2002-2004 SARS outbreak was an outbreak...". Same goes for the Western African Ebola virus epidemic.

Support #1 Considering Mr. X's suggestion, I think the redundancy in #1 can be fixed, so there's no need for #3. Also, MOS:BOLDLEAD changed my opinion of #3. 162.221.124.29 (talk) 17:57, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Support #1 I like the bold as it keys in the topic of the article. Two would be my second choice. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 17:59, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Support #1 The first one seems fine. Pandemics should be named by their year and disease. See https://wiki.riteme.site/wiki/Wikipedia:Naming_conventions_(events)#Health_incidents_and_outbreaks Also see examples of lead sentences on other pandemics Spanish Flu and 1889–1890 flu pandemic Qwaiiplayer (talk) 17:59, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Support #1 I think the bold highlights the topic in an encyclopedic manner and is suitable as the introduction in that is sounds like how it should, I as the defender of Option #1 think that it should be kept but I would solidify #2 as my second choice. User:ABigBeast05 (talk) 18:05, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

• Support #1 Starting with the title and bolding it is standard for articles per MOS:BOLDLEAD. MOS:AVOIDBOLD is only valid when the article's title does not lend itself to being used easily and naturally in the opening sentence, and I don't see any issue with the opening sentence here. It simply defines the topic which is what is recommended in MOS for lead sentence. Hzh (talk) 18:09, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
• Support #1 per above editors--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 18:16, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
• Support #1. We should bold the name of the article in the lead.  — Amakuru (talk) 18:38, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
• Support #1 of these options. MOS:REDUNDANCY is the real issue here and not MOS:AVOIDBOLD I think. #1 is certainly redundant but #3 also seems distinctly odd to me—in #1 the note that it's caused by SARS-CoV-2 is subsidiary, as I think it should be, but in #3 it's the point of the sentence—so I don't mind MOS:REDUNDANCY being ignored a bit here if that's the choice. And there's no reason at all to use #2 if the wording is there anyway. —Nizolan ^{(talk · c.)} 18:41, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

I would support MrX's "global outbreak" idea below to ease the redundancy (briefly explaining what a pandemic is). —Nizolan ^{(talk · c.)} 22:08, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

• Support #1 for the same reasons already made by other editors. Maranello10 (talk) 18:48, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
• Support #1 - By convention, we bold the title in the lead sentence if it can be done naturally, which I think it can in this case. Ideally, we would change the second "pandemic" to something like "global outbreak". Option #3 is not a good form for the beginning of an encyclopedia article, in my opinion. - MrX 🖋 19:00, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
• Support #1 per above editors. — RealFakeKimT 19:30, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
• Support #1; this is standard Wikipedia style. -- The Anome (talk) 20:54, 16 March 2020 (UTC)
• Support #1 AVOIDBOLD is completely inapplicable. All sources consider it a pandemic, and this perfectly fits into the structure of the lead sentence.--Jasper Deng (talk) 22:48, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
• Support MrX's wording. Bondegezou (talk) 08:01, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Info on Chinese assistance to Italy/Serbia

Anyone got some articles posted? But whatever you do, don't use RT. Ominae (talk) 12:34, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

thanks for suggestion--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:04, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Not a problem. Ominae (talk) 10:47, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

cases/numbers

Sweden 's dead

Sweden now has 8 dead instead of only 7 can someone fix this ? 11:00, 18 March 2020 (UTC).

Source : https://www.aftonbladet.se/nyheter/a/y3rdeA/coronaviruset-har-ar-de-senaste-siffrorna Florian Duboeuf (talk) 10:00, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

The number of cases climbed to 50 in Uruguay yesterday

Global and per capita map also need to be updated. Thanks. --Feli3105 (talk) 03:37, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Sources:

https://www.elobservador.com.uy/nota/el-gobierno-informo-que-ascendio-a-50-la-cantidad-de-casos-de-coronavirus--202031721141 https://ladiaria.com.uy/articulo/2020/3/coronavirus-en-uruguay-50-casos-confirmados-y-estables-y-cierre-preventivo-de-los-shoppings/ https://www.elpais.com.uy/informacion/salud/vivo-gobierno-realiza-nuevos-anuncios-brote-coronavirus-uruguay.html

Info on aid to countries affected

China

Got some to share to be used as sources (not including RT/Xinhua/CGTN/etc). Not sure on whether to include individuals/companies/NGOs doing their thing. Perhaps we can use this section to collect info.

• Italy

https://www.politico.eu/article/italys-foreign-minister-hails-chinese-caronavirus-aid/

https://www.aljazeera.com/news/2020/03/china-sends-essential-coronavirus-supplies-italy-200313195241031.html

• Iran (May have some blurbs on US aid...)

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3053016/china-coronavirus-aid-arrives-tehran-iran-rebuffs-us-offers

https://www.tasnimnews.com/en/news/2020/03/17/2225682/chinese-people-send-iran-new-aid-shipment

• Serbia

https://www.srbija.gov.rs/vest/en/151479/first-assistance-for-serbia-from-peoples-republic-of-china.php

https://www.scmp.com/news/china/diplomacy/article/3075511/serbia-reaches-out-chinas-helping-hand-coronavirus-fight

• Spain

https://www.thestar.com.my/news/regional/2020/03/16/china-to-help-spain-fight-covid-19-epidemic

https://nationalpost.com/pmn/health-pmn/china-sends-medical-aid-to-spain-and-italy

• Philippines

https://www.gmanetwork.com/news/news/nation/729815/china-to-send-medical-supplies-experts-to-philippines-amid-covid-19-threat/story/

https://cnnphilippines.com/news/2020/3/16/China-donates-2000-test-kits-Philippines-COVID.html

US

• Philippines

https://globalnation.inquirer.net/186160/us-vows-to-donate-2-7m-to-ph-to-aid-fight-vs-covid-19

https://www.philstar.com/headlines/2020/03/17/2001608/us-pledges-p139-million-aid-philippines-covid-19-response

Hope this helps. Ominae (talk) 11:18, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Can the pandemic be controlled

based on governmental assertions in the Anglo sphere, User:Doc James is asserting that “it cannot be controlled”. However, multiple countries have controlled their outbreaks. Please reply “cannot be controlled” or “can be controlled” with reasoning. —-Almaty (talk) 03:57, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

No, society is still too ignorant and random for that... After June, maybe worse... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.108.149.192 (talk) 13:52, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

British researchers say mitigation is insufficient, only long term lockdown will work, or health service will collapse. Page 8 DOI: https://doi.org/10.25561/77482 TGCP (talk) 11:41, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Alaska's colouring is inconsistent

The two maps in the infobox colour Alaska in contradictory ways. To fix this, we either:

1) Change the first map to colour Alaska pale pink since it has <10 cases

2) or change the second map to colour Alaska the same colour as the Contiguous US.

What should be done? Prof. Fu (talk) 02:33, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

If this issue is still ongoing, then Alaska should be coloured the same as the contiguous US. Internal divisions are usually only done if they're politically distinct - we have divied up the Philippines into different groupings etc. Nosebagbear (talk) 11:43, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

The header template

Why is it about a "current event" now, instead of the more specific "current pandemic"? Victionarier (talk) 13:40, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Because we have a standard template for one and not the other. GMG^talk 14:11, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

GreenMeansGo How come the header used to say "current pandemic", then? Victionarier (talk) 12:03, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Hmm. I suppose someone may have made a custom template then. But it looks like they've now been removed entirely. It's hard to tell at the moment who actually made what change since this is being so heavily edited by so many people. GMG^talk 12:22, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Add rosetta@home to the Citizen science section

https://boinc.bakerlab.org/rosetta/forum_thread.php?id=13533 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 73.8.14.158 (talk) 19:21, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Has it been covered in published secondary sources? GMG^talk 19:23, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

 Done using source here [4]. — RealFakeKimT 17:29, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Unacceptable bias against President Trump

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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All of the lies about President Trump in this article and unsupported allegations of a cover up need to removed immediately. Where is the balance in this article? Why aren't the facts that show the Democrats acting in bad faith by falsely blaming the President for something that is not his fault not presented in this article? FYI, the New York Times, Washington Post, CNN, and the like are not valid sources, as they constantly submit articles attacking the President that always end up being fake news.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:603:4900:4800:7912:48E7:44F2:5C1A (talk) 05:29, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

the news sources you mentioned are reputable and reliable, see WP:RSPPancho507 (talk) 06:40, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict) Wikipedia is not a place to WP:RIGHTGREATWRONGS. We are not going to declare sources unreliable just because of negative coverage of Trump, and reliable sources unequivocally put Trump on the hook for not doing enough about the outbreak, so that is what we present here. If you find actual pieces of bias as defined at WP:DUE then please by all means correct them, but "New York Times is fake news because Trump said so" is not a valid reason.--Jasper Deng (talk) 06:41, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Those garsh darn cabal laiden democRATS ruinin' everythin'! where's the god darn NEAUTRALITY here! FAKE NEWS!!.., dibbydib Ping me! ^💬/_✏ 08:21, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

But he knew it was a pandemic even when he was calling it a "Democrat hoax". – Muboshgu (talk) 15:41, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Total confirmed cases map

For some days now the table lists Bahamas as having confirmed cases. The map does not show Bahamas as having confirmed cases. Update map please? Ptilinopus (talk) 02:30, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

will look--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:49, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Include "special header" ?

Please see Wikipedia_talk:In_the_news#Add_special_header_as_a_hat_on_primary_articles regarding a proposal to add the main page special header for this and other related pages. Thank you, — xaosflux ^Talk 13:36, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

thank you for post--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:58, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 18 March 2020

you should have its symptoms and what it really is Arwa 0027 (talk) 14:01, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Interstellarity (talk) 14:40, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 18 March 2020

Hey, the Cases outside China chart needs to be updated (that chart- [5]) (17 March 2020, 15,744 new cases [6] Natanieluz (talk) 19:27, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

 Not done: According to the page's protection level you should be able to edit the page yourself. If you seem to be unable to, please reopen the request with further details. Interstellarity (talk) 19:39, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 18 March 2020

Please update the number of cases in Jamaica to 15 (confirmed by the Prime Minister Andrew Holness) Also, please update the number of death(s) to 01.

72.252.112.184 (talk) 22:37, 18 March 2020 (UTC) 72.252.112.184 (talk) 22:37, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

 Done Interstellarity (talk) 00:10, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

References

Semi-protected edit request on 19 March 2020

Please change data for Portugal: 785 people are active cases, 3 deaths, 3 recovered. Lammcampos (talk) 12:19, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

 Done ~~ CAPTAIN MEDUSA^talk 12:26, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Year in title

This is the only time that there's been a coronavirus pandemic. Now that pandemic is in the title, the years no longer need be. Jim Michael (talk) 05:23, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

That is not quite true, there was also SARS and MERS, both coronaviruses and pandemic causing. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 05:37, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

It's only been a pandemic in 2020, though. All the best: Rich Farmbrough (the apparently calm and reasonable) 07:57, 16 March 2020 (UTC).

Graeme Bartlett Jim has a point; this is the first coronavirus to be labeled a pandemic by the WHO. Victionarier (talk) 13:44, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Jim is correct, as is Rich. There is no need for a year in the title but if any year is included surely it should be the year in which it was labelled a pandemic (2020). Magna19 (talk) 14:44, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

The pandemic started in 2019. It's the same phenomenon and that phenomenon started in 2019. When WHO labelled it a pandemic doesn't matter: nothing special actually happened on that day. Bondegezou (talk) 08:03, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

I also question whether this is the only coronavirus pandemic. It's the most famous one, sure, but Porcine epidemic diarrhea virus now has a global spread. Bondegezou (talk) 13:56, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Adjusted number of cases

Dear all,

I would like to share an idea to have a more precise understanding of the number of cases of COVID-19. A more precise current number of cases could be approximated by computing the square of cases today divided by the cases one week ago.

The concept behind this assumes that people with the infection get tested after the symptoms occur. Since the incubation period is most commonly 5 days, the number of current cases would be at least 5 days old. In fact, if requesting and processing the test took 2 more days, the number of cases would be around 7 days old.

My suggestion is to use the growth of the previous days. Let us imagine that a region had the following cases:

date	cases	daily growth
$n$ days ago	$a_{n}$
$(n-1)$ days ago	$a_{n-1}$	${\frac {a_{n-1}}{a_{n}}}$
$\cdots$
1 day ago	$a_{1}$	${\frac {a_{1}}{a_{2}}}$
today	$a_{0}$	${\frac {a_{0}}{a_{1}}}$

We can approximate the future growth by the past, and say that an adjusted number of cases can be approximated with:

$a_{0}\cdot {\frac {a_{0}}{a_{1}}}\cdot {\frac {a_{1}}{a_{2}}}\cdot \ldots \cdot {\frac {a_{n-2}}{a_{n-1}}}\cdot {\frac {a_{n-1}}{a_{n}}}$

which is the same as ${\frac {a_{0}^{2}}{a_{n}}}$

As an example, these are the values for the first 10 countries in the list on 2020-03-14:

country	cases today	cases one week ago	adjusted cases today (approx.)
China	80844	80695	80993
Italy	21157	5883	76087
Iran	12729	5823	27825
South Korea	8162	7134	9338
Spain	6391	430	94988
Germany	3795	684	21056
France	4499	949	21329
United States	2794	352	22177
Switzerland	1359	254	7271
United Kingdom	1140	206	6309

These adjusted values may fluctuate with sudden high values, like in the case of Spain.

I hope someone can find this idea useful.

Regards, Julian (talk) 17:18, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Unfortunately, our policies do not allow for original research. - MrX 🖋 20:07, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Wikiversity permits original research per Wikiversity:Wikiversity:Original research. I never did much of anything there, but it could be interesting for the purpose. The above is very interesting. I saw other methods of estimation of actual cases, and those methods also suggest for multiple countries that the actual cases are 10x as many as the reported ones, or even 100x; for countries with comprehensive testing such as South Korea, the factor would not be so bad. One heuristic I saw is this: take the number of deaths and, if the country's healthcare is not overwhelmed, multiply it by 100 and then by 10, thus, by 1000; the 100 is for death rate of 1%, and the factor of 10 accounts for delay in time. It is very approximate, but we need to be clear that the actual cases hugely exceed the reported cases for most countries. --Dan Polansky (talk) 07:28, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, having those maps front and center is wildly misleading. The maps are pretty and it is fun to make them, but they leave the reader dumber than if he hadn't seen the article in the first place. Bury them deep down, with appropriate warnings not to try to draw any conclusions from them. (Better still, remove them - but that would be an uphill battle.) 85.76.71.208 (talk) 14:40, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

I don't know how things work in Wikiversity, but one way they could work is this: there would be a page for research subject and subpages per participant who has anything to publish. There would be e.g. Wikiversity:COVID-19/Julian Mendez, and Wikiversity:COVID-19/Dan Polansky. Each participant would publish their original research on their subpage, and others could comment on the talk page, and the subpage owner would decide which of the comments to incorporate. Maybe someone familiar with Wikiversity could comment. --Dan Polansky (talk) 11:37, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Thank you very much for the suggestion. I have created the subpage at Wikiversity:COVID-19/Julian_Mendez.

I hope this idea helps understanding the number of cases. The long incubation phase and the exponential growth combined could be misleading. People could overlook that the number of cases is considerably greater than the number of reported cases. --Julian (talk) 15:11, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

medium.com/@tomaspueyo draws a similar conclusion; you may find the article, its analysis and graphs interesting; they seem very plausible to me. --Dan Polansky (talk) 15:20, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Comment/caution: Medium is a self-publishing platform and should be treated in the same respect as any other blogging platforms when comes to referencing in Wikipedia. robertsky (talk) 02:25, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

I think the article is very good and gives a consistent view on the global problem. I have the impression that some people still do not wholly understand the importance of social distancing, and this article can help understanding the problem. --Julian (talk) 09:33, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

I support using the source with extra supporting sources, please see my discussion in subsection Global cases rate vs wuhan before lockdown Moneyball99 (talk) 19:05, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

But the reliable source said and we go nuts changing to pandemic in 61 places and countless other pages, but then we don’t trust them when they say it can be controlled? Ridiculous Almaty (talk) 15:18, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Plots with cases and death per capita for the most affected countries

(The following question is already posted in the talk page of 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic by country and territory Talk:2019–20 coronavirus pandemic by country and territory#Plots with cases and death per capita for the most affected countries. I post the question also here because I think it could also be relevant for this article.)

There are now very many countries affected. In most cases absolute numbers are used which neglects small countries. I adapted a Python script to be able to make plots with cases and death per capita automatically for the most affected countries: https://github.com/RainerWinkler/COVID-19-plot. I Uploaded the plots for the current top 10 countries.

Top 10 Countries Cases

Top 10 Countries Deaths

There are six more plots on above link till rank 40 currently. It is easy to see which small countries are now also affected. The plots are easy to be adapted and can be generated by all users. The data is from the European Center for Disease Prevention and Control. Will such plots be helpful here? Malanoqa (talk) 12:09, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Well one would be good. Also it would be nice to get that info into the main chart.--Calthinus (talk) 17:25, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

yes agree w/ Calthinus--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 19:07, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Self-isolation and quarantine

The section has been updated quite a lot over the last few days. The CDC guidance link was removed under WP:EL and four bullet point summary was removed under WP:NOHOWTO. CDC citations were then removed for unknown reasons and the section was rebuilt with very specific NHS guidelines. It now has WP:SYNTH issues and conflicts with WHO and CDC recommendations. Not sure of the best way to keep the Prevention section as accurate as possible but I think it's important that we do. - Wikmoz (talk) 23:38, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

yes it is a very important section--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:33, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

I say revert back to CDC as they are the major us agency — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.135.84.170 (talk) 21:10, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Is this a pandemic?

I am not sure about the definition of a pandemic, but just 0.002% deaths of human population by 17-3-2020... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.39.214.62 (talk) 13:41, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Yes; it was confirmed by the WHO a while ago. Victionarier (talk) 14:09, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Interesting definition.

A pandemic has nothing to do with mortality per se, only with spread. However, for comparison, let's use the Spanish flu. Mortality statistics are still being debated there (wartime, there was censorship and general disruption), but analysis suggests the final mortality rate was somewhere between 1-5% of those infected. India may have had as much as 5% of their entire population die. COVID-19 is in early days yet, so statistics are particularly blurred in both directions (underreporting of mild/asymptomatic cases; unsure outcome of large numbers of unresolved cases) -- but in Italy, nearly 8% of all their COVID-identified patients have died. While Italy does have three complicating factors for mortality, nothing is preventing the rest of the world from following Italy's caseload trajectory. In Italy, all it took was one single person who was not tested because his travel history did not meet the (then) China-region criterion. - Tenebris 66.11.171.90 (talk) 16:59, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

I am talking about actual figures not hypothesis. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.39.214.62 (talk) 21:50, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

It's a pandemic. The WHO says it is. They're the top experts. – Muboshgu (talk) 21:55, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Definition of Pandemic is not catastrophic per itself. The definition is just an epidemic with sustained local propagation in "3+ cointries within 2+ WHO regions". With China, Korea and Iran outbreak, we are pamdemic.

As of now, this pandemic has nearly no effect. By the early numbers this epidemic display, it has the natural properties to be a 1918-like disaster. 2020 is basically lost year. Yug (talk) 05:47, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

In 1918 there was about 2 billion people but now is around 8 billion, we can´t compare both.(please sign post)

via percentages we could 'compare'--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 18:03, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

I remind you that pandemic has not referred to mortality since 2009 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.39.214.62 (talk) 23:05, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 18 March 2020

203.35.135.168 (talk) 23:57, 18 March 2020 (UTC) Australia has announced global travel ban.

 Not done for now: Do you have a source for this? We need a reliable source before we can put it in. MadameButterflyKnife yeah sure.talk 00:10, 19 March 2020 (UTC)