Talk:COVID-19 pandemic in Nepal

WikiProject COVID-19

I've created WikiProject COVID-19 as a temporary or permanent WikiProject and invite editors to use this space for discussing ways to improve coverage of the ongoing 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic. Please bring your ideas to the project/talk page. Stay safe, --Another Believer _(Talk) 17:28, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Minor reorganization

Thanks to everyone who is contributing to this article. I am doing some minor reorganization, partly to get the most important information (the number of cases) stated early in the lead. Similar to the Covid-Pakistan article: 2020 coronavirus pandemic in Pakistan. Best regards, Dorje108 (talk) 11:21, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Dorje108, I am sorry but I had to revert many of your changes. The article's structure is fine. We are writing an encyclopedia article. We don't need to beautify it, highlight what we think is interesting or sort the article by how interesting each fact maybe for a given time. Regards! Usedtobecool ☎️ 20:57, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

Usedtobecool, I am disappointed that you disagree with the edits. I will refrain from further edits, since clearly you are putting a lot of thought and effort into this article. My intention was not to "beatify" the article, but to present the most relevant information (for people living in Nepal) as clearly as possible. Yes, this is an encyclopedia article, but there is not one-size-fits-all structure for an article. I reviewed the corresponding articles for many other countries, and I was unable to identify a uniform structure. Wikipedia is also providing a public service, and it makes sense to adapt to the situation. My goal was to make it easier for readers to find important information--and also easier for contributors to add updated information. In the current structure there are three sections that need to be updated with information on newly confirmed cases: the lead, the section on the Epidemiological Overview, and the Timeline. You might consider addressing this issue if this crises continues. I appreciate your efforts, and hopefully the current crisis in Nepal will be resolved quickly. Best regards, Dorje108 (talk) 03:31, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Usedtobecool, I just wanted to emphasize that I sincerely appreciate your efforts on this article. Best regards, Dorje108 (talk) 06:38, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Dorje108, Some of your changes were definitely wrong, such as moving content without inline citations from lead to the body (see WP:LEADCITE). Other changes, I disagree with because, in my view, they were not an improvement.

We service our readers in the manner that you suggest, with the lead which summarises all the pertinent information in a couple of paragraphs and the infobox. I disagree we need to service them so much that we provide an incomplete lead and jump into a list of confirmed cases with bolded pointers. There are five cases, in people who came from abroad, three in Kathmandu and one each in Baglung and Kailali; that's all the pertinent information that a lazy reader requires and that is provided between the lead and the infobox, there is no added benefit to providing a list of cases with details that hardly contribute to the reader's understanding, with such zeal. Those details are fine as they are in the Epidemiology section and the timeline.

Of course, the article will have to continue to evolve as the situation develops. Much of the details will have to be removed as they become too minor in the overall scheme. The organisation may well be very much different in a few months' time.

I have no sympathy for the need of the editors; since, by right, we should not be writing this article at all right now. Encyclopedia is a completely different beast, and attempting to become news is our undoing (WP:NOTNEWS). Anyway, most editors who come to update don't care what goes where; they add the latest update as the first or last sentence of the lead.

This is a global encyclopedia; and trying to provide "most relevant information for people living in Nepal" would be both presumptuous, and a disservice to the global readership.

Underlining and bolding things to draw readers attention is generally not allowed; that is what I was alluding to with the "beautification" remark. I haven't checked all the diffs but I assume it was you who underlined select dates in the timeline.

I am assuming you are familiar with WP:DR. I am the original author and principal contributor to the article. I disagreed with your large scale overhauling of the article structure without discussion and have therefore reverted. That doesn't mean that I WP:OWN the article, but it does mean I am a bit attached to it and will require consensus against my position before I accept changes that I think are not an improvement. To be clear, I am not satisfied with the current structure at all, and will continue to put work into it, to hopefully get it to WP:GA status after the crisis is over. I too have looked at other articles, and with the information available, I haven't been able to think of a better organisation that would be a justifiable amount of improvement in view of the work required. I am open to suggestions, and discussions on that.

Thank you for your kind words. And best regards! Usedtobecool ☎️ 08:38, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Usedtobecool Thanks for your comments. If this were easy, then all of these corresponding articles from all the different countries would look the same; but they are all different. So I appreciate your good faith efforts, and I find the article very useful. On a minor note, it was not me who underlined the selected dates in the timeline. If I have constructive suggestions in the future, I will post them here. Best regards, Dorje108 (talk) 14:38, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Bhulke hotspot

Bhulke, a small neighborhood in Triyuga Municipality in Udayapur District suddenly came up for discussion on 17 April 2020, when 12 Indian people found covid-19 positive at Bhulke. Those people had come to Nepal earlier about four months and had been residing in the mosque at Bhulke.

CDO of Udayapur came in action when residents of Bhulke informed authorities about people residing in mosque at Bhulke. CDO ordered to quarantine all the people residing in the mosque in a quarantine camp at a school in Bhulke. Out of 16 people, 12 found covid-19 positive and all the 16 people sent to Biratnagar for further check-up. In Biratnagar one more people found covid-19 positive next day.

The mosque area in Bhulke sealed suddenly and resident of Bhulke near mosque are told for Swab test. More than 300 people tested for swab and 11 people out of 300 found covid positive on April 21st 2020. More swab tested on 22 April and 6 more people found covid positive. With this the number of infected people in Udayapur reached 30.

Among those 30 infected people, two infected people had come from India recently and one infected had come from UAE on March 22nd so it is being said that those three men might have bring infection with them. --— Preceding unsigned comment added by Raju Babu (talk • contribs) 23 April 2020 (UTC)

The idea is sound, but the content needs a bit of work. If you added the sources too, I could copyedit it. Best, Usedtobecool ☎️ 15:40, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Conflicting sources for case numbers at COVID-19 pandemic in Nepal

Moved from Wikipedia Talk:WikiProject COVID-19 § Conflicting sources for case numbers at COVID-19 pandemic in Nepal

 – •Shawnqual• 📚 • 💭 00:05, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

I just noticed this while patrolling pending changes. Anybody more actively involved in this subject care to take a look? Thanks, RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 15:59, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

RandomCanadian, where exactly is the confliction you have noticed? Please provide more information.•Shawnqual• 📚 • 💭 22:13, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

@Shawnqual: This source (Nepal Ministry of Home Affairs, National Disaster Risk Reduction and Management Authority) lists the number of recovered cases to be 33 and the number of active cases to be 421. This other page (Nepal Ministry of Health and Population) lists, respectively, "49 healed" and "401 in isolation" (I assume the google translations are somewhat wrong, but you get the gist, the number of infections in both cases is 457, in the Nepali only page Google translates this to "457 Infection Seen (PCR)"). So two official sources are conflicting with each other: which one should we use? RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 23:05, 21 May 2020 (UTC)

@RandomCanadian: Priority must always been given to the top most health agency of the government. Which in this case is the Nepal Ministry of Health and Population (the page in Nepali). There is also no need to mention Active cases in the infobox, this parameter is not being used in almost all the other countries' infoboxes, so to keep it consistent, you can remove it. For recoveries in the infobox, use Health Ministry as first and then Disaster authority as as second source. For statistics and other charts, use only Health Ministry's source to keep things reliable and consistent. •Shawnqual• 📚 • 💭 00:15, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

(merged from a new section I created on the same issue) The Home Ministry seems to be lagging behind on properly updating the number of recoveries, which makes sense considering its area of concern is the movement of people and quarantine centres. We should go with Health Ministry's numbers, absent clarifications anywhere why the numbers don't match. Worldometers updates with the Health Ministry as well. Usedtobecool ☎️ 13:54, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Edits by Shawnqual

Shawnqual, this article has no obligation to be consistent with any other article. The information that you characterise as indiscriminate copy-pasting without regard for policy, was properly attributed in the edit summary when it was added. Lead gets bloated with references, not without. So far as I know, only contentious claims about living persons may require inline citations in the lead. Is there something I am missing? Plus you broke some citations. Usedtobecool ☎️ 05:46, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

@Usedtobecool:, I have seen you state similar reasons above when another editor, @Dorje108: tried to contribute to this article. It comes across as if you believe you have unquestionable authority over this article. And yes, you are missing a lot actually. Have a look at this list:

• A) Just because we are organizing the article does not mean we want it to appear exactly the same as other articles. Editors might be trying to keep it together with various Wikipedia Policies (at least I was).

• B) A lead without any or bare minimum of references is not standard practice. See: WP:MOSLEAD. Apart from basic facts, significant information should not appear in the lead if it is not covered in the remainder of the article. Currently, the lead is stating multiple bits of duplicate information already stated elsewhere in the article. As a general rule of thumb, a lead section should contain no more than four well-composed paragraphs and be carefully sourced as appropriate. Have a look at the lead, large paragraphs, and not at all carefully sourced. It contains so much critical information without any sources. Even the basic information of total cases and number of districts affected is not sourced, let alone claims / original research about border checkpoints. This is all grounds for removal based on WP:NOR.

• C) So far as I know, only contentious claims about living persons may require inline citations in the lead. What? If that were the case none of the articles apart from those of living persons would have any inline citations in the lead. Again, See: WP:NOR. References do not bloat any part of the article, they are necessary and are not added to the bulk of information stated in the article. To demonstrate that you are not adding OR, you must be able to cite reliable, published sources that are directly related to the topic of the article, and directly support the material being presented.

• D) See also: MOS:INTRO, Editors should avoid lengthy paragraphs and overly specific descriptions – greater detail is saved for the body of the article. Consideration should be given to creating interest in the article, but do not hint at startling facts without describing them.

• E) According to the policy on due weight, emphasis given to material should reflect its relative importance to the subject, according to published reliable sources. This is true for both the lead and the body of the article. Accordingly, Significant information should not appear in the lead if it is not covered in the remainder of the article, although not everything in the lead must be repeated in the body of the text. as per the policy of 'Relative emphasis' MOS:LEADREL.

• F) Let's also keep in mind, The length of the lead should conform to readers' expectations of a short, but useful and complete, summary of the topic. A lead that is too short leaves the reader unsatisfied; a lead that is too long is intimidating, difficult to read, and may cause the reader to lose interest halfway. as per MOS:LEADLENGTH.

• G) Let's take a look at the section of Cases. All of this information below is already stated in the Timeline section and with the same references. I check before removing. So, why state this exact duplicate information here. This is against standard practice as it provides no new information for readers and bloats the article.

Duplicate information

As of 21 May 2020, Nepal has confirmed 444 cases of COVID-19 disease. The first case was confirmed on 24 January in a 32-year-old man who had recently returned from China.[39] The patient had shown mild symptoms, and was confirmed recovered by the end of January.[40] The second case was confirmed on 23 March in a 19-year-old woman who had recently returned from France via Qatar.[41] She was treated at Teku hospital, Kathmandu.[42] The third case was confirmed on 25 March, in a person who had recently returned from the United Arab Emirates.[43] The fourth case, the first outside Kathmandu, was confirmed on 27 March, in a 34-year-old man who had recently returned from the Middle East. He was treated at Seti Provincial Hospital in Dhangadhi.[44] The fifth case was confirmed in Baglung on 28 March, in a 19-year-old woman who had returned from Belgium via Qatar. She had shared a flight from Doha to Kathmandu with the patient who was confirmed on 23 March.[45] The sixth case was confirmed on 2 April in a woman from Baglung.[46] Three new cases were confirmed on 4 April, two of them were men who had recently returned from India and one was a 34-year woman, a relative of one of the patients. She was also the first instance of local transmission within Nepal.[47] On 11 April, three more cases were confirmed, in Indian nationals who had been stranded in Birgunj of Parsa District.[48] On 13 April, a 65-year-old woman from Kailali and a 19-year-old man from Rautahat tested positive.[49] On 14 April, two new cases were confirmed in a family from Kathmandu which had returned from the United Kingdom four weeks prior. On 17 April, 14 new cases were confirmed, 12 of them, Indian nationals from Delhi, quarantined in Udaypur, and two, Nepalis from Chitwan who had recently returned from abroad, taking the total number of cases to 30.[50] On 18 April, a second complete recovery was confirmed in Kathmandu, bringing the total number of active cases to 28.[51]

• H) So you see, what you termed as driveby overhauling with faulty rationales; no evidence of due care was anything but. There was proper reasoning and rationale behind the edit. This is also against, WP:GF. Most people try to help the project, not hurt it.

If you still think none of the edits were warranted, even after I have stated various policies above clearly, don't worry, we can ping other editors of this project and see what they think. Thanks! •Shawnqual• 📚 • 💭 19:26, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Shawnqual, In order:

No, I haven't changed my opinion on how best to develop the article; so I would expect that I would have been consistent in my arguments. (I won't dignify your reference to OWN with a response.)

A. You are the one who mentioned consistency with other articles. While that diff is linked, I would also note that copy-pasting isn't grounds for blanking, oversight regarding attribution is easily addressed. One would think this would not need pointing out about an edit which specifically references policies in the editsummary, but here we are.

You are misunderstanding guidelines including the bits that you quote:

B. " Apart from basic facts, significant information should not appear in the lead if it is not covered in the remainder of the article. Currently, the lead is stating multiple bits of duplicate information already stated elsewhere in the article." You are contradicting the quote; and you are wrong. Lead is for duplicate information. It's not a news lede.

"A lead without any or bare minimum of references is not standard practice." You are wrong. Controversial information is cited inline in the lead to save trouble, otherwise lead doesn't need citations for claims which are cited in the body.

The lead has barely three paragraphs. Large is subjective, and I disagree that any one paragraph is too large. It actually says, carefully sourced as appropriate (emphasis mine). You misunderstand what comes under "appropriate" and are therefore mistaken in what requires citation.

You misunderstand NOR. OR is including text that can't be sourced, not missing a citation for a claim that can be sourced with minimal effort if one goes looking.

C. You are wrong. See WP:CITELEAD. See above about NOR.

D. This point can not be addressed without context. I maintain that the lead is a reasonable summary of the article, and does not include over-specificity or lengthy paragraphs beyond what's necessary to provide a reasonable summary.

E. Again, you are quoting a bit that contradicts your arguments and actions. It is difficult to respond more specifically since you give no examples.

F. Redundant argument. Responded in D.

G. This is the one point you are absolutely correct about. When the article was created, the list in the "Timeline" section was the only way information could be updated as there wasn't much of an encyclopedic broad picture at that time. However, the timeline is just an indiscriminate list of whatever is in the headlines at any given day. I have been trying to move information to appropriate places such as outbreak history, government response, impact, etc. Even right now, I have an open editing window where I am composing one of those. But before that effort is complete, removing Timeline section would not help; and removing other sections would only make it worse as those are the sections that need to be developed. There is no deadline, and "broad picture" takes a lot of digging. I hope we can come to an agreement on this, that timeline section is the one that needs to go or remain in a very minimal state, and other sections which provide encyclopedic overview of different aspects of the subject are the ones that need to be developed. I would prefer that we not remove the sections that need developing just because they currently have redundancies.

H. I apologise for the terseness of my remarks. However, I stand by the substance of it. You misunderstand a lot of the guidelines; it only stands to reason that the edits so informed would have faulty rationales.

I didn't care for the manner in which you referenced DR, but, for sure, I would welcome further attention to the article; especially from editors inclined to lend a hand developing the prose and adding references. Please make sure to follow appropriate DR channels though. Pinging editors who are likely to agree with your view is a big NO. Regards! Usedtobecool ☎️ 10:50, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

Usedtobecool Meh. Have it your way. As for the Timeline, it is the section which needs to remain in a major state. While it can become an indiscriminate list of what the headlines were, it doesn't have to be. Have a look at various other articles, there is a very good way to manage that. Cases needs to go, think again, are you going to add every single case reported in the section? What would be the use of that? If that is the case, why have there been no cases added since 18 April? Why is that date important?

Dude, do you really think none of this information is worth referencing?

Lead information with TONS of original research

Between January and March, Nepal took steps to prevent a widespread outbreak of the disease, while preparing for it by procuring essential supplies, equipment and medicine, upgrading health infrastructure, training medical personnel, and spreading public awareness. The second case was confirmed on 23 March 2020 in Kathmandu. The first case of local transmission was confirmed on 4 April in Kailali District. The first death occurred on 14 May. As of 24 May 2020, a total of 603 cases have been confirmed, affecting 40 of the 77 administrative districts. Seventy of them have been confirmed recovered; three people have died. Nepal established health-desks at Tribhuvan International Airport as well as on border checkpoints with India, starting in mid-January. Land borders with India as well as China were later completely sealed off, and all international flights were suspended. All academic examinations were cancelled, and schools and colleges were closed. Quarantine centres and temporary hospitals are being setup across the country. Laboratory facilities are being upgraded and expanded. Hospitals have been setting up ICU units and isolation beds. The SAARC countries have pledged to cooperate in controlling the disease in the region. India, the United States and Germany increased their support to Nepali health sectors.

How much context do you require for D? Thinking of the edit I made, it wasn't even major. I carefully moved the non-cited text from the lead to the Response section and added a (citation needed) tag. Removed the text from the lead after checking if it was already stated somewhere else in the timeline. Yet, here we are, where your response is akin to someone blanking the whole article. I have been active in various pandemic articles, I knew what I was doing, yet it comes across as if you think this was a spam. If you had an issue with what was done, you could have politely raised it here/on my talk page instead of reverting it all. Especially when I left the article in a better state (objectively not subjectively). What makes you think your version of the article is above any other? Wikipedia is a collaborative effort. Stating this: I would welcome further attention to the article; especially from editors inclined to lend a hand developing the prose and adding references. but your actions are in a complete opposite way. This discourages other editors from contributing as it can become a complete waste of time. An article also loses particular insight this way, (I can read Nepali and understand a chunk of it), that is how I added the main reference from the health ministry.

Just because you have an open window composing the article, it isn't a reasonable argument for leaving the article in a messy / incomplete state. It should be the other way round. Leave the article in a good state, then start working on it. I will be focusing on other articles for now, the only reason I ended up here was someone mentioned the discrepancy about case numbers on the Project's Talk Page, and being an active member of the project, I tried to help the article as best as I could. Hopefully, some other editors will come across the article and be better at stating their points/go on flame wars/making you understand what is required. Keep on as you are until then. :) Regards. •Shawnqual• 📚 • 💭 19:54, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

Shawnqual, you are still misunderstanding much of what I am trying to say about why the article is the way it is and what I propose may be the best way to handle it, which is understandable, since we haven't had much of a conversation on that, and are unlikely to, if you'd rather move on. However, I must reiterate that you are also misunderstanding content guidelines. It's not my personal view; if you have been doing stuff contrary to guidelines, someone else will catch it sooner or later. I hope you'll remember this conversation then, and be more receptive.

You made a WP:BOLD edit. I am perfectly within my rights to revert it if I don't agree with it. You always take that risk when changing any article significantly. If you are going to take the revert personally, you should not be making big BOLD edits in the first instance. Since you are not interested in discussing our disagreements or pursuing DR, I will leave it at that. Usedtobecool ☎️ 20:14, 24 May 2020 (UTC)

Usedtobecool I have taken a look at the article, and it is in a much, much better state currently. Not too far from where I was leading it too. This is what my issue with your revert is, how can we not consider your edits as WP:BOLD now? And why wouldn't someone else be perfectly within (their) rights to revert it if (they) don't agree with it? Do you get what I am trying to say? If I had an issue with what you have done, I would have raised it here and asked your opinions, not just plainly revert it. Your actions were quite contrary to my experience of over 8 years on Wikipedia so far. But I have read of this, editors can become too invested in their work, to the point where they think they are the ultimate authority of an article. All I am trying to say is there was a better way to handle this and we could have together contributed to the article. Regards. •Shawnqual• 📚 • 💭 22:00, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

Shawnqual, If someone told me, I had policies or guidelines wrong, I would be that much more interested in figuring out the differences and resolving them, because one of us would have to be right. Instead, you completely ignored everything I said and told me to "have it [my] way", and that you "will be focusing on other articles". Over a revert. Reverted edits are right there in the history, to be reinstated if consensus develops for them. But, no, I am not obligated to leave content that misapplies PAGs, while I raise the issue. If you have so much of a problem with reverts, why didn't you discuss it first yourself? You must have been aware that you would be reverting someone else's work too.

And now you're back with an I was right all along, and another reference to OWN. I don't know how you expect me to react to that. If you think I have shown poor conduct, feel free to bring it up with whomever you see fit, otherwise it's just a personal attack used to poison the well, and I am not going to overlook that forever; this page is for discussing improvements to the article, not your editing philosophy or mine. Usedtobecool ☎️ 06:55, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

Regarding incorrect data!

Actually, we are very familiar to the government websites of Nepal which never update when necessary. Nepal has given priority to Antigen test these days. Thousands of test are conducted daily and thousands come positive. This data is though updated by Ministry through the daily situation report. Wikipedia is keeping incorrect data from months, including just PCR tests and positive cases. Don't this create confusion in public? For ex: On 8 July government carried on with 5-5 thousands PCR and antigen tests respectively with nearly seven hundred positive cases out of antigen test. I think wiki should take this seriously to update as per situation report than outdated website of ministry! Please do accordingly. I have added the situation repost site in website section as well for reference.110.44.115.223 (talk) 09:33, 10 July 2021 (UTC)

Antigen counts seem to be a recent addition to the daily situation reports, but they come with a note that "The descriptive analysis is based on the data of RT-PCR only, reception of detailed line list of antigen test is in process". Previously, the situation reports documented rapid diagnostic tests, but the practice was finally dropped, citing the unreliability of such tests. As far as I can tell, RT-qPCR tests are considered the most confirmatory of all tests, and our current antigen tests are a form of rapid diagnostic tests. Also, given that almost all of our figures are based on RT-qPCR tests, and that the MoHP still hasn't incorporated antigen numbers to their dashboard, I think it would be wise to just stick to RT-qPCR–based numbers. Having said that, we could have a separate section devoted to antigen tests. Inimesh (talk) 02:54, 13 July 2021 (UTC)