Talk:COVID-19 pandemic in England

Table removed: pls suggest criteria for selecting countries

The following table was removed from the article by User:DeFacto:

Deaths per 100,000 population of all 4 countries of the UK, and others, for comparison (as at 7 May 2020).

Country	# of deaths	Source	Country population (in millions)	# of deaths per 100,000 population
Georgia	9		3.7	0.2
New Zealand	21		5.0	0.4
Norway	216		5.3	3.9
Slovenia	93		2.0	4.7
Austria	606		8.9	6.8
Ireland	1,339		4.8	27.9
Northern Ireland	404		1.8	22.4
Scotland	1,703		5.4	31.5
Wales	1,044		3.2	32.6
Italy	29,684		60.3	48.5
England	27,008		53.0	49.9

References

User:DeFacto stated: 'removed as WP:OR and non-WP:NPOV. Who chose the list of countries, and why those? Where are the disclaimers about the folly of comparing different countries before the data is normalised to take account of all the variables across the different countries?' The flags had already been deleted by the user here, with a note saying 'it's not a competition, per FLAGS'. The 'Flags' link, however, does not mention flags at all.

A comparative table like this should be in the article, as it gives the reader a better understanding of how England compares to other nations.I think every reader would want to know that. The selection was done by another user, I've only adapted the table. So please let me know what criteria we need to use, which would benefit the reader. I suggest:

• all 4 nations + UK
• 4 other similar sized nations to England (eg France, Italy...)
• 3 other nations similar in population to Scotland, Wales and NI.

I think this is a rational way forward rather deleting just for the purpose of deleting (or was it politically motivated, as the statistics for England are the worst in Europe?) Anyway, that's my suggestion. John Jones (talk) 07:17, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

@John Jones: WP:OR states: "This [OR] includes any analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to reach or imply a conclusion not stated by the sources." Perhaps you could clarify which reliable sources use this selection of countries and of data sources to conclude that this is a "Comparison with other nations" and that deaths per 100,000 population of this apparently random disparate collection of countries is somehow representative of anyting. It would help too if you gave the criteria those sources used to select this subset of countries, and why they ignored all the countries with an apparent higher death rate than England. WP:NPOV requires balance, which in this case (assuming sources for its actual inclusion are provided) would include noting the futility in suggesting that, without skilful statistical analysis of all the likely contributory factors to the differences and the differences in how each country counts deaths for the statistics used, and why only lower-rate countries were used, that this comparison tells us absolutely nothing of any encyclopaedic value. -- DeFacto (talk). 09:47, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Now I get your point. 'why only lower-rate countries were used?' because there are no countries with higher rate (other than USA using numbers, and the population isn't the same). England has the worst. You don't want the world to know this? Odd! This is Wikipedia: open, clear, honest. I suggested (my 3 points above) a selection of countries. Just tell me what criteria to use other than similar population then. Re your point on 'the differences in how each country counts deaths' - that's absurd. There are dozens of charts, graphs and tables on Covid-19 mortality rates on Wikipedia and elsewhere, such as this table here which is a feed from this template! If we're looking at per 100,000 capita, the by today there are 3 other countries with higher death rates.

I have another suggestion: a list of the 5 world worst death rates (from my link above) together with the UK 4 nations. That would be fair, relevant and would clarify the situation in a second, to the reader. I look forward to your suggestion in finding a compromise. John Jones (talk) 11:56, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

@John Jones: well you obviously did not get my point, you have not addressed the OR and NPOV issues I raised. For the table to be acceptable, the choice of entries needs to be reliably sourced and the reason for the selection, and the assumptions made about similarity in data collection methods made clear from the source. Picking random countries and using different sources for each is classic WP:OR. We know some countries only include deaths confirmed to be from Covid-19, whereas others also count deaths which may have been related to Covid-19 and some only count hospital deaths whilst others may include care home deaths and community deaths. All this needs to be clear. Also, from the NPOV point of view, the pitfalls of comparisons which do not take into account such things as population density, population age and health profiles and various other potential contributory factors need to be at lest explained. Whatever other articles do is irrelevant to this article. -- DeFacto (talk). 16:53, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Here's my suggestion:

Deaths per 100,000 population of all 4 countries of the UK, (as at 13 May 2020).

Country	# of deaths	Source	Country population (in millions)	# of deaths per 100,000 population
Northern Ireland	404		1.8	22.4
Wales	1 062		3.2	32.6
Scotland	1,847		5.4	36.0
England	27,432		56.0	62.6
United Kingdom	31,241		67.8	55.7

References

— Preceding unsigned comment added by John Jones (talk • contribs) 14:23, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

You're referring to the first table. I suggested an amended, smaller, second table with only the countries in Britain included, and is well sourced as a group - see gov.uk. No random countries selected! Same source for each country. Populations density, age, health and colour of hair are not relevant in any other tables on any websites, eg this one. Your sentence Whatever other articles do is irrelevant to this article. is odd as Wikipedia's policies are across the board. Your response suggests to me that you have ulterior motives in not allowing references to the 4 countries on this article? Question to you: are you connected in any way to Public Health England or the UK Government? John Jones (talk) 13:10, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

We were discussing the first table, I was replying to the post you made before you added the second table. As for your second table, I don't see these rates per head compared in any of the sources, so I'd say it is WP:OR too, and I don't see any balancing explanation for that particular choice, or the statisticians' reservations about making such comparisons, so I'd say it fails WP:NPOV too. Yes, Wiki policies apply across the board, but none of them say you can disregard them if you can find precedents that do disregard them. I'm not sure how the question in your last sentence relates to the content of this article, so I will ignore it as this is the place to discuss article content and not editor CVs. -- DeFacto (talk). 15:16, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

My second table was published on 14:23, 9 May 2020. You then published your comments two and a half hours later on 16:53, 9 May 2020 (UTC). So we were not "discussing the first table"! Please be more careful, as this kind of eroneous editing can distract from the important bit. As all the information in the table come from one source (GOV.UK), there is no research and nothing in WP:OR says otherwise. This is the second time for me to inform you of this. The choice of countries does not need explanation as its pretty obvious that they are all four countries of the UK. But that wording can easily be added. 'the statisticians' reservations about making such comparisons,' - this comment is too general; I see nothing at all in WP:NPOV about statisticians' reservations about making such comparisons. Other sources which make the same comparisons as the table: the Guardian, ONS, BBC etc etc.

I asked the last question just in case you weren't certain of WP:CoI. — Preceding unsigned comment added by John Jones (talk • contribs) 18:20, 13 May 2020 (UTC)

@John Jones: I know when your posts were made, but that is not the point. My post at 16:53 was in reply to your post of 11:56, and I indented it beneath it because of that - and you should not have moved it. Additionally, as you had not signed or indented your post of 14:23, it was not clear who it was from or that it was a relpy to anything, rather than just an anonymous additional remark from someone. Have you read WP:TALKPAGE? -- DeFacto (talk). 06:18, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

@John Jones: as for the second table, you say all the data comes from one source, yet each row has a different reference - please clarify. Reliable sources showing comparisons of the same rows and columns would help support your choice of those. Without that, it could be seen as WP:SYNTH (part of WP:OR) in the way you imply a relationship or valid comparison from bringing together these items in a way not done in the sources. WP:NPOV expects balance (WP:BALASP) and impartiality (WP:IMPARTIAL). This means impartially describing and balancing the available opinions on the value of the comparisons you are implicitly making with this table not just showing sources that you think support your version. Maybe we would also need columns for population density, percentage of population in urban settings, and of health and age profiles too, and maybe others, to ensure we are giving due weight (WP:DUE) to the various aspects related to comparisons. Finally, if you suspected a problem related to WP:COI, you should have followed the guidance it contains, and not brought that concern to an article talk page. -- DeFacto (talk). 06:41, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

If you keep everything in an orderly manner, time structured, no misunderstandings would occur. What I don't understand is why didn't you comment on the second table? Why comment on table 1, even though I had given you a second, amended table?

Here's the the table I used on the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom a few days ago; please structure any comments you may have on this table, not the earlier 2.

Deaths per 100,000 population of all 4 countries of the UK (as seen on www.GOV.UK), as at 9 May 2020.

Country	# of deaths	Country population (in millions)	# of deaths per 100,000 population
Northern Ireland	427	1.8	23.7
Scotland	1,811	5.4	33.5
Wales	1,099	3.2	34.3
England	28,467	5.0	62.6
United Kingdom	31,587	67.8	55.7

References

You say: Reliable sources showing comparisons of the same rows and columns would help support your choice of those. I've answered this elsewhere; the 'reliable sources are www.GOV.UK from which the whole of the table derives; the populations comes from WP. Columns are countries, rows are # of deaths, populations and 'per 100K pop' - a simple formula of the first divided by the second as can be seen on a multitude of websites - I've given you a list of these already.

You say: imply a relationship or valid comparison from bringing together these items in a way not done in the sources. It is done in other sources. It doesn't mention the per 100k capita, but interpreting data is done throughout Wikipedia - the user changes the order of columns interprets the data. I've also added a second source (to the UK per capita): [1], which shows that there is president for the use of the 3rd column in the sources - Uk and therefore all 4 countries. WHO uses this third column throughout its website, as you would well know.

Your suggestion of bringing other columns (density etc) simply complicates the matter. If these three columns are used in the sources (as I've shown above) then that will suffice.

This information is needed by the reader and hiding it is not on; oddly enough, Boris Johnson has hidden similar graphs from their website in the last few days as they showed England in very bad light. Let's move on, lets be transparent, let the data be shown.

John Jones (talk) 08:26, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

@John Jones: the 'orderly manner' for talkpages is described in WP:THREAD and WP:INDENT, and that is the 'manner' I used, and then restored back too after you moved my post. It isn't necessarily purely chronological, as it depends on the insent level too. And as I said, I was replying to your earlier defence of your first table and didn't realise you had proposed the second table because of your ill-formed post (which I later fixed after looking at the page history). I subsequently responded to your second table proposal, in my 06:41, 14 May 2020 post.

Firstly, you cannot use WP as a source for anything, it is not considered to be reliable per WP:UGC. Secondly WP:NPOV doesn't say it's ok to give an unbalanced account if it is simpler, so that isn't an excuse. Thirdly, if we can agree that comparisons should be included, then so long as we (unlike your current offering) give them due weight (per WP:DUE), present them in a balanced way (per WP:NPOV) and avoid OR (per WP:SYNTH). By neutral presentation I mean the inclusion of the other available rates (per pop. density, etc.) and a summary of the dangers of making such comparisons. Here are a few sources describing the folly of trying to compare rates between countries to get inspiration from: on The Guardian website, on the BBC News website, on The Telegraph website and on the FT website. I'm not against presenting the data, but I am very much against presenting a biased picture of the data without giving an overview of how dodgy the comparisons might be. -- DeFacto (talk). 12:15, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for your explanation. I always follow the chronological order, and seldom come across insetting, as it can muddy the waters. I can't see how I'm using Wikipedia as a source, just dividing one number with another, which is perfectly reasonable. The source is GOV.UK. WP:NPOV doesn't either say that you need to make graphics more complicated than you need to. This type of chart is used all over the web, and I've given you links to examples. I've explained why the table lies nicely with WP:DUE, WP:NPOV and WP:SYNTH, but you are yet to give me one line of any of the three where it conflicts. Your examples of "folly of trying to compare rates between countries..." are way out as they deal with many contries and many ways of recording the data. The countries of the UK use the same method (more or less), and they are fed into GOV.UK. The statistics are similar, the comparisons fair. We're not looking for an exact figure, otherwise the exact population number would have been included. TRhiis is a good, clear, unbiased table which the reader will find much easier than trolling through tonnes of text. John Jones (talk) 15:16, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

@John Jones: you said "I can't see how I'm using Wikipedia as a source", well above you said "the populations comes from WP". NPOV is about getting a duly weighted balance on content, not limited by how complex it might be to do that. Did you read the critiques of the various death rate comparisons? They explain the dangers of overly simplistic comparisons, such as these ones based on just one measure - deaths per capita. They point out how various factors (age, pop. density, deprivation, ethnicity, etc., as I mention above) influence deaths, so these need to be explained if you are presenting death rate comparisons without taking those into account. Bare numbers based on one measure give false/fake comparisons, so to omit these pertinent and standard disclaimers and provisos means you are contravening NPOV and potentially misleading readers to believe that the comparisons are fair. I agree that summary tables can aid information digestion, but that doesn't mean they need to be misleading like these are. -- DeFacto (talk). 21:02, 14 May 2020 (UTC)

Really unfair that you are hounding me for the above table, yet the map in the Infobox on the COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom article (and this one!) uses the exact, same criteria, but is a map, rather than a table. Is this acceptable Infobox map an 'overly simplistic comparisons'? Does it contain info on 'age, pop. density, deprivation, ethnicity, etc'? NO! Yet a similar map is perfectly acceptable on over 50 country articles! Secondly, population need not always be referenced on Wikipedia, as they're not always in question. But I can do that, and shall use the references given on each WP country article eg the article on England has pop of 56.2 million and the source is ONS. Happy with that? John Jones (talk) 07:41, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

Also: this map is on the main Coronavirus disease 2019 article:

Total confirmed deaths due to COVID‑19 per million people

I rest my case! John Jones (talk) 08:52, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

@John Jones: please clarify who you are addressing here as it is not clear, the easiest way is to follow WP:THREADING. As far as I can see no-one has been "hounding" you. Perhaps you mean disagreeing with this addition on policy grounds (per WP:CONSENSUS)? -- DeFacto (talk). 10:54, 16 May 2020 (UTC)

Quality assurance

dear Admin. please would u compare with https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_the_United_Kingdom ? .... Wikistallion (talk) 10:02, 9 May 2020 (UTC)

Could you please be more specific? Do you see a discrepancy between this article and the UK one? — Tartan357  ^(Talk) 17:50, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

Split tag

COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom has become too big, and has been tagged as such. It is also a fork from this article. Content relevant to England should be moved to this article. Cell Danwydd (talk) 09:29, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

If an article is a fork, its this one not the UK one. There is no justification for mass stripping of the UK article and inserting it on this one simply because a couple of editors over on the UK page have a problem with it including things that happened in England even though over 80% of the population and deaths of this pandemic have been in England, so its clearly going to have more content relating to that. RWB2020 (talk) 21:17, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

Yes, it is getting unmanageably big, but yes, this one is the fork. Perhaps there would be better ways of splitting the UK article though. Deb (talk) 11:50, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

Other problem is if you split, you have to have context otherwise it just becomes a random dump of information, which means that there is a lot of cross over and thus this article becomes big, however I feel that the timeline section does not need to become as big as the UK page and that will help. Also things like music (UK music scene, never UK sport scene etc), defence (within reason) and R&D are not specific to a nation per se. We are Capable of having a decent article, but it does not need to become a random dumping ground with zero context to the reader just because one editor states that it relates to England (which we already have seen in this article). Games of the world (talk) 12:43, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

England has no government of its own, so a lot of information that pertains to England also pertains to the entire UK. I don’t think it’s a good idea to split content into a more specific article unless that content is wholly within the scope of the destination article. I’m not saying this page doesn’t have merit, but I do think we need to be careful of expanding it beyond its scope. If the problem is that the UK page is too long, we should simply shorten it. — Tartan357  ^(Talk) 17:41, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

Undue

"Advice displayed on Matrix signs in Pontefract" seems undue. All the best: Rich Farmbrough 20:28, 26 June 2020 (UTC).

Could you please be more specific? — Tartan357  ^(Talk) 17:42, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

It seems hardly necessary to be "more specific", as the quoted text was a sub-heading on the page. I agree with Rich Farmbrough, and have removed it. MichaelMaggs (talk) 16:20, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

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

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• NHS mural seen during the COVID-19 pandemic on the Baxtergate side of the Horse Vaults pub in Pontefract (23rd May 2020).jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 09:37, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

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

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• NHS mural seen during the COVID-19 pandemic on the Baxtergate side of the Horse Vaults pub in Pontefract (23rd May 2020).jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 01:11, 25 February 2021 (UTC)

From or with Covid?

The article uses the expression 'deaths from Covid' throughout, but I think it should be deaths with Covid.

The definitions used are:

(a) Covid is mentioned on the death certificate (does not mean it is the sole cause of death). (b) Person tested positive for Covid in the 28 days before s/he died. (This does not mean s/he died of Covid, necessarily, or that it was the sole cause of death).

(c) Additionally there is excess mortality - the number of deaths over and above what would normally be expected. (These would not all be people who had Covid.)

According to the BBC https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-51768274 the UK figures were:

a) 152,490 (13/3/20 - 11/6/21) b) 128,089 as at 26/6/21 c) 115,738 (13/3/20 - 11/6/21) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 82.47.135.239 (talk) 16:43, 26 June 2021 (UTC)