Talk:Chinese government response to COVID-19/Archive 2

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

"hide information about" in the opening sentence.

I recently changed the opening sentence to read During the COVID-19 pandemic in mainland China, the government of China and the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) took various actions to prevent the spread of and to hide information about COVID-19. The part about hiding information was my addition. It has since been removed at least twice, and re-added at least once, with the result that it is no longer in the article.

I think it belongs. This article was started in part to contain information in the now-redirected article China COVID-19 cover-up allegations. The community felt that it was better to have the information in that article presented in this one instead. Fine. But if so, then this article should actually present the information from that article. Otherwise, it's not really a merge-and-redirect, which was the intent.

Furthermore, considerable portions of the article pertain to China's ongoing attempts to hide information. Some of these have now been deleted, and some of those deletions are questionable, which is an issue I will take up separately. That said, we still have a section on Early censorship and police responses, and a lengthy section on censorship and propaganda. Considerable portions of other sections, including the section on Xi's actions, Xinjiang, and virus origin investigations, also pertain to hiding of information. So per MOS:LEAD, it belongs. Adoring nanny (talk) 00:47, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

The intent of the merge and redirect was to have a broader article about the Chinese government response to COVID-19, rather than one more narrowly focused on a particular point of view.

It seems to me that the main instance of "hiding information about COVID-19" that this article actually covers is the warning to Dr. Li Wenliang in the first days by local police not to post information on Weixin. This was in the days after the health authorities in Wuhan publicly announced the outbreak. Boiling this down to "hid[ing] information about COVID-19" is very partial, because the government also took many steps to spread information about the outbreak, and because it conflates actions taken by local officials with national government actions.

I don't know what is meant by hiding information about Xinjiang: data on cases in Xinjiang is published just like data on cases from all other provinces. This data is actually very granular, often down to the level of the neighborhood, age and gender of each person who tests positive, along with a list of the places they've recently visited. This is a typical example of such a report. I know we currently make a statement in the article about information from Xinjiang being uncertain. The statement is sourced to an article in an American popular magazine that couches the statement as a claim made by a human rights activist. We can't put such a claim in Wikivoice, much less use it as the basis for a Wikivoice claim in the opening sentence of the article.

In addition to that, I don't see why "Chinese Communist Party (CCP)" was added to the opening sentence. It has become fashionable in the US (particularly since Pompeo became Secretary of State, I believe) to constantly inject "Chinese Communist Party" or "CCP" (or both) into every discussion of the Chinese government, usually in a sinister tone of voice. On Wikipedia, it just does not come across as neutral writing. We're discussing the actions of the Chinese government. I think everyone knows which party rules China, and that can be mentioned in the body of the article where relevant.

Stepping back for a moment, I've actually felt for a while that the entire opening sentence is superfluous. I don't see what it adds to the article. Yes, just like almost all governments, the Chinese government took steps to prevent or slow the spread of the virus. I would be in favor of removing the first sentence entirely. If we do feel the need to include some pithy opening sentence to frame the topic, it should focus on the most prominent aspect of China's governmental response to COVID-19, which is the Zero-COVID policy. That is the policy that has dominated China's pandemic response over the last two years, and which continues to dominate it. -Thucydides411 (talk) 02:00, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

I'd be OK with that, provided we bring back the cover-up article for cover-up-related information. Of course, that would take a community decision. We might want to retitle this article in such a case. Adoring nanny (talk) 21:33, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

That would be a WP:POVFORK. Wikipedia is supposed to cover topics of encyclopedic value in a balanced way, and creating articles that specifically cover (or even promote) specific points of view on current events is not in line with that mission. -Thucydides411 (talk) 02:08, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Indeed we already cover information regarding this and creating seperate article for it should not be done as previous consensus indicates. Corinal (talk) 03:33, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Fine, but the decision was "Merge and redirect", not "Merge then delete". If we don't want to revisit the existing "Merge and redirect" consensus, our opening sentence should remain consistent with both that consensus. And it should definitely remain consistent with WP:LEAD. Adoring nanny (talk) 12:32, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Why not put it as a separate sentence later on in the LEAD? Perhaps even as a partial attribution: Some commentators (e.g XYZ) have decried the actions of the Chinese government as intended to cover up the disease early on. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 12:34, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

The "hide information about" does not need attribution. And I think it's parallel with the Government's attempts to fight the disease. This article was intended to encompass both topics. The phrase "Government response to" supports that, and I think the choice of title was deliberately made to do so. In light of that, I think it would be inappropriate to have the lead favor one aspect of the "government response" over the other. Both are aspects of the Gov't response, and the sourcing for both is overwhelming. Adoring nanny (talk) 12:39, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

@Shibbolethink: The lede already has almost an entire paragraph dedicated to criticism of the Chinese government censorship:

Some have criticised the censorship of information that might be unfavorable for local officials. Observers have attributed this to a culture of institutional censorship affecting the country's press and Internet. The government censored whistleblowers, journalists and social media posts about the outbreak. During the beginning of the pandemic, the Chinese government made efforts to clamp down on discussion and hide reporting about it. Efforts to fund and control research into the virus's origins and to promote fringe theories about the virus have continued up to the present.

I actually think this subject might have too much weight in the lede, at the moment. This paragraph also contains somewhat inaccurate statements, particularly when it says, the Chinese government made efforts to clamp down on discussion and hide reporting about it. This seems to imply that the Chinese government tried to hide the existence of the outbreak, which is not true. The outbreak was announced in official news channels, including CCTV (state media), on 31 December 2019. What is true is that various levels of government tried to control the release of information for various reasons (e.g., avoiding causing panic, preventing preliminary/uncertain information from coming out). This paragraph needs some rewriting to make it clearer that existence of the outbreak was not kept secret, but that there were some efforts to control release of information. -Thucydides411 (talk) 14:30, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Yeah.... I have no idea why this is not enough. I think this is a perfect proportionality to the coverage in our sources, agree it may almost be too much. It's basically 50ish% of the lead at this point, but not 50ish% of the sources. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 16:14, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

The problem here is MOS:FIRST. The Chinese Govt response has had two main components. Other than the very beginning, one has been COVID zero. The other is information hiding. Both should be set out right at the start, before going into detail. Adoring nanny (talk) 12:10, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

I think this is a perfect proportionality to the coverage in our sources ← There are many sources that have yet to be added to the page, like this critical report by Tom Mitchell of Financial Times [7] this revelational report by Nick Walsh of CNN [8] or this report by the staff of the BBC [9]. The lead of the article on the Chinese government's response to what it perceived as an overpopulation crisis in the 1970s is also largely critical, and there is no two ways about it. ScrumptiousFood (talk) 16:14, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

I believe the content in those articles is already sufficiently covered in #Early censorship and police responses, #Case and death count statistics #Xi Jinping's actions, and #Virus origin investigations. however, if you disagree, I would suggest that you first write a draft of how you would introduce these sources into those sections, and then provide that draft here for others to weigh in on.

It is overall necessary to first introduce such things to the body of the article before making changes to the WP:LEAD, as the lead is meant to summarize the body.

We know such changes are going to be contentious, so the best way to avoid any edit warring or frustrating reverts (I know they can be quite frustrating) is to workshop the changes before mass introducing them. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 23:50, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

RfC: first paragraph

The following discussion is an archived record of a request for comment. Please do not modify it. No further edits should be made to this discussion. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

This RfC concerns how much weight should be given to one of the aspects of the Chinese government's response to COVID. More specifically, the discussion revolved around whether the criticism of censorship and misinformation, present at the end of the lede currently, should be moved to the first paragraph due to its perceived importance to the topic.

The discussion that occurred before the RfC clarifies the reasoning for the change: another article, focused on the criticism of China's government, was merged into this one, and as such, equal prominence should be given to the criticism levied against the government, while currently the lede is mostly focused on the Zero COVID response. While the RfC opened with two options – the status quo and the one focusing on the misinformation –, a third option was soon added (Z).

Much of the remaining discussion was focused on WP:WEIGHT and what made more sense to be highlighted in the opening paragraph of the article. Those in favor of the status quo (option A) say the Zero COVID response is the most notable aspect of this topic, while also noting that option B goes too hard on the other side and can be seen as biased towards a specific point of view.

Option B didn't receive much support by itself, with most editors favoring option Z, which was seen as a fair compromise between A and B. Participants who favored Z noted that, while the policies used to stop the spread of COVID were notable (and remain the main way to keep numbers down on China), the initial controversies, including censorship, received a lot of attention by the press, with articles still being published on the subject. It was also noted that option Z doesn't suffer from the NPOV apparent in B.

There is clear consensus to use option Z for the opening paragraph, a compromise which was favored by those who would also have preferred A and those who would've preferred B. It is important to note though, that many editors, while believing Z would make for a good opener for the article, it still needs some more rewriting. I will also note that participants seem to agree that the lede needs to have its size reduced, and might want to open a new thread to workshop the necessary changes.

-- (non-admin closure) Isabelle ^🏳‍🌈 17:54, 25 April 2022 (UTC)

---

Please give your opinion as to which is a better first paragraph:

1. Option A: current wording: During the COVID-19 pandemic in mainland China, the government of China has followed a zero COVID strategy to prevent the spread of COVID-19. After discovery of a cluster of patients with pneumonia of unknown etiology in Wuhan, Hubei Province, a public notice on the outbreak was distributed on 31 December 2019. On 8 January 2020, a new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) was announced by Chinese scientists as the cause of the new disease.
2. Option B: During the COVID-19 pandemic in mainland China, the government of China pursued a zero-COVID strategy to prevent the domestic spread of COVID-19. The government of China has also responded to the pandemic with censorship, secrecy, and misinformation.
3. Option Z: During the COVID-19 pandemic in mainland China, the government of China pursued a zero-COVID strategy to prevent the domestic spread of COVID-19. Aspects of the response have been controversial, with the zero-COVID approach being praised and the government's lack of transparency, censorship, and spread of misinformation being criticized
4. Something else (please specify).

Adoring nanny (talk) 17:58, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

Sources

• Option B is better in two ways. First of all, the timeline that is in the current version just doesn't belong. Secondly, per MOS:FIRST, the first sentence is supposed to

  tell the nonspecialist reader what or who the subject is, and often when or where.

  Misinformation, secrecy, and censorship are a considerable part of this subject, both in terms of quantity (see the list below) and importance. The the opening of the article should reflect this. However, putting all those three, plus covid-zero, into the first sentence, would make it too cluttered. Moving the misinformation, secrecy, and censorship to the second sentence is therefore a reasonable way to handle it.

The importance is demonstrated by sources that wonder if the pandemic might have been prevented if China hadn't been so intent on controlling information during the early stages[10][11]. The list:

I am also OK with Jumpytoo's Option Z below.

Adoring nanny (talk) 17:58, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

• Option A for two reasons:

1. The most notable aspect of the Chinese government response to COVID-19, by a very large margin, is the zero-COVID policy. This is the policy that has continuously dominated the Chinese response to the pandemic for the last two years, and it has been continuously discussed in the media on a massive scale. In contrast, the allegations of censorship, secrecy and misinformation refer principally to a relatively small number of incidents in the first weeks of the pandemic, many of which did not even involve the national government (e.g., local officials in Wuhan reprimanded Dr. Li Wenliang for sharing preliminary information on social media).
2. The phrase, responded to the pandemic with censorship, secrecy and misinformation is an extremely selective rendering of events. As is well documented, Chinese agencies, officials and scientists also publicized the initial outbreak in Wuhan and published information about the virus extremely rapidly, compared what has happened in previous pandemics around the world. Local public health authorities in Wuhan began alerting hospitals to look out for pneumonia cases on 30 December 2019. The Chinese government publicly announced the outbreak in Wuhan on 31 December 2019 (including announcing it on national TV) and alerted the WHO. This was merely 4 days after the first suspicious test results came back in Wuhan (27 December 2019). The Chinese government briefed the US government about what it knew about the outbreak and the novel coronavirus on 3 January 2020. It publicly announced that a novel coronavirus was the cause of the pneumonia outbreak on 7 January. On 11 January, the scientist Zhang Yongzhen published the genome on virological.org and GenBank (he uploaded the sequence on 5 January, but it wasn't immediately published). The main arguments made in favor of characterizing the government's response as secretive are that local officials reprimanded Dr. Li Wenliang for sharing information on social media (around the time the outbreak was publicly announced for the first time), that the National Health Commission (NHC) placed restrictions on which labs could handle samples (based on Chinese biosafety regulations that kicked in once it became apparent that SARS-CoV-2 was a dangerous pathogen), and that the NHC required new information to be approved before publication (which could be seen either as censorship or a desire to vet information, or a mix of both). This includes allegations that Zhang Yongzhen was punished for publishing the genome without authorization. He himself disputes the claim that he was punished. Whether the several-day delay between sequencing the genome and publishing it was an unacceptable delay or "appropriate verification" ([12]) is up for debate. However, the picture is far more complicated than just "censorship, secrecy and misinformation", and headlining that simplistic formula in the lede is simply WP:POV.

Note that these issues are already discussed in the lede as-is. By my count, there are currently five sentences in the lede about censorship, secrecy and misinformation. The proposal above (Option B) is to give them far more prominence than they already have, by putting them right in the 2nd sentence of the lede.

Finally, I want to point out that the motivation that Adoring Nanny has given above for Option B is utterly unscientific. Adoring Nanny is suggesting that the pandemic might have been prevented if China hadn't been so intent on controlling information during the early stages. Scientifically speaking, this is extremely dubious. The virus had already spread beyond China by 8 January 2020 at the very latest, when an infected person flew to Thailand, and it is strongly suspected that it spread out of China earlier than that. The idea that China would have gone from discovering a novel virus (which had already been spreading inside China undetected for over a month, and possibly already outside of China) to completely preventing its spread in just over one week is fanciful, to say the least. Using that suggestion as a rationale for reformulating the lede is just wrong. -Thucydides411 (talk) 19:58, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

@Thucydides411: I agree with a lot of what you say, but I think you are taking far too harsh of a stance when it comes to assessing due weight. There are reliable sources that say China's response in the earliest days of the crisis may have made it worse. They also paint a somewhat different timeline: Li was forced on January 3 by police to sign a letter saying he spread “untrue speech” for warning colleagues about the virus. From the AP: Chinese government labs only released the genome after another lab published it ahead of authorities on a virologist website on Jan. 11. Even then, China stalled for at least two weeks more on providing WHO with detailed data on patients and cases, according to recordings of internal meetings held by the U.N. health agency through January — all at a time when the outbreak arguably might have been dramatically slowed.

Much of this is covered in the article in the Censorship and propaganda section. I think their censorship/propaganda, especially initially, is due weight for the lede. I don't think Option B is the way to do that, but I do think an fourth option is needed. ––FormalDude talk 19:21, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

@FormalDude: It's not a question of whether issues like the silencing of Li Wenliang should be covered, but rather what weight they should have, and whether the coverage should be one-sided. The formula that China's response has been characterized by censorship, secrecy and misinformation is extremely one-sided and polemic. There is an entirely different view, which I also see expressed quite often in academic literature and public health journals, which is that China's response was very fast by international standards. For example, this is from a "newsdesk" piece in The Lancet:

“The speed of China's response was the crucial factor”, explains Gregory Poland, director of the Vaccine Research Group at the Mayo Clinic (Rochester, Minnesota, USA). “They moved very quickly to stop transmission. Other countries, even though they had much longer to prepare for the arrival of the virus, delayed their response and that meant they lost control”. The first reported cases of the disease that came to be known as COVID-19 occurred in Wuhan, Hubei province, in late December 2019. China released the genomic sequence of the virus on Jan 10, 2020, and began enacting a raft of rigorous countermeasures later in the same month.

The initial weeks after the first cases were discovered in Wuhan were extremely confusing and chaotic. This is also the time period in which almost all the accusations of secrecy come from. The story is much more complicated than an all-knowing Chinese government hiding information about the outbreak. Government officials were just as often in the dark. This is why, for example, the central government sent a team (led by Zhong Nanshan) to Wuhan on 18 January 2020, to try to determine what the true situation was. The team reported back to the central government that there was human-to-human transmission, and Zhong Nanshan announced that on national television the same day. That's what triggered the lockdown of Wuhan, which was an unprecedentedly drastic move at the time. Again, reducing all of this to censorship, secrecy and misinformation is one-sided and simplistic, and strikes me as more polemic than informative. These issues should be mentioned in the lede and discussed in the body, but putting such a simplistic formula in the 2nd sentence of the lede is just WP:POV. -Thucydides411 (talk) 22:17, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

• Option Z As I noted earlier in the pre-RfC discussion I have concerns with it being awkward from suddenly jumping topics, and noted how the lede is overall too lengthy (but topic for another day/WP:IMPERFECT). But to answer the RfC directly, here is my counter-proposal (noting that it would work better with the shortened lede proposal I noted in the pre-discussion): During the COVID-19 pandemic in mainland China, the government of China pursued a zero-COVID strategy to prevent the domestic spread of COVID-19. Aspects of the response have been controversial, with the zero-COVID approach being praised and the government's lack of transparency, censorship, and spread of misinformation being criticized.

Sources
References

Jumpytoo Talk 21:10, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

Yes this would be acceptable to me as a compromise. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 20:35, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

I would want to say, though "being criticized" adds very little here and just makes the grammar confusing. I think we should just end the sentence after "spread of misinformation" and then resume the previous paragraph's sentences in Option A. @Jumpytoo, thoughts? — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 23:29, 18 February 2022 (UTC)

"being criticized" is to fit in with the "aspects of the response have been controversial", so I don't think it'll be better by removing the "being criticized". Though, I went through a variation while drafting this, which was The zero-COVID approach has been praised as contributing towards an effective response[1][2], while there has also been criticism on the government's lack of transparency[3][4], censorship[5][6], and spread of misinformation[7]. Do you think some variation of this would be better? Jumpytoo Talk 04:16, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

Yes I think that version reads quite a bit better. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 19:53, 20 February 2022 (UTC)

• Option B. Option A or Z - Jumpytoo - I would perceive the sentence re: misinformation and secrecy as biased in favor of a certain Sinophobic POV. I believe the current wording covers the most important aspects of this topic in proportion to their coverage in our WP:BESTSOURCES. It includes the allegations, it includes some of the controversies, but it importantly does not put them in wiki-voice when we do not have a wide breadth of reliable sources making these claims. We only have a wide breadth of sources stating that the claims exist, not stating that they are true. EDIT: I would accept Jumpytoo's alternative proposal as a compromise (edited last 20:36, 16 February 2022 (UTC)) — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 22:12, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

@Shibbolethink: are you implying that those arguing that the Chinese government's response to COVID-19 was repressive, and that it should be included as such in the first sentence per MOS:FIRST, are Sinophobic? Do you think the Chinese government represents all Chinese people like myself? They do not. CutePeach (talk) 14:37, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

I would say the sentence is an anti-Chinese Government POV. Most who are arguing this do not appear to be Chinese. Most who are arguing against it do not appear to be Chinese. Ethnicity probably has very little to do with it. Sinophobic can be either anti-Chinese ethnicity or anti-Chinese government. Per Anti-Chinese sentiment and [13] [14] [15] [16] [17] — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 18:18, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

The term Sinophobic can be either anti-Chinese ethnicity/culture or anti-China, being anti-government is not included in any of the definitions. This is made clear in the opening sentence of Anti-Chinese sentiment which you linked. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:24, 17 February 2022 (UTC)

Your reasoning and choice of option seem inconsistent. Did you mean something different? Adoring nanny (talk) 22:53, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

Yes, thank you. Fixed. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 08:56, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

• Option A While the sentence about censorship and conspiracy theories belongs to that article, the by far most striking feature of the response was not the conspiracy theories or the obstruction of efforts to investigate the origins of the virus but the zero-COVID policy (and the quite frankly draconian measures that accompanied it) - at least this is the impression I have from reading media coverage of China during COVID-19. The wording in B (or any other wording that would include the words in the first paragraph) is also faulty as the "censorship, secrecy and propaganda" beg for elaboration (censorship of what?, secrecy about what? propaganda about what / for/against whom?) in the first sentence. Given that these were far from the main points of the public health authorities' response against COVID-19, this definitely does not belong in the first paragraph of the lead. We already have a dedicated one for that, which explains more than well the stuff that the OP seeks to introduce in the first paragraph of the lead. Szmenderowiecki (talk) 23:59, 15 February 2022 (UTC)
• Option B or Z. - The most notable aspect of the Chinese government response to COVID-19 is unquestionably the censorship and suppression, and an independent panel appointed by the WHO Director Geneal to review its pandemic response was critical of both China and the WHO's early response [18] [19] [20]. RS continue to cover this aspect of China's pandemic response, such as this January 2022 New York Times article remembering Li Wenliang, and this January 2021 New York Times article describing the Chinese Communist Party's initial and ongoing censoring of covid in vivid detail. A large part of this article covers this aspect and from a cursory glance, it is missing many details, like the underreporting (pushed into the International Reactions section even though it is attributed to Chinese CDC, Chinese public health officials, and netizens). Pious Brother (talk) 06:42, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

  The most notable aspect of the Chinese government response to COVID-19 is unquestionably the censorship and suppression: Not the fact that China eliminated local transmission in April 2020, and has followed a zero-COVID policy for two years to prevent the virus from re-establishing itself in the country? What do you base your assessment on? There has been much more extensive media coverage of the zero-COVID policy than of any other aspect of China's response, and that coverage has been continuous over the last two years. This is the major policy that affects the way that 1.4 billion people in the country live their everyday lives. -Thucydides411 (talk) 16:43, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

• Z Jumpytoo's sounds good. 2600:8804:6600:45:6C9E:D5C7:82C2:A0E9 (talk) 20:19, 16 February 2022 (UTC)
• The whole lead could use some work. There's a bit too much detail about dates and the history of COVID-19, when the focus should be on the Chinese government response. I'd like to see the lead move toward a 4 paragraph format: P1 zero-COVID, P2 Wuhan and the initial outbreak, P3 criticism, P4 largest exporter. Sandbox example. I will also point out that the current paragraph 7 contains plenty of criticism of the Chinese government, and could be expanded if anything is missing, so I don't think it essential that criticism be included in paragraph 1. So I am in favor of Option A at this time. Although I could probably support a compromise that is somewhere between A and Z, if one materializes. My issue with Option Z is it is too negative, listing 1 positive thing and 3 negative things about the Chinese government response in the last sentence. China's response wasn't that bad. They quickly contained the outbreak to Wuhan, and got their country back to normal. My impression is that it was more successful than unsuccessful, and I think our first paragraph should reflect this. –Novem Linguae (talk) 22:15, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

  Re: option Z being too negative, I would agree. I think it's a good starting point. but we need an overhaul in general. We should, though, not let the perfect be the enemy of the good for now. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 23:28, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

• Z Seems to cover all significant viewpoints. A leaves those out, whereas B appears to imply that censorship etc was a response to the pandemic, rather than a byproduct of the system. From sources, e.g. [21] [22] [23], it's obvious that overall, throughout the entire timespan of the pandemic, zero-covid is the main guiding principle. Pieceofmetalwork (talk) 10:18, 17 February 2022 (UTC)
• B or Z with strong opposition to A. I'm just really not seeing the argument for whitewashing/censoring it... Especially when part of the content itself is about censorship and whitewashing. Horse Eye's Back (talk) 16:24, 17 February 2022 (UTC)
• B or Z per Adoring nanny and Horse Eye's Back. Oppose A as whitewashing. ScrumptiousFood (talk) 18:58, 17 February 2022 (UTC)
• None of these are very good, but option A is the least bad. Options B and Z focus too much on the censorship and misinformation, which is basically a side issue (it should probably be mentioned in the lead, but probably not the first paragraph). Option Z is also a little misleading – the zero-COVID strategy has actually gotten both praise and criticism, not just praise. An additional problem with options B and Z is that they use the past tense ("pursued"), implying that the zero-COVID strategy is over, when in fact it is ongoing – we should use the present perfect ("has pursued"/"has followed") instead. All three versions are somewhat hard to evaluate because some of the references are undefined, so I'm not sure what sources are supposed to be cited for those. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 12:33, 19 February 2022 (UTC)
• Z first, then B It's important to mention the Chinese government's controversial practices because it has extensively been covered by WP:RS. I would like to point out and concur with the sources provided by Pious Brother. I agree with Pieceofmetalwork with his analysis of A and B. Iamreallygoodatcheckers (talk) 06:14, 20 February 2022 (UTC)
• Z first, then B. I don't have much to add to the discussion so far. A is least informative. B is most controversial. Z looks like a reasonable perspective. JonRichfield (talk) 14:59, 20 February 2022 (UTC)
• Z is helpful. – SJ + 21:44, 21 February 2022 (UTC)
• A. per Mx. Granger. Chinese censorship is absolutely worth noting somewhere in the lead (and we do note it already), but it is not a defining feature of coverage or of the Chinese response; even the sources presented here for use in the lead treat it as an example of China's general tendency towards censorship and propaganda rather than something unique to COVID-19. Z is an improvement over B but still comes across as too stridently placing undue emphasis on a relatively narrow slice of coverage (compared to the overall scope of COVID in China as a whole.) --Aquillion (talk) 11:15, 26 February 2022 (UTC)
• A. After my discussion above with Thucydides411, I do agree with them. Throughout this RfC, the reasoning against option Z has been more convincing than the supporting argument–mainly an honest analysis of MOS:BEGIN taking into account NPOV and due weight. Option A is the best way to start the lede because it is the most accurate summary identifying the topic of the article. The rest of the lede does need some work, as pointed out by Novem Linguae. ––FormalDude talk 12:12, 26 February 2022 (UTC)
• Z-2 The Chinese government's first response to the outbreak was to cover it up. I don't know about the MOS:FIRST argument because the cover-up requires too much detail for the first sentence. MOS:OPEN is more relevant and the cover-up should be detailed in the opening paragraph Gimiv (talk) 21:30, 3 March 2022 (UTC)

  The Chinese government's first response to the outbreak was to cover it up. This is just factually incorrect. The Chinese government publicly announced the outbreak on national television on 31 December 2019, just days after doctors in Wuhan discovered the first cases. This is even before Dr. Li Wenliang was reprimanded by local police. Various levels of Chinese government (local, provincial, national) had different reactions, and there were attempts to control the flow of information that officials thought would cause panic (just as there were in the US - Trump later admitted to withholding information for this very reason). However, there was no attempt to cover up the existence of the outbreak, and in fact, the outbreak was immediately announced on the most-watched TV channel in China. -Thucydides411 (talk) 16:05, 20 March 2022 (UTC)

• First choice is B as per MOS:FIRST explained by Adoring nanny but I agree also with Gimiv on pushing to second or third sentence as per MOS:OPEN. Second choice is Z as per Jumpytoo, but the "praise" part is WP:UNDUE, as that praise was rapidly replace with criticism, as seen in this Guardian article [24] and this Washington Post article [25]. The WHO continued praising China even after that [26], and Associated Press explained that it was the WHO's way of getting China to cooperate [27] [28]. Even CNN criticised the WHO for praising China [29], and the Atlantic described how China deceived the WHO [30], while Trump overrode much of his early praise with criticism [31]. The only praise China got is for its later response, such as supposedly quashing the virus in Wuhan, but even that was questioned - by Chinese CDC staff no less [32]

[33]. I think these sources are of higher quality than the two sources provided by Jumpytoo citing the praise. CutePeach (talk) 15:11, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

• Since the RfC is solely asking about the first paragraph, then based on how the current lead section is written right now, Option A makes the most sense, as it is filled with dates and events, and can transition and flow smoothly to the next paragraph (which begins with "On 23 January 2020, the Chinese government banned travel to"...). But I agree with Novem Linguae's comment above and think the whole lead section could use some re-writing and restructuring in general. The sandbox that was linked in their comment is a good starting point on how the current intro of this article could be organized. Some1 (talk) 23:17, 13 March 2022 (UTC)
• Z is my favorite of the options provided, although I think it needs further editing from here and should not be considered a "final" product. —Compassionate727 ^(T·C) 14:26, 17 March 2022 (UTC)
• Z agree with CutePeach and Compassionate727. The lead need further editing. LondonIP (talk) 13:45, 20 March 2022 (UTC)
• A for the reasons stated by numerous editors already. Corinal (talk) 03:12, 21 March 2022 (UTC)
• I do not particularly like either of these options. Option A can be read in two ways: the first sentence being completely distinct from the following sentences (in which a paragraph break would be necessary); or the second sentence linearly following the first, resulting in the order reading wrong. B and Z should both note that the government originally did censorship, but largely changed course since (except for some officials continuing to occasionally do otherwise). SWinxy (talk) 04:03, 22 March 2022 (UTC)
• Z does a good job. (My second choice would be A.) Bondegezou (talk) 14:46, 23 March 2022 (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.

SCMP article on November 17 cases

@Thucydides411: I don't see any good reason for deleting the SCMP article about the November 17 cases [34]. It was covered by multiple secondary sources [35] [36] [37] [38]. Gimiv (talk) 17:16, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

The claim was never substantiated, and subsequent investigations have maintained 1 December 2019 as the date of the earliest known case (by symptom onset). For example, the WHO mission report lists the 1 December case, but not 17 November.

While there is actual documentation for the 1 December case, no documentation has ever been produced for the supposed 17 November case. All there is is the claim by one news article that a suspected case exists, but there's been no follow-up to actually substantiate the claim. Was this a suspected case that was later ruled out? Was this just a mistake by the reporter or the person talking to the reporter? We have no idea, because all there is is one claim that was never investigated further. There were other newspapers at the time that cited the SCMP article, and among the mass of literature on SARS-CoV-2, there are some articles that mention the 17 November claim. The epidemiological modeling paper you cited uses 17 November as one of its possible scenarios, but it doesn't actually provide any new information on whether the case actually existed.

In other words, this is a dubious claim that has never been substantiated, and 1 December 2019 is generally taken as the symptom onset date of the first known case. -Thucydides411 (talk) 20:05, 28 May 2022 (UTC)

These sources back up the SCMP article. FobTown (talk) 20:59, 29 May 2022 (UTC)

I'm sorry, did you forget to list the sources you're talking about? -Thucydides411 (talk) 19:12, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

Unless you have sources challenging the SCMP's claim, it should not be removed just because a Wikipedia editor doesn't like it. Please keep your posts short and stick to one argument at a time. Gimiv (talk) 01:53, 30 May 2022 (UTC)

Those is an extraordinary claim, which is contradicted by the most authoritative investigation of early cases to date (the WHO mission report). There really has to be strong sourcing for this sort of claim, and one news report from early in the pandemic (which is what the subsequent sources reference) does not constitute strong sourcing. It's important to get information about the origins of the pandemic right, and I don't think a cavalier attitude is appropriate. -Thucydides411 (talk) 19:17, 30 May 2022 (UTC)