Talk:COVID-19 pandemic/Archive 37

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'Pandemic' or 'Global pandemic'

The word 'global' has recently been inserted into the first sentence of the article to describe the pandemic. Is this adjective necessary or not? It might be, given the contents of the Pandemic article, but maybe it isn't, given the WHO definition; [1]. Three of us have been discussing it here, and as you can see, there are conflicting views and references. I thought it best to come here for a quick resolution (hopefully by a !vote and consensus we can avoid wasting too much time on this matter). The issue is, perhaps, minor, but ideally we should have consistency throughout the COVID-related articles. At the moment there is no such consistency. I'll kick it off with this proposal:

A pandemic is, by definition, global, so the adjective is not needed:

• Support. The WHO reference, noted above, describes a pandemic as '...the worldwide spread of a new disease. '. We should adopt WHO usage. Arcturus (talk)
• Oppose removing adjective "global". At that discussion on my talk page, I provided substantial evidence that a pandemic is not by definition global - I did that by providing actual definitions, the majority of which say otherwise. And no, we should not simply adopt the WHO usage - both Wikipedia, and the English language itself, go by common usage. If consistency is the goal, we should consistently use the adjective "global". Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 18:13, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

  I'll just add that if there's a genuine ambiguity about a definition, I think Wikipedia should use the most informative presentation - we're pretty big on disambiguation here. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 18:25, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose removal - Whole heartedly agree with Boing! - Most if not ALL of the world has referred to this as a global pandemic and news sources too have referred to it as such[2], As per COMMONUSAGE we should label this a global pandemic irrespective of whether "pandemic" means global or not. –Davey2010^Talk 18:21, 28 June 2020 (UTC)
• Strong support: There is nothing such as a "regional pandemic", hence i find the prependation of 'global' redundant. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Leaderofthewave. (talk • contribs) 20:30, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

  Do you have a source to support that assertion? Here's a couple of sources from the list of definitions I have already provided...

  • Dictionary.com: "..a pandemic disease is an epidemic that has spread over a large area, that is, it’s “prevalent throughout an entire country, continent, or the whole world." By that definition you can have a country-wide pandemic, a continent-wide pandemic and a worldwide pandemic.
  • Cambridge Dictionary: "(of a disease) existing in almost all of an area or in almost all of a group of people, animals, or plants." It adds "In some parts of the world malaria is still pandemic", so it gives a specific example of a regional pandemic.

  Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 19:55, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

• mild oppose to change. It is coherent with our own definitions. Also nothing forbid us to do a pleonasm. Iluvalar (talk) 20:31, 28 June 2020 (UTC)
• Remove "global". It is redundant. If others in the world use "global", it is just excess embellishment to be accompanied with wild hand waving. We might as well say it is a "global pandemic that is everywhere high and low around the world spreading to all populations!" Beside that there is a map right next to the lead that shows where it has spread. Richard-of-Earth (talk) 21:31, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

Urgent fix and at least in need for citation over ridiculous sentence

"On June 29, 2020, the coronavirus was announced that it is going to end on November 30, 2020 because the scientist were able to make the cure for the outbreak by that time."

What??? Source!!!!!— Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.210.177.104 (talk • contribs)

 Done. It was vandalism. It's been removed. Good catch! --McSly (talk) 22:37, 29 June 2020 (UTC)

Thank you McSly!

When is the coronavirus going to end

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.

---

On June 29, 2020, the coronavirus was announced that it is going to end on November 30, 2020 because the scientist were able to make the cure for the outbreak by that time. They are still working on a vaccine so they could get them healed from the virus, so they could be peaceful and open all the stores back in once again.

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.

Better review for asymptomatic spread

[3] Can you please change this: "One estimate of the number of those infected who are asymptomatic is 40%." to: "A June 2020 review found the likelihood of those infected that are asymptomatic to be 40-45%." [4]

 Done ~ Amkgp 💬 15:48, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Sister project links and Scholia

If anyone hasn't noticed, at the External links section, the Sister project links and Scholia is misrendered, or whatever the term is. If anyone knows how to fix that, please do so. GeraldWL 07:49, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Gerald Waldo Luis, it's happening because the article has (again) exceeded the post-expand include size (search the talk archives here for prior discussion). I'm guessing the introduction of the interactive graphic in the history section may have pushed it over; I'll take it out of the infobox and see if that helps. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 08:33, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Ah right, thanks for the info, I'll check it right away! Thanks Sdkb! GeraldWL 08:41, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Wrong caption in "Deaths per capita" map

Hi, the caption of the "Deaths per capita" map should read "... per million ..." rather than "... per 100,000 ...". The embedded caption in the .svg file seems correct.

Great page, thanks to all authors! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A05:3E00:2:2080:B075:718F:7955:6F58 (talk) 12:40, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

 Fixed Thanks! {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 18:39, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Case for Criticism of the Public in the Lead

Following edit has been deleted claiming not to be suitable for lead. My simple question is why Wikipedia is maintaining a link to this page from front page. If Wikipedia is taking some responsibility then why there is half hardheartedness in not communicating criticism and dangers of failures in observing physical distancing and masks? Even when it is highly notable!

If not my edit, you find some other criticism. Not criticizing public is not neutral and amounts to serious information gap and not so responsible behavior on side of 'the'(?) dynamic encyclopedia. Hiding important aspects from public amounts to censorship.

My edit which as of now been deleted

On 2020 June, 30 th in US, Dr. Anthony Fauci to US law makers and in India Prime Minister Narendra Modi to the nation at large expressed grave concern over public negligence about not following public health guidelines including proper social (physical) distancing and usage of masks while reopening from pandemic lock downs which would add to number of positive cases.

Thanks

Bookku (talk) 13:38, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

References

The lead of this article has been extensively streamlined, and already mentions masks and social distancing. I could theoretically see the case for mentioning something about public willingness to abide by guidelines, but it'd need to be on the order of a few word, not a giant sentence. The removal was correct. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 21:17, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

The lead of this article has been extensively streamlined, and already mentions masks and social distancing.

Thanks at least you respond. Though I am quoting your sentence and putting up question is not intentioned to direct individually.

• Is it not too little, too late and too skewed in priority.
• It is almost 6 months the article has been created, people discussed whether to include conspiracy theories and origin of virus issues at length. The next thing which contributed most was human failure to not abide by given guide lines and Wikipedians some how preferred to play it down.
• Agreed huge number editors worked on huge number of edits and discussed all other issues but leaving the important one. I repeat 'Is it not too little, too late and too skewed in priority.'
• Question is not one covers an important issue in how many words, which sources but how effectively and with how much interest we cover it.
• Even after SOS on the issue from second and third most populated countries on earth, Wikipedians prefer to play it down. I am dumbfounded and speechless.
• Wikipedia is encyclopedia, can't fix responsibility on inappropriate human behaviour on it's own but why does Wikipedia shying away from taking effective encyclopedic note of.

Thanks

Bookku (talk) 04:05, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

There is also growing evidence that there is about 28% out of a maximum of about 40% of the population who got COVID already +5% per month. With or without distancing. And we are sleeping on the antibody tests as well. People are doing unrests, the economic impact of quarantine is growing and exceeding the impact of COVID itself. Iluvalar (talk) 16:59, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

1) I hope you are not discussing topic as forum. I would be concerned with claims of COVID-19 spreading even {{tq}with .... distancing}} are not Original research; since other source of contamination remain touching contaminated surfaces or being in contaminated air, indirectly both of those issues are related to distancing. So distancing is core,

2) Above quoted Anthony Fauci is subject expert immunologist who has served as the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID) since 1984. Since January 2020, he has been one of the lead members of the Trump Administration's White House Coronavirus Task Force addressing the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. When they express grave concern, I suppose they understand their areas of expertise better - and there is reason for taking encyclopedic note of the same.

3) the economic impact of quarantine is growing and exceeding the impact of COVID itself. Down side up & Up side down? Can it be discussed with List of fallacies? Article lead already covers impact, but rather article has been failing to take effective note of criticism of inappropriate social behavior adding/leading to pandemic proportions, which I flagged earlier too.

4) 'Note my words ' If failed in prioritizing actions - Huge effort on updating statistics and graphs would be sheer waste if Wikipedia suppresses core issue 'failures in distancing'.

Would we remember Churchill ignored famine and when Rome was burning Nero was fiddling

Thanks Bookku (talk) 01:59, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

But what happen if we don't mitigate at the right time ? You seem to believe we mitigated soon enough to avoid anything. I can draw 10 000 scenarios where we didn't and we are taking full face a fairly tough coronavirus mutation. And then there is that single scenario where it's a deadly new super mutant and all country in the world just so happened to make the right mitigation just at the right day to make the data look like it's not. Sincerly fitting that scenario in the data at this point is more art then science. There is still pretty of wriggle rooms in the scenario to call for more or less masks and 2m distancing, but the one you kinda seems to put forward is not part of the possible ones. Iluvalar (talk) 18:44, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Response of User Iluvalar sounding me more like WP:Forum or I have not been able to comprehend, I don't know what to respond. Just for better attention I have left a request for fourth opinion @ WP:4O. Thanks Bookku (talk) 02:35, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Changes to face masks section

@Wikmoz: I think your recent changes to the face masks section are on net an improvement, but they introduce some WP:RECENTISM (the WHO's original stance is noteworthy, even if it's since changed) and WP:NOTHOWTO (e.g. saying N95's "should be reserved" is not neutral) issues. It also adds a little to the length, and conciseness has to be paramount for this page given both the technical (see above) and editorial considerations. Could you tweak your new version to address those things? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 02:32, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick feedback! I removed the N95 PSA and replaced with earlier text reflecting guidance to health care professionals. Regarding the WHO policy change, it is noted in the citation and in the main article that is linked in the sentence. My thinking was for the sake of brevity, to just omit the history. However, I can add a sentence along the lines of "WHO's support for the use of masks by the general public marked a notable shift from prior guidance." - Wikmoz (talk) 03:27, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Wikmoz, I think the WHO policy change is notable enough to warrant a direct mention in this article — it was a really significant factor in reducing their credibility with the public, and the shift from not wearing masks to wearing masks was a really significant change in how people responded to the pandemic. It could go in one of a number of places, though. The face masks section has obvious relevance, but it's also a subsection of the "prevention" section, which is not as much about history, whereas we could alternatively put it in the history section or the WHO response measures section. Thoughts, everyone? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 04:58, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

I agree that the change is notable and I think your proposed placement of this detail in WHO response measures makes sense. I'll wait for additional feedback before making further edits. - Wikmoz (talk) 05:29, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

There is evidence the new virus was in Europe at least from March 2019, well before Chinese doctors announced it in December

https://www.ub.edu/web/ub/en/menu_eines/noticies/2020/06/042.html

38.121.86.157 (talk) 01:59, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

It is good that wikipedia settled on "first identified in Wuhan, China" then.

• The linked paper, https://www.medrxiv.org/content/10.1101/2020.06.13.20129627v1, clearly states "This article is a preprint and has not been peer-reviewed". That means it can not be used as a source and we can not add content based on it. Until a reliable source (compliant with WP:MEDRS) says otherwise, Wikipedia will stick with the current academic consensus for the Wuhan origin. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 09:58, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

In which case the new virus was in Europe before it was in China, and China had very likely caught it from Europe, and China and the Chinese people are just being used as a scapegoat, especially by donald trump, who is an expert in twisting things including "George Floyd in heaven will like .....". If you watch the film Crocodile Dundee 2 (made circa 1990), then you will realise this is hardly surprising, as bats were eaten as a food by Australians in the film (nah, it needs garlic). So if this virus did originate in bats, then it would have been in Australia and Australians for years prior to this. The illness in Europe and UK could have been treated as MRSA or sepsis. It is best to leave the forensic work to the medical scientists to work out exactly what happened. As with HIV/AIDS, it could take decades of forensic work, by which time, donald trump will have died of old age. Time will tell. 2A00:23C5:C102:9E00:B92F:1AD2:BD6B:EBE4 (talk) 02:29, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

@Boing! said Zebedee: There is no such consensus. The WHO specifically asked other countries to do tests such as this one to find out. This being said, March 2019 sounds improbable to me. The virus would have the time to peak naturally around January like other ILI and that would have caused an ILI warning all accross the world. September or October sounds more credible. This source is a preprint, so we need a little more then that at this stage of the article. Specially considering something this game changing. We should keep an eye open. Iluvalar (talk) 16:43, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Well, let's put it another way then. Until a reliable source (compliant with WP:MEDRS) says otherwise, Wikipedia will stick with the reliably sourced content we currently have. Whatever "sounds more credible" to a Wikipedia editor is of no relevance. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 17:32, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

I agree with Boing! said Zebedee: Wikipedia should wait a bit more, at least until the pre-print gets peer-reviewed and accepted (or even rejected) by the scientific community; OR until other credible reports appear from other sources (i.e., other countries might also detect the presence of the virus in old samples). ACLNM (talk) 22:36, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

I recall Italy and France also reporting that sewage samples from 2019 containing traces of SARS-CoV-2. — Preceding unsigned comment added by JMonkey2006 (talk • contribs) 10:04, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

@Iluvalar: Even if it now sounds "improbable" to you, you should first consider that the detection of a version of the virus SARS-CoV-2 in Barcelona in sewage samples from March/2019 does not mean that that occurrence of the virus has the exact same genome that was first identified in last December (that, yes, would be considerably improbable and would pose even more questions). In the last six months many thousands of mutations have naturally generated in occurrences of the virus, many of which entered circulation and still continue in transmission (many have been genetically sequenced so far: check this very interesting international epidemiological research project → Nextstrain, real-time tracking of pathogen evolution; it only shows data, so there is no "subjectiveness" of interpretation or speculation regarding the mutations effects.). Have in mind that some mutations might express themselves in different ways such as, for example, the pathogen being more transmissible (SARS-CoV-2 reference, another article, currently still in pre-print) or even "harsher" (see 2012–2013 flu season in the United States of America, for example). So, saying that they have detected SARS-CoV-2 in sewage samples from March/2019 doesn't immediately mean they are probably wrong simply because it didn't become a known epidemic (or even pandemic) at that time. Also, take into consideration that having a confirmation that the oldest known occurrence of the virus was found in Barcelona doesn't confirm where the natural origin of the virus happened, specially since Barcelona is a very touristic city, with millions of tourists yearly. It is important to remind ourselves that the scientific community is not worried on assigning blame to countries X or Y for the existence of this natural phenomenon (that's just the main focus of some politicians). ACLNM (talk) 22:36, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

I was already pointed at many time at [5]. I want to point out that there is no way to know which direction a mutation have occurred. It is fairly arbitrarily to have set the main branch on Wuhan, so the dates can be reshuffled in that way. It is indeed still possible on a genetic point of view with those data to reshuffle the dates in a way that it would pass trough Barcelona on march 2019. It would be a bit of a stretch but possible. I guess it's entirely possible that a precursor of SARS-CoV-2 was already around in Barcelona striving with a low growth rate just above 1 without anyone catching the new gene. However the virus we experience now have a growth rate of 2.2-2.8 apparently. As I understand it if that mutation was in Barcelona in March we would have got a very different pandemic. Anyway, I would stop chatting about this and say that this is only a preprint at the moment and I have enough reason to doubt about it. As boing! said, we should wait for better sources. Iluvalar (talk) 03:38, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

• Some development, and an example of why we don't use preprints - https://theconversation.com/was-coronavirus-really-in-europe-in-march-2019-141582. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 20:04, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Obviously this is not concrete evidence, but nothing in the scientific world is ever concrete evidence. The origin of a virus is never 100% certain and the way that media has consistently said "originated in Wuhan, China" contributes to the racist sentiment that we have seen. Back in 2009, the pandemic's likely origin (in the United States) was not emphasised; did any government call it the "American virus"? I think this evidence should be written in the history section of this page where it discusses possible origins. But it's good that Wikipedia has stuck with "first identified" rather than "originated". Despite this, a section in the infobox which says "first outbreak" should be deleted in my opinion. Having the index case is necessary but having a definitive origin is unnecessary. Thoughts? JMonkey2006 (talk) 00:49, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

"This article is about..."?

I just saw the Coronavirus disease 2019 article, and there is that 'This article is about...' section at the beginning. Should this article have one too? GeraldWL 10:50, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

'This article is about...' is a hatnote for readers who may be looking for something else which could have been at that title. The title "COVID-19 pandemic" is clearly about the pandemic so I see no reason for a hatnote here, at least until somebody makes a notable book or something called COVID-19 pandemic. The opening sentence already has links to coronavirus disease 2019 and severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2. Hatnotes are not for links to articles which are merely related to the subject and not confusable with the title. PrimeHunter (talk) 14:07, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Ah right, I did further research and you're correct. Thanks for the info! GeraldWL 15:25, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Ordering of prevention strategies

The way the prevention strategies are ordered in the article implicitly suggests that washing hands and cleaning surfaces are the prime strategies to limit the spread of COVID-19. This would make sense for a pathogen primarily spread through physical contact, but is inconsistent with what we know about the virus. Social distancing and respiratory hygiene are presented as additional measures even though they appear to be have been more effective so far. The section should be reordered accordingly. Don Cuan (talk) 06:15, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

Don Cuan, this seems like a reasonable point. I'll wait to see if anyone wants to speak to which prevention strategies are most important, but I think a reordering may be in order. We'll have to potentially adjust the images, since the big one at the start of the section uses up space in the first subsections. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 06:26, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

Great point! Looking at CDC, WHO, and OSHA, it looks like our sequence is ok except for surface cleaning, which should be deprioritized. Social distancing can also be raised. I applied the changes but feel free to revise. Health agencies list their recommendations in the following order: WHO: 1) Wash hands, 2) Social distance, 3) Respiratory hygiene, 4) Isolation. CDC: 1) Wash hands, 2) Social distance, 3) Respiratory hygiene, 4) Surface cleaning. OSHA: 1) Hand washing, 2) Respiratory hygiene, 3) Social distance, 4) Isolation. Mayo Clinic: 1) Social distancing, 2) Hand washing, 3) Respiratory hygiene, 4) Surface cleaning, 5) Self isolation. - Wikmoz (talk) 23:16, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

Need more permanent solution to post-expand include size

This article again recently exceeded the post-expand include size, and although I was able to get it back under, that was only with the bottom navbox removed. And we really shouldn't be removing the {{COVID-19 pandemic}} navbox at the COVID-19 pandemic article. What can we do to find a more permanent solution to the issues we keep running into here? I'm not just talking about trimming something a bit or switching out some {{nbsp}} transclusions for   — that will just bring us back here in a few weeks with the same problem, since there is certainly going to be more to say about the pandemic before it's done. What can we do to find a more durable solution? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 21:25, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Sdkb, what's the PEIS distribution on this article? Is it primarily graphs, references, something else? —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 22:04, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Tenryuu, I'm not sure. Is there a way to see? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 23:09, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Sdkb, sorry for the delayed response. I consulted another editor and played around with a forked version of the article in my sandbox to figure this out. I found these values for PEIS by section (may be somewhat inaccurate as some named references are cut out when I tested each section):

• Infobox and other templates before lede: 65,650/2,097,152 bytes (3.13%)
• Lede: 59,394/2,097,152 bytes (2.83%)
• Epidemiology (COVID-19 pandemic data template): 559,557/2,097,152 bytes (26.68%)
  • Background: 155,455/2,097,152 bytes (7.41%)
• Signs and symptoms: 16,745/2,097,152 bytes (0.80%)
• Cause: 44,634/2,097,152 bytes (2.19%)
• Diagnosis: 12,699/2,097,152 bytes (0.60%)
• Prevention: 71,151/2,097,152 bytes (3.39%)
• Management: 70,954/2,097,152 bytes (3.38%)
• History: 65,079/2,097,152 bytes (3.10%)
• National responses: 406,443/2,097,152 bytes (19.38%)
• International responses: 111,607/2,097,152 bytes (5.32%)
• Impact: 318,251/2,097,152 bytes (15.18%)
• Information dissemination: 85,970/2,097,152 bytes (4.10%)
• See also: 2,060/2,097,152 bytes (0.10%)
• Notes: 192/2,097,152 bytes (Negligible)
• External links and beyond: 76,226/2,097,152 bytes (3.63%)

—Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 06:14, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

The biggest offenders right now are the pandemic data template and the sections "National responses" and "Impact". Some of these sections (particularly "Impact") are transcluding excerpts from other pages. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 06:17, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

We trasncluding stuff 2 times?? post expand size counted multiple times for nested transclusions--Moxy 🍁 23:20, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

Looks to me like {{COVID-19 pandemic data}} alone is ~500KB of our ~2MB limit. --Mdaniels5757 (talk) 00:25, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Would it help to move one or more of the sections to separate article(s)? Here are the sizes of the sections of the article.

    Lines  Words  Chars
     96    1955   19505 Lead
     65    2910   29134 Epidemiology
     11     403    3703 Signs and symptoms
     16     146    1338 Cause
     21     373    3512 Diagnosis
     67    1732   14178 Prevention
     47    1946   18378 Management
     25    1148   12402 History
    183    6562   60247 National responses
     48    2256   22523 International responses
    118    4494   45535 Impact
     15     175    1941 Information dissemination
    380    7467  106878 Footer (See also, Notes, References, External links)
   1092   31567  339274 total

Whywhenwhohow (talk) 23:50, 1 July 2020 (UTC)

@Whywhenwhohow: Probably not. This only counts text from templates, parser functions and variables. It doesn't count normal article text, images, etc. Mdaniels5757 (talk) 00:22, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Some suggestions:

1. Create a list article Epidemiology of the COVID-19 pandemic and put the {{COVID-19 pandemic data}} in there, and then link to it from this article, removing the {{COVID-19 pandemic data}} template from this article. Scrolling through the present template might just as well be done in a separate article, especially on small screen devices.
2. Everywhere there is a {{main}} article, especially the responses sections, cut back the section to a really brief summary of the corresponding article. See WP:Summary style.
3. Check transclusions for static or slowly changing data. Substitute those transclusions with a hidden text reminder to check the source occasionally.
4. Consider whether you need four sources to support statements like "Russia and China to generate panic and sow distrust in other countries" when one would do. If you find you need four, then you're breaching WP:SYTH. You could halve the number of sources used in this article without reducing the verifiability of its content.

The important parts of the article are the parts that most visitors will read; we don't need to massively duplicate large chunks of information that may already be read in more specific articles that an interested reader is likely to visit anyway. We are not a directory of links to sources. Only a tiny fraction of visitors ever click through to a reference, and we only need enough of them to allow someone to check our text is accurate. --RexxS (talk) 13:59, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Those seem sensible suggestions. The National Responses subsection would be where I would start: you could remove nearly all of that. The {{COVID-19 pandemic data}} is huge and has problems, so, yes, just link to that rather than including in. Bondegezou (talk) 14:03, 2 July 2020 (UTC)

Yeah, it seems like {{COVID-19 pandemic data}} is a big contributor to this problem, and I would support moving it out of this article to COVID-19 pandemic by country and territory. I've suggested before that if we absolutely have to include (some of) the table, we do so by creating a second template like {{COVID-19 pandemic top countries data}} that transcludes only the top n countries from the main template, and then we transclude that (presumably much smaller) template, because knowing that the Vatican City has twelve cases while Montserrat has only 11 does not strike me as vital (or WP:DUE) in this global top-level article under the circumstances (of including such trivia literally breaking the article). -sche (talk) 05:43, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

It sounds sensible to have may be just 40 or 50 countries, although I see a problem in people having to edit two templates, which is likely to lead to different numbers in the two templates in a constantly changing situation since some would edit only one. Is is possible to partially transclude the template? Hzh (talk) 10:31, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

It'd be possible to add a parameter to the template that allows it to list a fewer number of countries. I think we might be hard-pressed to find consensus for removal (it's big, but it also contains a lot of useful information), so that might be a potential compromise. But even then, deciding on the criteria would be hard. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 21:24, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

What about noincluding the reference column? --HyperGaruda (talk) 06:12, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

Also, does it help to change {{nbsp}} to  ? Because I notice someone did that, but then someone else (presumably unaware of why) changed it back to {{nbsp}}. -sche (talk) 05:46, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

I think it helps a little but not by much. Templates certainly wouldn't be used. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 18:48, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

-sche, was it Brogo13? *checks* Yes, it was Brogo13. They've messed around with the spaces before and did not communicate clearly with other editors when it was brought to their talk page. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 02:50, 4 July 2020 (UTC)

@Sdkb, Tenryuu, and RexxS: A major contributor to the WP:PEIS of this article is the large number of excerpts. I have listed them along with their include size below:

• {{#lst:Coronavirus disease 2019|Spread}}: 15,520b
• {{#lst:Coronavirus disease 2019|Transmission}}: 39,558b
• {{excerpt|COVID-19 pandemic in India}}: 49,587b
• {{Excerpt|COVID-19 pandemic in Europe}}: 16,678b
• {{Excerpt|COVID-19 pandemic in Spain}}: 38,810b
• {{#lsth:COVID-19 pandemic in South America}}: 13,103b
• {{#lsth:COVID-19 pandemic by country and territory|Africa}}: 15,404b
• {{Excerpt|COVID-19 pandemic in Oceania}}: 4,802b
• {{#lsth:Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on education}}: 46,926b
• {{Excerpt|Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on other health issues}}: 22,888b
• {{#lsth:Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the environment}}: 34,114b
• {{Excerpt|Misinformation related to the COVID-19 pandemic}}: 76,540b

These excerpts together take up ~375kb of the 2,000kb limit. We should really be thinking about (a) whether these excerpts can be summarized here, perhaps using less specific numbers to avoid needing frequent updates, or (b) whether the excerpted text is really needed at all, or should it just be replaced with a link to the excerpted article. ----Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 15:14, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Ahecht, supporting either. Maybe substituting the excerpts in might solve the issue? They don't seem very time-sensitive. If the code is moved over here rather than being transcluded that could solve the PEIS problem. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 15:27, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

375kb/2000kb is not a big fraction, especially considering the many benefits of transclusion, so I don't think they are the problem and would not support their removal by switching to substitution. If we substituted, there's no way we'd be able to convince every editor making a change here to also make it to the sub-article, so the sub-articles would immediately start to degrade in relative quality. One thing we might be able to change is the template used for the excerpts, though — do you have any information about whether using {{Excerpt}} is more expensive than other methods? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 17:08, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

{{Excerpt}} is only moderately more expensive than using {{#lsth}} directly -- it's about a 4kb difference. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 17:16, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Timing first report to WHO

Have rephrased the wording to comply more closely with the sources, from – "health authorities in China reported to the.." – to – "(WHO) got reports from health authorities in China of...".
The original WHO timeline which is cited says "On 31 December 2019, WHO was informed of a cluster of cases", their 18 May update says on that date "The World Health Organization (WHO) detects reports of a cluster of cases of pneumonia of unknown cause on the Wuhan Municipal Health Commission website. Similar reports are picked up from event-based surveillance systems and routine monitoring.....". Have noticed a media report making a fuss about this revision, both WHO statements are compatible with each other but our original paraphrase goes beyond the sources. . . dave souza, talk 19:25, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

Reinstated references as the original edit seems to have been accidentally undone in an edit conflict. Note the timeline is now a sub-page, the original link now goes to the WHO main page at Home/Outbreaks and emergencies/Coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak. . . dave souza, talk 12:15, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Citation errors

All the citations starting with #1067 appear to be blown up, appearing like Template: cite journal or #invoke:citation/CS1. I wonder if an internal limit was hit? ☆ Bri (talk) 15:09, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

@Bri: Not sure. It could very well be that a limit may have been hit. I've certainly never seen a bug like that before. Pinging Trappist the monk as the subject matter expert on the citation templates and modules, since I honestly have no clue if it's an issue with mw:Extension:Cite or one of the citation templates or modules. If I had to guess, I think it's probably the former not rendering correctly, just from the sheer volume of references in the article alone. OhKayeSierra (talk) 17:13, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Not the fault of cs1|2. Once again, this article has become too large (see previous discussions about this same topic in the talk page archives). This page is now in Category:Pages where template include size is exceeded.

—Trappist the monk (talk) 17:27, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

@Bri and OhKayeSierra: There is currently a discussion higher up on here where we're discussing permanent solutions to deal with PEIS limits. Additional input is welcomed. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 18:06, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Austria did close the school nation wide

Moved to commons:File talk:COVID-19 school closures.svg

 – {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 23:22, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 7 July 2020

Kindly edit the data in the table mentioning number of cases, deaths & recoveries. For Tanzania total cases are 509, number of deaths 21 and recovered are 183 as of 8th July 12:20 AM IST. The data can be verified from covidvisualizer.com. I shall update about other changes, once this particular change has been approved. Fbh16 (talk) 19:00, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

Fbh16, this is not the talk page for edit requests to the table; please go to Template talk:COVID-19 pandemic data for that. There is also currently a note for Tanzania's entry which reads: Figures for Tanzania are for 29 April as the country stopped publishing figures on coronavirus cases on that date. Figures as of that date were 509 cases, 21 deaths, and 183 recoveries. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 01:18, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Airborne

[6] i think it is possible to discuss the controversy in more detial --49.180.133.36 (talk) 10:11, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

• "the W.H.O. seems willing to accept without much evidence the idea that the virus may be transmitted from surfaces, she and other researchers noted, even as other health agencies have stepped back emphasizing this route"
• "We’re not going to say what we really think, because we think you can’t deal with it?’ I don’t think that’s right"
• "The W.H.O. tends to describe “an absence of evidence as evidence of absence" --10:18, 5 July 2020 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by 49.180.133.36 (talk)
• "Some scientists are suspicious that W.H.O.’s stance on masks and aerosols may stem less from scientific research than from a concern over supplies of personal protective equipment for medical workers."
• "Some experts said that when the W.H.O. uses the phrase “there is no evidence” to indicate uncertainty, it is in fact conveying certainty about the absence of a phenomenon."
• "The W.H.O. has been out of step with most of the world on the issue of droplets and aerosols,”
• "The W.H.O.’s thinking on asymptomatic transmission does not appear to have changed much since February"

Why is Wikipedia consistently upholding the view of the WHO, which has no evidence for many of its assertions? --49.180.133.36 (talk) 12:20, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

Review article will help. Please add to the lead and the transmission section of the article. Please change "The virus is primarily spread between people during close contact,[c] most often via small droplets produced by coughing,[d] sneezing, and talking.[9][10][12] The droplets usually fall to the ground or onto surfaces rather than travelling through air over long distances.[9] However, research as of June 2020 has shown that speech-generated droplets may remain airborne for tens of minutes."

To: The virus is usually spread between people during close contact,[c] and there is ongoing research into whether this is via small droplets produced by coughing,[d] sneezing, and talking, or via even smaller virus laden droplets known as aerosols.[9][10][12] Less commonly, it is thought to be transmitted if a person touches a contaminated surface and then their face.[9] Although not emphasized by the WHO, aerosol transmission has been recognized by many experts and published in several reviews, and has more direct evidence than transmission via contaminated surfaces. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 49.180.133.36 (talk) 12:52, 5 July 2020 (UTC)

This is very much concern I have expressed in my earlier posts, Wikipedia is failing to take note of criticism proportionally with proper priority.

Just thinking if criticism of WHO in following sentence would get at some point of time will be rephrased for Wikipedians who were working on this article But the infection prevention and control committee in particular, experts said, is bound by a rigid and overly medicalized view of scientific evidence, is slow and risk-averse in updating its guidance and allows a few conservative voices to shout down dissent. “They’ll die defending their view,” - 239 Experts With One Big Claim: The Coronavirus Is Airborne, NewYork Times

Re write for Wikipedians with due respect But the Articles pertaining to Covid-19 editors in particular, experts said, are bound by a rigid and overly medicalized view of scientific (encyclopedic) evidence, is slow and risk-averse in updating its guidance (in the articles and criticism) and allows a few conservative voices to shout down dissent. “They’ll die defending their view,”

Thanks any ways Bookku (talk) 12:40, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia is over relying on the WHO. If you look at the CDC transmission page, it has an entirely different emphasis, being it spreads very easily and sustainably between people.

It spreads via respiratory droplets, we know this. Via aerosols, we also have good evidence of this. It is actually unknown whether it spreads via contaminated surfaces. --49.180.156.39 (talk) 13:18, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Also, controlling airborne transmission isn’t going to do that much to control the spread of Covid-19, and it will impose extra burdens and resources. But it should NOT be censored. --49.180.156.39 (talk) 13:39, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

There is indeed good reason to question the WHO on their recommendations. For example, their move to quickly label the 2009 swine flu a pandemic, which greatly enriched drug companies, and their slowness to react to the West Africa Ebola epidemic which was, I believe, politically motivated and resulted in the loss of thousands of lives. Also, while I don't agree with the WP position, WP does not recognize the WHO position on complementary/alternative medicine. No medical group should be held so high as to not include criticism. Let's wait to see the medical journal copy of the letter and then go from there. Gandydancer (talk) 15:51, 7 July 2020 (UTC)

The WHO now says that there is evidence of airborne transmission, but it is not definitive - [7]. That can probably be added to the article. Hzh (talk) 11:24, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

Why did UK total cases suddenly drop by a huge amount

A month ago, on June 10, the UK total figure was 289,140. By July 2, it had increased to 313,483. The following day, it then dropped to 283,000, a 30,000 reduction from the day before, and even less than 3 weeks earlier. Can someone explain this discrepency?MisterZed (talk) 05:34, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

The UK made a correction of 25,000 people were double-counted and they're assessing the death toll at over 40,000 instead of over 50,000, due to death certificates state the cause of death "COVID-19" when there was no positive case to connect that certain death. 2605:E000:100D:C571:A8BB:CE5:5FFF:7B6A (talk) 05:38, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

Same thing happened e.g. in Spain, France, Ecuador etc. Even in Germany the national Institute (RKI) has frequent corrections of their data, although this happens locally only. I feel it's a sign of sloppy work, but probably due to the overload of numbers. Maybe there will be a major fix some time in Belgium, where they do count any death which might be related to the coronavirus as a COVID-19 death, although their had not necessarily been a positive test. --Traut (talk) 05:56, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

Xenophobia and racism examples

The Xenophobia and racism section contains the following sentence: "Citizens in countries including Malaysia,[1022] New Zealand,[1023] Singapore,[1024] Japan,[1025] Vietnam,[1026] and South Korea lobbied to ban Chinese people from entering their countries.[1027]" I don't understand the relevance or significance of this fact in this section. Asian citizens advocated for responsible national containment measures that most countries eventually put into place. It's not a particularly strong example of xenophobia or racism. Certainly no more offensive than countries now appropriately blocking travel from the US. Just wanted to check before deleting the sentence (and its six references). Wikmoz (talk) 02:45, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

Support, I have not checked in the article but as mentioned in Wikmoz is true then it is unfair. Reasonable precautions can't be called Xenophobia.

To be more nuanced 'inbound traffic from China' and 'Chinese coming in from countries where infection is not spread' can be differentiated.

Bookku (talk) 04:59, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

I also support this suggestion. Being cautious against the spread of diseases of unknown lethality is not the same as xenophobia or racism. Also, I have read that the CCP blocked all travel from Wuhan to the rest of China to prevent the spread to the rest of the country, while still allowing travel from there to abroad. David A (talk) 18:47, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for the quick feedback. I've removed and pointed to this discussion in the edit note. - Wikmoz (talk) 21:05, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request

Add {{Current}} to the top, since this is an ongoing pandemic. --108.205.159.35 (talk) 05:12, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for the suggestion! This topic did use that template a while ago. While the pandemic is an ongoing event, the template is generally only used for recent events where details are unknown and/or there's a large volume of editing activity. The usage guidelines are limited but from the template page: "As an advisory to editors, the template may optionally be used in those extraordinary occasions that many editors (perhaps a hundred or more) edit an article on the same day, for example, in the case of natural disasters or other breaking news. It is not intended to be used to mark an article that merely has recent news articles about the topic; if it were, hundreds of thousands of articles would have this template, with no informational consequence. Generally it is expected that this template and its closely related templates will appear on an article for a few days; occasionally longer." Hope this is helpful. - Wikmoz (talk) 05:26, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

Got it. Thank you for the information! --108.205.159.35 (talk) 05:33, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

Deadliest event of the 21st century

Should it be noted this is the deadlist event of the 21st century?--Fruitloop11 (talk) 19:30, 8 July 2020 (UTC)

I don't know, the pandemic has just begun, 12 million cases and 550,000 deaths (4.5% case fatality rate), then you have theories of 8 times than that: up to 90 million cases and 0.6% infection fatality rate. This is one of the 5 recent global pandemics in the last 100 years: the 1918-19 Spanish, 1957-58 Asian, 1968-69 Hong Kong and 2009-10 Swine flus, and the HIV/AIDS pandemic since 1981. 2605:E000:100D:C571:A8BB:CE5:5FFF:7B6A (talk) 00:50, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

how deadly was the boxing day tsunami? Camdoodlebop (talk) 08:19, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

230 000 deaths. --Traut (talk) 08:30, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

It seems exaggerated to me. My apologies if I am misinformed, but doesn't cancer and heart disease kill more people each year than what this disease has done? Also, please look at the development for the fatality rate graph over time in what may be the only country to not have had any shutdown, as the virus mutates to turn less deadly: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/country/sweden/ David A (talk) 13:10, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

And traffic. And Guns. And War. But all of those are not special "events", but continuous causes of death. Concerning lockdowns, there are many more countries that were kept open. Concerning Sweden, they have the highest increase of deaths within Europe. UK, Spain, Italy, Belgium, all of them have higher death rates, with little increase now. But Sweden had +2% the last week, UK had +1.4%, Spain +0,1% --Traut (talk) 13:30, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

The point is that even without lockdowns the mortality rate has been statistically proven to extremely drastically quickly decrease over time. Again, please check out the "Daily New Deaths" graph in the link that I provided. Also, all diseases are continuous events. They do not constantly disappear entirely over time, and should be rationally compared to each other in terms of how serious they are. David A (talk) 13:59, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

First of all, forget about worldometer as a reliable source. Who are they? Where's the source for their data? Worldometer names 12/0/3/1/4 deaths for the last days. ECDC names 35/14/13/... Second, yes, there's a decreasing number of deaths within Sweden. However, in other countries in Europe it decreases much more. As shown, Sweden belongs to the countries with the most deaths, numbers still increasing significantly more than anywhere else. The real excess mortality will be visible within some months. Lockdowns prevented a much worse situation. --Traut (talk) 14:15, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

Worldometer apparently simply copies information from reliable official sources, in this case the Public Health Agency of Sweden, as is linked in the page that I provided earlier: [8]. Also, given that the United Nations have stated that 265 million people will starve because of the global shutdowns, it seems like the excessively draconian measures employed in other countries will cause much greater tragedies than the disease itself. David A (talk) 18:38, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

I recommnd to read CNN: the mystery behind worldometer or newstatesman. For Germany I know that for some time worldometer took the numbers from the German newspaper Berliner Morgenpost. And from their numbers I know that they took some of their numbers from other newspapers (without naming those sources), apparently hunting for the highest numbers. I once told them about an error within the Saarland where they obviously counted numbers twice, which had been shifted from one district to another. Morgenpost counted the high number from one district, plus the outdated high number from the other. This lasted for weeks until the second district had higher numbers again. JHU for some time took numbers from Worldometer, until they shifted to more reliable numbers. Personally, I do use ECDC. They take e.g. the official German numbers from RKI. --Traut (talk) 19:16, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

Well, in this particular case, the Public Health Agency of Sweden seems like a reliable source, but I will check the page that you recommended as well. It does not seem nearly as pedagogically constructed though. David A (talk) 06:39, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

• Is there a reliable source calling it the "deadliest event of the 21st century"? Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 14:27, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

Is there any other to compare to within this century? 2009_swine_flu_pandemic names an estimation up to 575 000, although less than 20 000 have been verified by tests. So I guess the coronavirus has caused more deaths by now, still increasing. --Traut (talk) 15:45, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

None of that is relevant, as we can't use our own reasoning and deduction per WP:OR. To include it, we must have a reliable source that says so. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 15:49, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

Rwandan_genocide 500,000–1,074,016 killed (until 1994, ongoing) Syrian_civil_war 380,636–585,000 killed (since 2011, ongoing) Darfur_genocide 80,000–500,000 killed (since 2003, ongoing) Iraq_war 392,979–942,636 killed (2003-2011) etc. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Traut (talk • contribs) 15:54, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

That's still not relevant because it's still WP:OR. Wikipedia editors are not allowed to make their own comparisons and deductions - we *must* have a reliable source doing the comparison and stating the conclusion. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 17:22, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

As noted above, there may be other deadlier events. However, even if/when COVID takes more lives, I don't think the statement adds anything to article. The average reader is well aware of the significance of the ongoing pandemic. Such statements can help provide context to historical events but generally after the event and specified time period has concluded. - Wikmoz (talk) 20:47, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

• My 2c: if someone were to present reliable sources which say this, especially a lot of reliable sources (enough to establish that it is WP:DUE weight), we could discuss adding a sentence about it. But simply looking at the death toll and saying it's higher than other death tolls is WP:OR. -sche (talk) 00:15, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

• No, don’t say that OR, not even if you can google up someone somewhere said dramatic lines. Just cover the topic with content in DUE proportion. Writing dramatics or googling up for OR desires rather than just content proportional to its WEIGHT would only weaken the article credibility. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 03:25, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

• There are plenty of other pages based on events and disasters which mention the overall impact on society, including the Spanish flu page. Whether it should be there or not, there is precedent for the inclusion of a sentence along these lines should reliable sources refer to the current pandemic as such at any point in the future. PunkAndromeda (talk) 12:37, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

4.1 Viral testing

I find the second sentence in the second paragraph of this section strangely UK-centric. The whole third paragraph is as well but less so. I fail to see why 1 country's policy in regards to testing for Covid should be in this short section. --Dutchy45 (talk) 13:30, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

Agreed. That belongs in the UK-specific article. The section should only include general information about testing. Arcturus (talk) 15:04, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

Xenophobia and racism image

Houston's Chinatown experienced a reduction in business early during the outbreak when there were still only a few cases.

A photo of a shopping center in Houston has appeared in the Xenophobia and racism section for quite a while. Its relevance dates back to the initial outbreak in Wuhan when some people avoided Chinese stores/establishments for fear of contracting coronavirus. Now that shopping habits may no longer be a major issue (or at least are a comparatively small one), I'd propose that we remove the image. I don't think a replacement is necessary but this one of a subway poster in NYC could work. Thoughts on removal? Thoughts on replacement? - Wikmoz (talk) 21:18, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

• Meh... IMO it was never particularly illustrative; it's not even "here's a picture of a Chinatown, notice there are few people going to / visible in it because of the pandemic"—the picture is from a decade ago. It's like taking a ten-year-old picture of a Chinese-American person and adding it on the rationale that that person probably experiences xenophobia now. Maybe we could find, say, a picture of xenophobic graffiti, or the specific McDonalds that banned black people, or something...? The subway poster is slightly better than the current image, but not great either (it's hard to read the text, though that could be addressed by creating a cropped copy)... -sche (talk) 00:23, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

• Prefer no image over mall image, and mall before what seems fake subway posters. I’d initially only thought it silly the poster tried to ban “ignorance”. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 03:34, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

Whoa. Didn't notice the flag. Campaign was a clever idea but yeah, fake. Striking that option. If I don't hear otherwise, I'll remove the image tomorrow and link to this discussion. - Wikmoz (talk) 05:17, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

Wikmoz, the NYC photo had a few other uses — I've gone through and removed them. As for here, I thought the Houston photo was better than nothing, but that's more IAR than based on MOS:IMAGERELEVANCE, so I won't fight its removal. I wish we could find something better, but after some searching, I can't say I've identified anything. Folks need to upload more freely licensed images and tag them better! {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 04:22, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 11 July 2020

"2. Excluding the cases from Diamond Princess cruise ship which are classified as "on an international conveyance"." should be removed as a footnote from Russia's entry in the COVID-19 pandemic by country and territory table. I think this is a remnant from when Japan was higher in the table earlier during the pandemic, but Japan already seems to have a footnote stating that Diamond Princess cases are considered international conveyance. 76.14.119.148 (talk) 19:01, 11 July 2020 (UTC)

 Not done for now: please establish a consensus for this alteration before using the {{edit semi-protected}} template. ~ Amkgp 💬 14:50, 12 July 2020 (UTC)

Transmission is very wrong

[9]

Because wikipedia has deferred to the WHO for so long, it has taken many weeks for the misinformation around the mode of spread to be updated. Please do so ASAP.

Please change:

The virus is primarily spread between people during close contact,[a] most often via small droplets produced by coughing,[b] sneezing, and talking.[6][20][22] The droplets usually fall to the ground or onto surfaces rather than travelling through air over long distances,[6] although in some cases they may remain airborne for tens of minutes.

to:

The virus may spread between people when they are directly in contact, or are in close proximity. This seems to occur mainly via secretions, saliva, or contaminated droplets, which are expelled from the mouth or nose, including when coughing, sneezing, speaking or singing. It may also spread when people touch contaminated surfaces and then their face. Additionally, it can be suspended in air, in aerosolised droplets and thereby spread over longer distances, notably where there is poor ventilation or crowded indoor spaces. [10] [11]

It is indeed very wrong. This has already been brought up with the last post on the 8th--without response. What with a 3-day set for archives (which needs to be changed) there really was not time for a decent response. I really have no idea why there is a reluctance to update this article while dangerous gathering practices go on without comment. I tried to work on this article at one time but was forced to give up on it. If this change is not made I will do it and hope that it will not be reverted. Gandydancer (talk) 19:13, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

I'll add it if you will complete the ref tag first. Stoney1976 (talk) 02:54, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

 Not done for now: ~ Amkgp 💬 10:25, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject COVID-19#Help needed creating Wikidata bot to update statistics

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject COVID-19#Help needed creating Wikidata bot to update statistics. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 17:25, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

The photos in the template should include one about the recession

The COVID-19 economic recession is probably going to be the longest lasting effect of the pandemic, and the photos should reflect that. I think we should put either a map representing the receding economies of the world, or a global stock market graph showing the effects on the economy of the COVID-19 pandemic. — Preceding unsigned comment added by RaiBrown1204 (talk • contribs) 04:45, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

thank you for posting--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 20:06, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

RaiBrown1204, good thought.  Done using File:Stock-indices-2020crash.svg.

Rendering malfunction because there are too many citation templates to display.

There are too many citation templates for the Mediawiki software to display. This has caused problems with footnotes starting at 1056, which no longer render correctly in the references section.

I see that this has been discussed at Talk:COVID-19 pandemic/Archive 37#Citation errors. Can someone pin a discussion of this issue to the page? this is a pretty urgent issue that requires a prompt response, & having this fall off the current talk page is not going to help.

Peaceray (talk) 22:21, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

As this issue is recurring, we're probably better off creating a separate page like Talk:COVID-19 pandemic/PEIS issues and pinning the page. The status of PEIS as analysed on July 2nd, 2020, was described in this discussion. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 22:29, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

How much of a burden is the COVID Cases by Country and Territory table? Thinking out loud... would it be possible to not transclude all the table references and footnotes and instead just prominently link to the cases by country article for supporting references? - Wikmoz (talk) 01:35, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

Here are some venues of action we could take:

• remove the table template from this page and link to it in its own section; this will cut down on 25% of the PEIS limit.
• a limit on references for information that needs to be cited. Eventually we're going to probably have to move that information into other article pages. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 01:58, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

• I believe that removing that table from this page would remove a substantial amount of references, & would bring the page to well within the PEIS limit. Peaceray (talk) 03:04, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

I support moving the table out of this article and into COVID-19 pandemic by country and territory. (I have previously suggested creating a version that used onlyinclude tags on the main template to only include the top ~20 countries, because knowing that XYZ tiny Pacific island has a dozen-odd cases is not important enough to be WP:DUE so much weight that it breaks the page.) -sche (talk) 03:37, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

I really like the idea of only including the top 10 or 20 with a link to the full table. We'd probably have to drop the sort options and settle on sorting by cases or deaths, which I'm sure will trigger a debate but worth it to cut the code base. Seems a little less preferable to removing all the citations and adding a footer ("For references and data details, see COVID-19 pandemic by country and territory") but certainly preferable to removing the table altogether. - Wikmoz (talk) 03:55, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

OK, the way I initially thought this could be done was: add onlyinclude tags around the top n countries in the main template, then create a second template that duplicates the "shell" of the first template and transcludes it (and thanks to the onlyinclude tags, only includes its top n rows); alternatively, one could just put the onlyinclude tags around the shell parts of the first template as well as its top n rows. However, either of these approaches would prevent the "lower" countries from displaying anywhere. So, I now realize that unless there's a way to effect a "conditional onlyinclude" (whether via template syntax or using a Lua module), what could be done instead is to move the top n countries into their own (sub)template, and transclude them back into the "full" template, so that the full list shows up anywhere that the "full" template is used, while articles like this can transclude the "short" list. This does mean there would be two templates to update (whenever multiple countries published new data), but there wouldn't be any duplication between them (and hence, they couldn't fall out of sync), so for any one country, there would still only be one template to update. -sche (talk) 05:49, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

I understood some of that. Sounds reasonable but would the maintainers then have to shuffle countries between the two lists whenever country #10 and #11 change places? Or cause other downstream problems? Could somebody perhaps just set up a bot to pull the top 10 nightly? Should someone kick off a thread on the Template talk:COVID-19 pandemic data or add a pointer from there to here? - Wikmoz (talk) 06:08, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

Wikmoz, I think limiting the table to displaying only the top countries is the best solution we have.

Let's try to keep the editorial and technical discussions separate here so that they don't get muddled. Should we start a survey to ascertain consensus for the limiting? The big questions to resolve are (a) how many countries we need to include, and (b) what the sorting criterion should be (the potential issue with using just totals is that it neglects small countries that have been badly hit on a per capita basis).

Regarding the technical implementation, it absolutely must be done in a way that keeps them synced, though; anything else would be a disaster. And creating a subtemplate seems like a pretty inelegant solution — it'd be better to introduce a parameter, |short= that works similarly to the parameter that can introduce short versions of a navbox. One thing to consider is that the way Template:COVID-19 pandemic data works may need more substantial revision overall, since it currently lacks integration with Wikidata and the ability to show per capita data, which is handled in a separate way (importing from Wikidata) at Template:COVID-19 pandemic data/Per capita. Cheers, {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 22:09, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

Please reinstate that table! There is no consensus here to remove it, and such a major change to the article does require consensus. Whatever other problems there might be concerning use of the table, removing the main reason most people come to this article, without very careful consideration is not on. Arcturus (talk) 19:05, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

Seconded. --Wolbo (talk) 19:43, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

I think the table is extremely valuable to the article and should not be removed without further discussion. Disregarding the table, however, how about we change the needed number of the references to a different template that from the user experiences looks like a reference but in the back end is technically different. For example, X is how we do it normally, but we could change that to Y^[12] or plenty of other alternatives (I'm not an expert on citations, so that might not be perfect example), like a template specifically for overflow citations that would create a References 2 section. Of course, this would be a temporary solution, but it would certainly be better than what is happening now. Zoozaz1 (talk) 00:43, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

1.^ https://encyclopediageopolitica.com/2020/06/07/information-warfare-fighting-for-narrative-dominance-in-a-time-of-crisis/

References

Tried to organize the discussion as best I can and separate the editorial and technical discussions. Please see the thread below and feel free to add subsections as necessary. - Wikmoz (talk) 05:57, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 16 July 2020

71.162.138.52 (talk) 17:03, 16 July 2020 (UTC)hi I have more info can i edit to write it down

 Not done: this is not the right page to request additional user rights. You may reopen this request with the specific changes to be made and someone will add them for you, or if you have an account, you can wait until you are autoconfirmed and edit the page yourself. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 17:07, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Wrong US Covid deaths number

The US daily death data is clearly wrong for July 15. Looking at the hot spots of the sun belt, the increases over last week (July 7-9) add up to less than 100, not 500 increase as indicated. 1413 is an incorrect number. Sephbro (talk) 14:36, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Sephbro, that may be true, but do you have a reliable source with concrete numbers that argue your case? —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 15:40, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

I don't see that number anywhere on this page, so I'm not sure if the comment belongs here. But I did find that the US medical cases chart has the number 126826 for July 15 while the corresponding tabular data gives the number as 126286. Note that 2 digits are swapped. I've put a comment on the talk page for the chart. 68.7.103.137 (talk) 16:52, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Yes, The Covid Tracking Project. The correct number is 855. Sephbro (talk) 00:46, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 17 July 2020

It would be useful to add an heading for 'Events' in External Links Section. It is because there are several medical/research related events are ongoing to discuss Covid-19 related latest advancements and research findings. 7th Annual Congress of the European Society for Translational Medicine on COVID-19 (EUSTM-2020) Editor 555554 (talk) 03:09, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

​Wikipedia is fairly selective about the kinds of external links it wants to showcase, usually only giving a handful of links that would give the most amount of viewers a deeper understanding of the topic. – Thjarkur (talk) 07:21, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

The disappearance of the COVID-19 cases list data

Why would that list (below the virus infobox) be removed? Up until today, I can see how many cases in every country (or the number of people who tested positive for COVID-19), and I know the US is still at the top 1 on the list, and India might have hit over 1 million cases already. But I have no idea why it became non-existent from this article. That's very important to me. ROBLOXGamingDavid (talk) 06:20, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

ROBLOXGamingDavid, are you referring to the table, {{COVID-19 pandemic data}}? It's in the article; have you tried purging the page's cache? You might be on an old version. We're currently fiddling around with the article as it's been persistently crossing a technical limit in the software; you can read about it in the discussions above like #COVID-19 pandemic page size issue. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 06:25, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

I cant believe that even in Wikipedia, there might be a page size limit and the pandemic data table did account 30% of the page bytes. Maybe to solve that is that the pandemic data table in the main article be reduced to 20 to 30 countries, while the full list will be transferred to the COVID-19 pandemic by country and territory and COVID-19 pandemic cases ROBLOXGamingDavid (talk) 06:39, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

ROBLOXGamingDavid, there is currently a discussion above to discuss what can be done to bring down the size of hte table, as its one of the main issues that is resulting in templates from the page not loading. however, a lot of people are against only displaying certain countries due to the work it would take to keep it up to date, me included (i previously was for it before realizing the upheaval it would take) QueerFilmNerd^talk 06:45, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

Separate article on epidemiology?

Hi, I noticed that the epidemiology section for this article is extremely long and detailed, and I think it would be more efficient if there were to be a separate article about the epidemiology of this to prevent this article from getting too long or confusing. Please let me know your thoughts on this. Philosophy2 (talk) 18:40, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Philosophy2, a lot of the subsections provide excerpts and lead to other pages which go into even more detail. I think a question to ask is "are these sections likely to change in the near future with new information?" It would help in reducing the PEIS load on this page for certain. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 19:35, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Philosophy2, we already have so many COVID-19 articles, I'd check very carefully to see if there's an existing article we could expand/link to more prominently before creating one like COVID-19 pandemic epidemiology. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 08:22, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

Note: the same thing could even be applied to the prevention section; creating an article on Prevention of COVID-19 might be very efficient. Philosophy2 (talk) 18:43, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Please no separate article on prevention!!! The prevention section could be swapped with the abbreviated version on the COVID-19 disease page. I generally prefer keeping the bulk of the prevention content here since the pandemic topic gets substantially more traffic but given the PEIS issues, it might be time for the swap. - Wikmoz (talk) 19:38, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Question: Why isn't it allowed to use Worldometers as source?

It is a good source for statistics, so why isn't it allowed? Nakosi (talk) 10:42, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

Nakosi, §3 of the consensus above has links to discussions that describe why it's not suitable for Wikipedia's purposes. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 15:28, 17 July 2020 (UTC)

Citations misrender?

I just noticed that most of the citations, like the ones at the very bottom, were "replaced" or "misrendered" to Template:Cite web or Template:Cite news, etc. What's wrong? Is it because of the article capacity, or is it because my device does not have proper support? Or does someone changed it? Can anyone clarify this? GeraldWL 07:59, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

Gerald Waldo Luis, it's because of the page size issue; see the other threads above. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 09:30, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

What are the countries with the fastest accelerating rates of COVID (estimated)

According to the website covidloader.com The five countries with the fastest accelerating rates of are the United States (new case every 1.13 seconds). Brazil (new case every 2.07 seconds), India (new case every 2.34 seconds), South Africa (new case every 7.67 seconds) and Colombia (new case every 10.25 seconds) Esaïe Prickett (talk) 00:40, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

New template for pages that exceed PEIS limit and have references displaying improperly

I just now created a template for citations where the references display incorrectly because of the size limit. I think it would be a good idea to put it on the article so the many people who read this at least understand the reason why some of the references are missing and how they can find them. I'm just posting this here to get consensus to add it in such a heavily trafficked article. Zoozaz1 (talk) 21:02, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

This is great! It would definitely help draw editor attention to the issue whenever it arises. It would also raise general awareness of the limitation. - Wikmoz (talk) 21:14, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

I like this idea of a maintenance tag being placed at the top of the article. However, I think it's important to remember that its use should be temporary, as the problem should be resolved as soon as possible; it'd be a disservice to require interested readers to use one of the editors when they have no interest of editing the article for longer than needed. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 00:04, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

The ultimate goal is definitely to get rid of the template and inform editors of the problen, but in the meantime the only way to the reader to view the missing references would be in edit mode. Zoozaz1 (talk) 00:20, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Template development discussion moved to Template talk:Citations broken from PEIS limit. - Wikmoz (talk) 01:18, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Contributory causes

See https://www.statista.com/statistics/1110949/common-comorbidities-in-covid-19-deceased-patients-in-italy/ . The percentages add up to more than 100%. This is caused by the fact that many were subject to two or more complaints, other than the virus. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C4:7C87:4F00:A5D8:BFCF:7468:C36E (talk) 13:54, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

They add up to 268.8% or so. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C4:7C87:4F00:A5D8:BFCF:7468:C36E (talk) 13:57, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

A death in a motor-cycle accident in Florida, in America, was put down to the virus, initially. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C4:7C87:4F00:A5D8:BFCF:7468:C36E (talk) 14:00, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

In America, Jordan D. Haynes was credited to the virus, although he seems to have been murdered. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C4:7C87:4F00:A5D8:BFCF:7468:C36E (talk) 14:17, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Shot dead

A man was shot dead for refusing to wear a mask. See https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/fatal-haliburton-shooting-siu-1.5650761 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C4:7C87:4F00:A5D8:BFCF:7468:C36E (talk) 14:35, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Hey there! Thanks for giving out potentially useful information. Just to ask: At which section of the article do you wish it would be placed? Or was it just some potentially useful info? Cause it seems like it. GeraldWL 14:47, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Instant update-- I read it, and it feels like it can belong to nowhere in articles related to COVID. Any expert editors? GeraldWL 14:51, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Gerald Waldo Luis, the most appropriate page I can think of this information belonging on is COVID-19 pandemic in Ontario. I'm not sure if it should even be on there, as by itself it is an isolated incident. If it sparks a chain of events like protests or riots it could be considered notable, so it's a nice little tidbit we can keep around (on talk pages). —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 15:10, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Agreed. It's sensationalist, but one death in a pandemic that has caused 600,000 deaths in UNDUE. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:18, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

To say "A man was shot dead for refusing to wear a mask" in being dishonest about what actually happened - he was shot some time later in an interaction with the police. What happened to him "for refusing to wear a mask" is that he was refused service in a store, whereupon he allegedly assaulted a store employee. Very much a case of UNDUE in my opinion. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 07:51, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

Pathetic

Instead of putting a big warning about page size and suggesting a method that does NOTHING to improve readability why don't WP:FIXITFIX! You are a bunch of amateurs and should all be fired! — Preceding unsigned comment added by 115.189.101.252 (talk) 02:30, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

Yes, we are amateurs. And amateurs, by definition, cannot be fired. Serendi^podous 06:59, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

Please consult the sections above where editors are discussing a way for readability to be re-established. If you have any suggestions we'll hear them. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 07:59, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

Hello, IP user, if even you are reading this. While we know that the Visual Editor is a laggy, non-efficacious way to improve readability while my other editor friends are trying to help, that is the only way we can still maintain readers. It is not efficacious to send critique, however, if you call us with such a dehumanizing slur. Why does it matter if we are amateur? Will you love it if you were called with a xenophobic or hateful word? Also, we cannot be fired: we are a group of volunteers, unpaid, disconnected from God, and so the way you show your criticism does not help, and is against WP:AGF. I will not bite you, but please don't bite us too. What if you take a better approach? Thank you, from GeraldWL 08:48, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

Another plea for basic scrutiny of recent changes

I just set a record in a not-good way — on my latest periodic review of the diff of the article today versus a few days ago, I found nine different edits that needed either reversion or essential fixes. I changed A thrilling aerial view of the market to An aerial view of the market, removed the wildly undue section on Ireland that got added without any discussion here, removed a passage that touted Russia's vaccine work sourced only to a Forbes contributor, removed an addition of Li Wenliang and Li-Meng Yan to the see also section (which has been kept to only four links and a hidden warning discouraging bloat), etc. These are not the kinds of things requiring a high level of editorial judgement, but rather very basic calls that any competent editor reviewing the edits likely would have made. Also, some of the deleterious edits were made without an edit summary or by editors with a fairly problematic history, either of which should have been flags. Together, this leads me to the worrying impression that I'm the only one actually looking at and reviewing the recent history of this page. I'm fairly burnt out at this point — I've already been skipping some periods, and I'll likely end up skipping more and more going forward. My previous plea here a month ago unfortunately doesn't seem to have changed much. So please, if we don't want this article to deteriorate, we need some more editors to start monitoring the recent changes and undo the problem edits before they stick around for days and have to be fixed manually. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 18:13, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

I've been thinking about this group of articles recently. There's a certain difficulty with articles involving current events, in that you have to write with available sources, but the available sources aren't very good. So, to give an example, George Washington has 500 refs, mostly to a couple dozen books. Donald Trump has about 1000 refs, mostly to Wikipedia:PRIMARYNEWS sources. I expect, though, that m:eventually the Trump article will also be cited mostly to books and scholarly works.

I wonder whether we have yet reached a point at which we could start this process of pushing the article away from breaking news and towards stronger sourcing. If we could identify a handful of excellent sources, we could use them to replace (and update) as many statements in these articles as possible. That would improve the overall quality and also simplify some of the maintenance burden. What do you think? Is it too soon? WhatamIdoing (talk) 19:27, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

WhatamIdoing, this article is a sort of hybrid between medical and society content. When it comes to sourcing, I think the most crucial thing is to make sure that the medical parts meet the WP:MEDRS standard, since those are the things that can cause the most potential harm if they're wrong. For the society parts, it would definitely be good to migrate to more scholarly sources, and that can begin as soon as such sources start becoming available, but I'm not losing too much sleep over citations to the NYT, etc. Perhaps bringing the article's sources up to scholarly standard would discourage/make it easier to identify some deleterious edits, but I somewhat doubt it. The problem edits aren't coming since editors are weighing the reliability of VeryTrueCoronavirusFacts.com saying X against the article's present source saying !X, but rather that someone sees X on VeryTrueCoronavirusFacts.com and believes it and inserts it. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 21:56, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

I'd be happy with citations to analytical/summative/secondary articles from any high-quality newspaper or magazine. Not all news articles are primary. Scholarly sources are great, but any decent book would also be good, and might be more accessible. WhatamIdoing (talk) 04:57, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

We're only starting to see content quality issues in this topic but they've persisted for a while in the hundreds of breakout topics. In some cases, very similar content is duplicated across COVID-related articles. As a tangential effort, it may be helpful to keep an eye out for topics that can be merged where appropriate, making the set more manageable with lower editor participation. While large scale edits don't allow for much editor hand holding, we should be careful to avoid scaring off WP:NEWBIES along the way. - Wikmoz (talk) 20:21, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

Wikmoz, agreed. One thing that I've noticed with COVID-19 because of how fast everything has moved is how the presence of content can sometimes prevent more updated content from being added. For instance, Template:COVID-19 pandemic still lists many of the early Chinese doctors/whistleblowers/politicians associated with the pandemic in Wuhan, since those were added back when the pandemic was mostly in China, and even though they're no longer DUE for a severe global pandemic, they remain since there was more interest in creating the template than updating it. A similar thing happened at Impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on the music industry and similar more minor pages, which take the severely outdated approach of listing individual cancelled events/tours, but once that format was established, it's stuck, and no one so far has put in the effort to change it. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 22:06, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 22 July 2020

2605:E000:1524:123A:B112:A831:E9A3:DC1 (talk) 18:35, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Dest come os

 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. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 18:37, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

How to handle templates at bottom while PEIS is exceeded?

How should we handle the various templates at the bottom during this (hopefully brief) interim period when the article is above the PEIS limits? We currently have the sister project links template commented out by Timeshifter earlier today, but the {{COVID-19 pandemic}} navbox left in, where it displays to readers as the link itself (Template:COVID-19 pandemic). Commenting out the boxes might make things a little cleaner, but I'm concerned about it making it seem as though the PEIS issue is less severe than it actually is, or that we might forget to change things back once the issue is resolved (it's arguably a bad idea to start molding the article to adapt to the "new reality" of being over the limit, since being over the limit is not supposed to be anything even semi-permanent). Also, it's arguably better for readers to have the templates displaying as a link than as nothing, since they can click through, and it at least gives them a cue as to what's wrong, rather than leaving them to wonder. So my view is that it might be better to just leave them unmodified. Thoughts, everyone? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 21:18, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

It looks like all the templates are working now that {{COVID-19 pandemic data}} has been removed from this article, and moved to another, much shorter, article. --Timeshifter (talk) 22:31, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Timeshifter, yep. It still might be good to decide on this for when we next run into this issue, since it'll probably happen again at some point, although hopefully that's a ways off. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 23:49, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Coronavirus in Iran

I noticed a report by Reuters that around 25 million Iranians are infected with COVID-19.

https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-iran-idUSKBN24J07V

If the source is deemed reliable, Is there any way we can update the article to reflect this massive spike?

Thanks,

Urbanracer34 (talk) 15:25, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

That was an estimate by Rouhani; there is no evidence that cases were actually that high. Zoozaz1 (talk) 16:01, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

Given that the number is given by the President, it can be added as a claim. Iran's health authority did not dispute the claim, merely saying that the number refers to those who have come into contact with the virus in the past, and does not represent the current situation. Hzh (talk) 12:22, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

Is the sorting of Preventive vs Treatment wrong ?

Should this article sort and cover better the Prevention section vs the Treatment section ?

I’m noticing that Prevention is solely items of personal avoidance.

Other means of personal prevention to resist infection such as vaccine and plasma seem misplaced in Treatment as part of Management. Those items are generally viewed as preventive.

Management is for after one has caught the disease and is seeking ways to hasten the recovery and reduce symptoms by Remsdevir or Protein infusion....

Thought ? Cheers Markbassett (talk) 23:45, 21 July 2020 (UTC)

Agree. Vaccination is mentioned in the last sentence of the Prevention: "There is no COVID-19 vaccine, though many organisations are working to develop one." However, there's no dedicated subsection. I imagine it was omitted since it's not a current prevention option. However, given that a vaccine is no longer hypothetical and signs indicate it may be an option for some healthcare workers in the not too distant future, I'd support adding a single paragraph with a main article link to COVID-19 vaccine at the end of the Prevention section. - Wikmoz (talk) 00:56, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

User:Wikmoz - mmm, perhaps a couple Prevention subsections, one for Under investigation, and one for Vaccine Development ? The vaccines being developed seem mentioned often enough to be DUE their own section, but plasma and even more so the other preventions (polio vaccine, oxyhdyrochloroquine, zinc, vitamin D, etcetera) are just in tests - under investigation to measure effect, since we lack a vaccine. Cheers Markbassett (talk) 23:44, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

I've added a section for vaccines under Prevention. Several have proven effective in animal studies and are in various stages of human trials.

===Vaccine===

<!-- TO EDIT THIS SECTION, GO TO THE VACCINE ARTICLE. -->

{{Main|COVID-19 vaccine}}

{{Excerpt|COVID-19 vaccine|paragraphs=1|nohat=y}}

Regarding the other prevention methods, COVID-19 drug repurposing research and COVID-19 drug development may be the better location for this content until there's substantial proof of efficacy. - Wikmoz (talk) 01:53, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

Inviting User:Sdkb to the discussion. Rationale for the addition above. Seems notable enough in this context to include. In your removal, do you mean when the paragraph wording is further along (in needs some work as a vaccine is no longer hypothetical) or do you mean vaccine development and use? - Wikmoz (talk) 06:28, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

Wikmoz, thanks for the ping; oops, I hadn't seen this yet. I was referring to the drug development being further along, mostly. I'm rethinking this a bit, though; a few sentences might be DUE, but maybe not quite a full section yet. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 07:25, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

No worries. I'd favor going the excerpt route to avoid introducing more duplicate content and using the subsection main article link to drive editor attention to the breakout topic. Vaccines will become a topic of massive public interest in coming weeks and months (availability, relative efficacy, length of immunity, misinformation, etc.) so it will be good to keep that topic well maintained. I'll take a pass at rewording the paragraph. - Wikmoz (talk) 19:34, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

User:Sdkb, I split the intro paragraph in COVID-19 vaccine so the it's just 3 sentences. We'll see if it sticks but it's now very succinct if we do pull as an excerpt. - Wikmoz (talk) 20:18, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

Wikmoz, looks good. I just made a few further copy edits and incorporated a noinclude/include only tag pair to help the excerpt read better. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:28, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

User:Wikmoz Where would clinical trails for drugs go ? COVID-19 drug repurposing research and COVID-19 drug development are mixtures of Treatments (to mitigate effect or shorten illness) and Prevention (from getting the illness). So ... put links into the Further Information lines, or put links into the See Also list ? Cheers Markbassett (talk) 01:33, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

Template:Subject bar versus Template:Sister project links. Horizontal vs vertical

A horizontal template causes less problems no matter where it is placed. That is probably why the horizontal template is used in more articles.

This vertical template {{Sister project links}} is currently hidden in the external links section:

{{Sister project links|voy=COVID-19 pandemic|c=category:COVID-19 pandemic|d=Q81068910|q=COVID-19 pandemic|b=no|v=no|s=Category:COVID-19|m=no|mw=no|wikt=COVID-19|species=Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2|n=Category:COVID-19}}

It was hidden because it is currently not working due to restrictions on this article discussed higher up.

I suggest using a horizontal template, {{Subject bar}}, once the restrictions are lifted. The template page says

• "It is intended be placed at the end of an article, after the references, external links, navboxes, authority control template, and before any categories."

Intended uses often differ from actual uses for both templates. Both templates are also used in "See also" sections and at the top of "External links" sections. --Timeshifter (talk) 13:01, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Here is the wikitext and result for the horizontal version. It was placed in the location recommended by template documentation: Template:Subject bar. "after the references, external links, navboxes, authority control template, and before any categories." Here is the article version with it in place at the bottom of the article:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=COVID-19_pandemic&oldid=969308717

{{subject bar|b = y|b-search = COVID-19|commons = y|commons-search = COVID-19|d = y|d-search = COVID-19|n = y|n-search = COVID-19|q = y|q-search = COVID-19|s = y|s-search = COVID-19|species = y|species-search = COVID-19|v = y|v-search = COVID-19|voy = y|voy-search = COVID-19|wikt = y|wikt-search = COVID-19}}

See also: User:Timeshifter/Sandbox108.

--Timeshifter (talk) 17:07, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

Split the page

This page is over 300,000 bytes currently and has a lot of templates, especially citation templates. There has been some attempts to get around performance limits with the "Citations broken from PEIS limit" template, but that is not the correct way of reacting to performance issues. The majority of the "Transclusion expansion time" limit on this page is from citation templates alone (61%, thereof 33% from Cite web, 19% from Cite news, 5.4% from cite journal and 2.8% from Efn). The question is, what sections should be split, since at a glance there seems not to be any one single section that is worse than the others?--Snaevar (talk) 10:33, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Snaevar, it isn't ideal, but it's a band-aid to a pre-existing problem. This discussion has an analysis that goes into a breakdown of PEIS usage by section. A lot of citations have been coming from {{COVID-19 pandemic data}}, and a discussion above is considering the possibility of removing the references on this page and adding a hatnote that directs users to the template page.

For alternative solutions, splitting off sections is an eventuality given the constant influx of new information, but to slow it down, I'd suggest using only one citation instead of multiple sources for sentences that require sourcing.

There's also the use of excerpts from other articles, which is nice in only requiring edits to one page to update multiple pages that use the excerpt, but also nests the transclusions and causes the PEIS usage of the citations to become twice as much compared to the original page they're on. Some excerpts could be shortened to reduce the number of citations being re-transcluded. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 15:22, 19 July 2020 (UTC)

Going by Wikipedia:Template limits#Non-rendered transclusions it seems that each {{excerpt}} causes the entire page, even the non-excerpted parts, to be counted as transcluded. Might be worth a try to just substitute all {{excerpt}}s. – Thjarkur (talk) 07:39, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Or even subst-ing all the citation templates like was done above. – Thjarkur (talk) 07:55, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

This page was significantly altered, including the removal of a chart that allowed for the navigation between country pages on the pandemic, which are now not easily reached. This was a significant step backwards given the nature of the global pandemic.Jaedglass (talk) 05:49, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

Jaedglass, we tried quite hard to keep it, but it was taking up so much space, removal was unavoidable. See the discussion above, as well as a bunch in the archives. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 06:09, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

Removing that list of countries template was disruptive and has considerably reduced the use of the article. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 08:13, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

Graeme Bartlett, The change was necessary after citations broke and remained broken for an extended period of time. Best efforts were made to call attention to the issue and solicit editor assistance to resolve. Please see the extended discussion above. Another solution that would allow us to preserve the transcluded table is discussed here and remains possible. - Wikmoz (talk) 02:24, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

Unpopular opinion: Maybe if a statement/sentence/paragraph has more than 1 citations, maybe we could just cramp the citations to one. GeraldWL 08:23, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

Gerald Waldo Luis, that might be something we'll have to do eventually to reduce PEIS strain. We might be able to comment out the less important references so that they don't transclude? —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 02:28, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

with some effort I think that number of citations can be reduced. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 04:01, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

Tenryuu, that is exactly what I'm thinking. :-) GeraldWL 05:09, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

How close are we to getting a vaccine cure?

I’m still thinking about the cure. I really know that there’s still no cure yet. But at least one the countries must have a cure by now. The Coronavirus disease 2019 is still ongoing. It may be getting worse now. Seventyfiveyears (talk) 15:05, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

Hi. I'm sorry, but we can't help you with that here. This page is for discussing how to improve the COVID-19 pandemic article, not for general discussion of the subject. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 15:12, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

See: COVID-19 vaccine. --Timeshifter (talk) 17:10, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

WP:NOTAFORUM QueerFilmNerd^talk 07:02, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

Importance of the "National responses" section; should it be excised?

I just reverted 9March2019's removal of the "National responses" section. Their edit summary stated: Removal of section as that already appears in a separate article. While this sounds like a valid reason for splitting the page off, a removal of this extent should probably be discussed here beforehand. There is indeed a separate article, National responses to the COVID-19 pandemic, that lists the details of each nation. My current stance on this is neutral, but if there is consensus to remove, I suggest that links to the main articles should remain on here.

As it is currently (with "National responses" left intact), the PEIS count is at 1,948,892/2,097,152 bytes, so there doesn't seem to be any hurry to remove templates. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 21:16, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

The section needs to be tightened and we need to have another big discussion about which countries merit inclusion, but on the whole it should stay. We need China because it's where it started, the U.S. because it's by far the worst hit, and from there a few others are DUE. Since we're under the PEIS limit and within a reasonable editorial limit, I don't think there's need for a cut that drastic. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 01:58, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

I feel like nearly all sections in this article, for the sake of size, at least until there's a miracle or something, needs to be split and only contain main summaries of it here. GeraldWL 08:27, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

There are already individual articles (i.e. already split), but what's in the "National responses" should be summaries of important countries. At the moment I think the content could be trimmed - each country should be limited to 4 paragraphs for the most important ones (e.g. China, US), and may be 2 for the others. Trimming would allow Russia and possibly South Africa which are absent at the moment to be added. Hzh (talk) 12:05, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

agree. I think it best to have each paragraph could be summarizing responses of countries of the same continent, e.g. Asia, Europe, North America. That way you don't need subsections. I think that would be more efficient and efficacious for readers and for the editors themselves. I have also proposed cramming multiple citations in a sentence to one, which, if having the time, I may do it slowly. GeraldWL 13:03, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

I don't think writing the national responses of different countries as a single continent is that useful. Using different continent is just an arbitrary method of organisation in the article, since what happened in China is very different from India or Iran. If you want to give an account of different countries, then separating the countries is better. What happened in some countries is more significant than others, and some would need to be given more attention than others, trying to fit a country into one paragraph would not make sense. Hzh (talk) 16:27, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

Ah right. Then maybe it can just be summarized as hard as it can be, but not to the point where it hides important stuff. GeraldWL 16:51, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

Delete "International aid" subsection

I'm a little confused by the purpose of the "International aid" subsection. It's not really talking about international aid in general as it relates to COVID-19, but instead talks about international aid to and from China. It's not clear to me why there should be a China-centric international aid section. I propose we delete it. NickCT (talk) 12:15, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Agree. The content is very exclusive to China. Even if we diversify it, it would increase the page's size and would be simply impossible. The readers would rather read COVID in the place rather than read this article. Besides, there would be more space if we delete it for future stuff. GeraldWL 13:04, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

I'm just going to be bold and delete it. NickCT (talk) 13:59, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

No ethnocentrism here 107.217.84.95 (talk) 23:24, 24 July 2020 (UTC)

Hey there. The article has been split already, see International aid related to the COVID-19 pandemic. It will require further expansion, as I am currently doing right now. GeraldWL 16:52, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

Treatment

• All India Institute of Medical Sciences, Delhi, in India, administers the first dose (Phase 1) of under trial human vaccine, (to a 30-year old man), which is a potential novel Coronavirus vaccine, viz., COVAXIN, produced by, Hyderabad-based Bharat Biotech in collaboration with The Indian Council of Medical Research and National Institute of Virology.

After administered with the vaccine, the man is found with no side effects so far.

If the vaccine functions with no harm, it will be a boon to mankind.

References: News channels. Helppublic (talk) 04:38, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

We need WP:MEDRS-strength sources for any biomedical content like this, not news reports. Alexbrn (talk) 04:49, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

That doesn't sound like a sufficient study to even pay attention to with such a small sample size (of 1). —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 05:29, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

Video summary -- unneeded?

Okay, maybe there is something that I don't know, but what is the use of the video summary anyway? Do readers even watch it? The Google Translate-like voice is so annoying that people would laugh rather than hear, and the closed captions are disordered. I feel like it is a waste of space and time, and readers won't listen to the summary anyway, because it is already repeated from above. If you're referring to the visually impaired, they have screen readers. I suggest remove. Thoughts? GeraldWL 13:18, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

Weak support. A video summary can be helpful (though I didn't know it even existed until Gerald Waldo Luis mentioned it), but as it is right now must be reworked if it is kept. Interested readers can view the script here. The script seems to have changed from the video (e.g., the video mentions at 1:03 As of the 21st of July, 2020), which does not match the script as accessed on 25 July 2020 (As of 25 July 2020, more than 15.7 million cases [...]). This could mean that an update is being planned. One issue that I'm hearing is that the software does not differentiate period usage. When it encounters a figure like 8.34 million people at 1:17, it renders it as Eight. Thirty-four million people. I would very much prefer a real person narrate the video (or the article proper) as the software's prosody sounds unnatural and pisses me off.

Shameless plug: This sounds like something that WikiProject Spoken Wikipedia may be interested in. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 18:55, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

I oppose having WP:SPOKEN involved in this article, or any article that are constantly changing related to COVID-19. It updates everyday, and I feel like nobody will even listen to an outdated version of it. That is also why I am really opposed to the project. Having a person narrate can make it better, but overall, I see no point in making a video summary and/or a spoken version of this constantly-changing article. GeraldWL 05:44, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

It's true that WP:SPOKEN doesn't like to do articles that are changing rapidly. There's some argument to be made that this is just such an important page that it's worthwhile to do a spoken version anyways, even if it'll have a limited lifespan, though. So if someone wants to create a spoken version, go ahead, it'll be a net positive, but it's not where I'd direct someone looking to make a spoken version that's most needed. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 07:00, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

• Support. The video is a summary of Coronavirus disease 2019, not COVID-19 pandemic, so we should have a discussion on whether or not to keep it there, but we should definitely remove it there. I'd probably weakly support removing it there, since it's just very low quality, and we want to be putting forward only our best work for the lead area of pages this important. Issues include the voice, the boring choices for some visuals, and the text credits image (only mentioning ten users, terrible visual design). {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 07:00, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

It can also be trimmed heavily. You don't need the entire thing about the disease crammed to a long, so-boring-that-it-would-rather-be-a-bedtime-story video summary. I feel like it can just be a short article-in-a-nutshell. However, regardless of the improvements I can suggest, even the concept of having a summary is remarkably unremarkable. You don't need a summary for the sake of easy understanding, which is how I view the creator made it for. Simple English is available for readers. GeraldWL 14:17, 26 July 2020 (UTC)

The entire article is cast into dubious light due to obvious political slants added near the bottom

Specifically: President Donald Trump suggests measures to treat COVID-19 during Coronavirus Task Force press briefing.webm should be used as the visual element of the misinformation section, with the caption U.S. president Donald Trump suggested at a press briefing on 23 April that disinfectant injections or exposure to ultraviolet light might help treat COVID-19. There is no evidence that either could be a viable method.

First of all, there IS evidence that exposure to UV-light might help treat COVID-19. Here's just one of many sources that can be found: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/339887436_2020_COVID-19_Coronavirus_Ultraviolet_Susceptibility

Second of all, it just reads as petty, like someone really wanted to put in a jab against Trump in an otherwise factual and serious article, and it will alienate a lot of people. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 89.150.199.13 (talk) 11:29, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

While it is proven that UV light can kill corona, it is not suggested and proven that UV be used to kill corona in humans. It is a dangerous suggestion, and Wikipedia could be damaged if we put such current misinformation. Especially the disinfectant part. We also don't jab Trump per WP:NPOV, we just state the facts. GeraldWL 11:45, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

Here are some sources you can check: [13] [14] [15] GeraldWL 11:52, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

The discussion on whether to keep the image is near the top, anyone can still contribute before it closes, which is likely soon. Hzh (talk) 12:03, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

It is not "petty" it is a well know example of coronavirus misinformation in the US, coming right from the president. Zoozaz1 (talk) 14:20, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 29 July 2020

May I understand why Hydroxychloroquine is completely blanked out from COVID19 article on Wikipedia? - Where is the much-touted independence of Wikimedia Foundation at play here?

While it may not make rich companies richer, Hydroxychloroquine is saving millions of lives across the world & it deserves a mention if not a whole page. 183.83.133.50 (talk) 08:06, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

Because we don't want to spread lies and misinformation here? Anyway, an edit request must include the actual text change you want to make, supported by sources compliant with WP:MEDRS. If you can find WP:MEDRS sources supporting the efficacy of Hydroxychloroquine, we can include it. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 08:20, 29 July 2020 (UTC)

For the treatment of this topic in Wikipedia, see Hydroxychloroquine#COVID-19 Chris55 (talk) 21:30, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

Which type of English?

Hello, my name is Rebestalic

Is there a specific reason for using British English in this article?

Rebestalic^{[leave a message....]} 11:12, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

I don't really know why, but its probably a favor of a user/the creator of this article, whom they lived in the UK based on his userpage. And that is okay, if he feel like it. It would not be changed without a consensus that says so. GeraldWL 12:49, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

It's covered by WP:ENGVAR. Essentially, if an article has a connection to a geographical version of English (American, British, Indian etc) then that version should be used. Otherwise, we stick with the version originally used for the article. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 14:26, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

I wonder what connection COVID has with places using British.... GeraldWL

Nothing beyond an initial dibs really. Juxlos (talk) 14:35, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

None that I can see - I'm sure it's as you suggest, that British English is just what the original author used. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 14:37, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

Britain has the highest death toll per population. Britain had an out of control situation where they wanted to permit spreading the disease in order to obtain immunity. Britain has a sick health system, trimmed down more than was healthy. Britain has a premier minister who suffered severely by the disease himself and now sounds very different than before. Many good reasons to stick to British English. Apart from that, British English is the language references for more countries than American English is - e.g. by plenty of early affected European countries. Just because US have a high population and an especially ignorant president would not justify American English. Maybe Indian English, becuase they have the largest English speaking population? --Traut (talk) 11:38, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

Well, there's a number of errors there. But that aside, no, the reason for British English is absolutely nothing to do with any of that - it is as has already been explained. Also no, the reason for sticking with British English is simply because that's what's already there. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 11:55, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

Architecture and urbanism

Several measures can be taken at the building and city scale for the prevention and control of epidemics, as well as for the human health in general. For the interior spaces, the spreading may be reduced through air control by ventilation, filtering and humidifying, for the residential by promoting intermediate housing and the use of public spaces between buildings, for working by helping telecommuting, size and dispersion, for shopping by encouraging proximity and downscaling, for transportation by promoting walking, bicycling, shared mobility and robo-taxies, and, at the city scale, by developing mixed use neighborhoods. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Epible (talk • contribs) 14:39, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

References

Typo in "Global Ceasefire"

It says "On March 23, 2030" obviously incorrect.

Fixed. Thank you! Johncdraper (talk) 18:57, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

Talks about using the virus that causes the pandemic, not the disease that causes the pandemic

You all do know that it's SARS-CoV-2, which is the virus strain, that is responsible for causing the pandemic, not the disease that causes it. Please stop reverting it back because I had it there for a reason. Williamwang363 (talk) 23:39, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

Williamwang363, The virus itself isn't causing the pandemic, it is the disease. Think of it this way; if the immune systems of humans magically transformed so they were able to stop the disease but not kill the virus, there would be no pandemic because the cause of the pandemic is the disease, not the virus. Zoozaz1 (talk) 23:57, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

Williamwang363, we've discussed this before in a move request and it is currently §10 in the Talk:COVID-19 pandemic/Current consensus. Please acquaint yourself with that. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 23:59, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

Is it misinformation in misinformation section?

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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Following ref link seems seem to be political unrelated to COVID-19

'Obvious disinformation': Observers debunk Qatar coup claims, aljazeera

Used as reference to following sentence

....'It has also been reportedly spread by covert operations backed by states such as Saudi Arabia'....

Can some one verify and do needful corrections in COVID-19 pandemic# Misinformation, if needed ?

Bookku (talk) 05:35, 31 July 2020 (UTC)

I am really confused as to what the article referenced is trying to say. There is no mentions of 'COVID-19' or anything of the sort. Any literacy experts here? GeraldWL 07:00, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

Heads up: it is obvious nonsense. It is very unrelated to COVID. I might remove the reference or the statement. GeraldWL 07:02, 2 August 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.

Importance and location in page of 'Global ceasefire': Proposal to restore to 'International aid', Zoozazl version

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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I am looking for consensus on the location and importance of the 'Global ceasefire'. I originally entered 'Global ceasefire' as a subheading under 'International aid' (note, not the 'WHO' section). This is because it resulted in a UN Security Council resolution specifically designed to temporarily halt all wars, globally, to facilitate aid to vulnerable parties, including countries, during the coronavirus pandemic. Zoozaz1 subsequently shortened the section, which I was fine with. Sdkbthen shortened the section to a single sentence and moved it under the 'Politics heading'. On the importance of the entry, let me underline that this is the first global ceasefire in the history of the United Nations, meaning it is the first global ceasefire in humanity's history. It is an unprecedented international response specifically designed to provide humanitarian corridors for aid into war zones to manage and prevent the spread of the coronavirus. I would like to restore to the Zoozaz1 version and am looking for consensus over the next 36 hours, after which I propose making the edit. Johncdraper (talk) 06:39, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

Do you still have the sources, in case you referenced it or you have researched about it? I would love to learn more about it so that I can see. GeraldWL 06:53, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

Gerald Waldo Luis Check the page version history (this version) and the Global ceasefire main entry. Johncdraper (talk) 07:13, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

Alright, I have read it. So it is about stoppage of war. I feel like wars have not been such a priority and not on alot of people's minds during this pandemic. I could suggest having the section revived back but only putting the Main hatnote (just like Int'l aid), or adding it in See also. I feel like not everyone will be interested in knowing "Oh, wars have stopped." That's just my opinion: any American-OnlyFans stuff I don't know as I'm Indonesian. GeraldWL 08:48, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

Gerald Waldo Luis Hmm. Let me put this another way. Conflict dynamics have actually worsened during the COVID-19 pandemic. As you can see from the main entry, some wars have actually gotten worse during the pandemic, and continued conflict will prevent e.g., vaccination, increasing the likelihood of a reservoir persisting in long-standing conflict zones. The UNSC resolution is an important step in dealing with this problem. In addition, in terms of global politics and UN politics, this is as good as it has ever gotten. A UNSC resolution calling for a global ceasefire is a necessary precursor step for world peace. It has never, in human history, ever even been attempted before; the closest is the actual Charter of the United Nations. In military and peace studies, this is an unprecedented UN reaction. Johncdraper (talk) 09:23, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

Johncdraper, the UN is always asking for worldwide peace; that's basically what they exist to do. Absent some evidence that this resolution has actually influenced any countries' foreign policy, the only question in my mind is whether it's DUE to give it any mention at all. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 07:07, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

Sdkb I take your point about the effectiveness. This is still being monitored. However, this is arguably the most important UN Security Council resolution yet on the coronavirus. This is the one where the Americans objected over it mentioning the WHO, how to deal account for non-state actor, such as with ISIS, in the phrasing. This is the one that took over 3 months to get UNSC consensus on, despite 172 UN General Assembly Member States and Observers backing the UN Secretary-General's Appeal, in the process exposing deep divisions within the UNSC due to their involvement in long-standing conflicts, on different sides. This is the initiative that led to the Saudi-led coalition calling for ceasefires in the Yemen, as well as a host of smaller ceasefires. globally. In terms of military history, it is unprecedented, and in terms of potentially opening up routes into areas like the Yemen, it is fundamentally important to humanity's response to the pandemic. Johncdraper (talk) 07:23, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

Sdkb and Gerald Waldo Luis As an update, there is now a United Nations' response to the COVID-19 pandemic main entry (which I created). Should 'United Nations' not go into the article as a subheading under the 'International responses' responses heading, comprising the UNGA and UNSC resolutions, together with the World Health Organization, which is a specialized agency of the UN? Johncdraper (talk) 15:06, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

@Johncdraper: I don't see any entry. And your link is red. GeraldWL 15:27, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

@Gerald Waldo Luis: My bad. Link is good now. Please try again. Johncdraper (talk) 15:34, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

@Johncdraper: That would probably deserve a mention on COVID-19 pandemic by only adding a hatnote. I would probably consult much more expert users who have been active with this article before altering the WHO section. GeraldWL 15:48, 2 August 2020 (UTC)

@Gerald Waldo Luis: I agree. @Sdkb: I would be grateful for your thoughts on this. Johncdraper (talk) 15:59, 2 August 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.

"2019–2020 outbreak" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect 2019–2020 outbreak. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 August 3#2019–2020 outbreak until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. Spicy (talk) 14:38, 3 August 2020 (UTC)

A foreign agent poll

@Zoozaz1: [16] According to WP:NPOV – All encyclopedic content on Wikipedia must be written from a neutral point of view (NPOV), which means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic. Also you must "indicate the relative prominence of opposing views". When you say that a foreign agent poll is DUE and a state-sponsored poll is UNDUE, this in no way fits the NPOV rule. It's elementary. If you feel that you are biased in this topic, it's better to avoid it.--Александр Мотин (talk) 08:25, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

@Александр Мотин: Not butting in here, but why does Russia even have an infobox on this main page at all, given Russia has no country subheading entry? Can this not be moved to the country response page? Johncdraper (talk) 08:35, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

@Johncdraper: Good idea. If there are no objections, feel free to do it.--Александр Мотин (talk) 08:41, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

@Александр Мотин: I will wait 12 hours for any response from @Zoozaz1: and then move it. I notice it is not on the Russian response page. Johncdraper (talk) 08:47, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

@Johncdraper: Sorry, I didn't get it right at first [17]. Russian Public Opinion Research Center is not a government body, so... Anyway if they mention a foreign agent poll, they must mention another polls with opposite results. --Александр Мотин (talk) 08:49, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

But, yeah, I still support moving it to the country response page.--Александр Мотин (talk) 08:54, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

@Александр Мотин: From the Wikipedia entry: "The state-owned and government-run institution reports to the [[Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs (Russia)|Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs]]."?? Johncdraper (talk) 08:55, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

@Johncdraper: If they say that Russian Public Opinion Research Center is a government body, then there must be a statute. I don't see it in the article.--Александр Мотин (talk) 09:06, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

I mean that the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs operates on the basis of the relevant statute [18]. And what statute regulates the activity of VTsIOM? --Александр Мотин (talk) 09:15, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

@Александр Мотин: I just updated the article using their own E-language page. They are an 'open joint-stock company with full state ownership'. That makes them a hybrid, but still 100% Russian state. Can we pause on this while we wait for @Zoozaz1:? Johncdraper (talk) 09:17, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

Johncdraper, Thanks for waiting for my response. Simply put, what is due is determined by significant views published by reliable sources, and reliable sources do not mention the state-sponsored poll, and if they do they note its inaccuracy. Similarly, they do not note the Russian government's classification of the Levada institute as a foreign agent. They do, however, note the poll in relation to the Russian public's support of Putin's handling of the outbreak. I will also note that TASS, the sources used for the gov't poll, has a yellow listing on WP:RSP. Zoozaz1 (talk) 14:47, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

Zoozaz1 and Александр Мотин, Okay, I return to my main point: given that there is no Russian entry on this page, I recommend deleting the infobox. Then, if either of you want to restore it to the Russian response page, in any format, you can do so, and take the discussion there. Do we have a consensus on this? Johncdraper (talk) 15:10, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

Johncdraper, If you want to move it that's fine, but it is in the other countries section. Zoozaz1 (talk) 15:13, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

Johncdraper I won't mind. --Александр Мотин (talk) 15:17, 5 August 2020 (UTC)

This is now done. See Russian government responses to the COVID-19 pandemic. Would someone please now archive this discussion? Johncdraper (talk) 15:34, 5 August 2020 (UTC)