Talk:COVID-19 pandemic in mainland China/Archive 1

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Nationwide temperature checks on Foreign residents

Day before yesterday foreigners living in China were subjected to temperature checks. I was offered to visit the nearest police station or accept a visit from hospital staff/police home. I accepted home visit since I didn't want to expose myself going outside. This is a personal experience and how can we include it? I think it is connected to recent deaths of several foreigners in Wuhan. – NirvanaToday^t@lk 23:58, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:2019 novel coronavirus which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 10:49, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

information and statistics on different provinces of china

I can't find information on different Chinese provinces anymore. Where has this gone, and does anyone know when it was removed? I want to find it in the archived history of this article, so I can get the most recent date for which information was available. There was also an excellent table on the information about which provinces were on lockdown/curfew, which I thought was in this article. IBE (talk) 14:50, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:2019 novel coronavirus which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 22:33, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

Create same article, but about the situation in other countries

@34Unionist: As you is the creator of this article about the outbreak in Mainland China, can you make the same article like this, but about the situation in other countries such as Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, etc because there are discussion in country and territory talk page to split into multiple article according to notable countries. You can simply translate Chinese Wiki version of that article and create that in English version.

— Preceding unsigned comment added by 34Unionist (talk • contribs) 06:29, 3 February 2020 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:2019–20 Wuhan coronavirus outbreak which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 22:04, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on Talk:2019–20 coronavirus outbreak which affects this page. Please participate on that page and not in this talk page section. Thank you. —RMCD bot 22:19, 18 February 2020 (UTC)

Move request

Should we move this page to 2019–20 coronavirus outbreak in Mainland China? Thingofme (talk) 08:21, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

Yes, it would be consistent with the pages for Japan, Korea etc. I dont know how todo it. Robertpedley (talk) 07:57, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

Chart bugs

With "Last 15 days" and "February" options it displays all days of February and March but with "Last 15 days" and "March" options it displays only 11 days from February. Not to mention this whole idea of hiding parts is lame in my opinion. I am a programmer but it seems not so easy to revert. Also after selecting all options days after 18 February disappear.

What is the point of making buttons supposed to show days selectively when they work inadequately? Can someone please revert to the state when there were no such lame buttons? 83.21.110.204 (talk) 08:53, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Level 4 Headers

There are 30 level-4 headers in this topic. Many include a single paragraph of text. Could/should we replace all or most with bold text to make the TOC more usable? - Wikmoz (talk) 19:01, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

Omg I just love these whimsical people. Aesthetics are not the purpose of the Wikipedia.83.21.110.204 (talk) 17:28, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Incorrect maps of China

These three maps of China in this article have incorrectly shown the Indian state Arunachal Pradesh as part of Tibet Autonomous Region in China, which is claimed by China but administered by India. Kindly fix these maps. Thanks! — Hemant Dabral^Talk 08:40, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

Merge '2020 Hubei lockdowns' into 'Mainland China: Hubei lockdowns'?

I've proposed merging 2020 Hubei lockdowns into Mainland China during the 2019–20 coronavirus outbreak § Hubei lockdowns. The content is mostly duplicated and actually covered better in this topic. The data there is also outdated. Any thoughts?

Proposal here: Talk:2020 Hubei lockdowns § Delete 2020 Hubei lockdowns? - Wikmoz (talk) 23:53, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

No consensus on this. - Wikmoz (talk) 01:29, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Xinjiang

There are multiple prefectures in Xinjiang with more than 10 reported cases, yet this article does not mention Xinjiang, despite having 2 mentions of Lhasa/Tibet. Kindly fix this - thank you! 2607:FEA8:1DDF:FEE1:81AE:8E3C:BF30:D275 (talk) 00:21, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Is this page about mainland China or not?

If this page is about mainland China, then let's give people maps of mainland China, not the PRC-claimed territory. India, a nuclear power, has been at war with China over their border, and some of these maps include Indian administered areas as if they are part of mainland China. Taiwan has an independent military force and government. Just cover mainland China on this page and that's all we need. Geographyinitiative (talk) 02:36, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

What's more unreasonable: showing the border as it has been throughout the Internet Age or showing hypothetical borders which have not existed in our lifetimes? You're giving an inaccurate map on a page about a pandemic! Arunachal Pradesh just isn't administered by mainland China my friends! Geographyinitiative (talk) 02:45, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Please use consistent date format

Someone editors change date format from DMY to MDY, for me this article should use DMY dates, and statement that use it must use that date formats consistently in reference, same as this article use MDY dates. IMO, MDY dates only used for US, Canada, and Philippines articles. Can someone please use consistent date format, not using DMY for references but MDY for description. For me, if any articles use MDY, references should also use MDY, this rule also applies to DMY. 180.241.205.23 (talk) 12:53, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

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) 17:22, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

C.D abbreviation should be explained

In the graph ofthe case, the c.d abbrevation should be explained. 178.38.128.180 (talk) 20:04, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

"Cases" broken link

The link template for Cases seems to be bugged, could someone fix it? Thanks.--Amelia-was-alone (talk) 03:57, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

I don't know, it is probably due to the template being under discussion for Wikipedia's deletion policy. The only way to access/edit this template is to go through "view", then click on "its entry" in the deletion policy box. It seems like the actual (updated) template does not correspond to the one in this article. Could someone fix this please? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.183.212.228 (talk) 18:43, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Can we put up data here for use at the 2019-20 coronavirus pandemic map?

Now that 2019-20 coronavirus pandemic has switched to using a per-capita map as the primary map (a change I support), I'm concerned that the severity of the virus in some parts of China is not adequately represented, being drowned out by China's sheer overall size. I've proposed to split the data for China by province as a solution to this. Dan Polansky has asked for data from Wikipedia to scrape to implement this change. Would you all be willing to add a table, similar to Template:2019–20 coronavirus pandemic data but with provinces instead of countries, that he could use? Sdkb (talk) 17:30, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Data is not a problem; the script on Commons now calculates deaths per million people for Chinese provinces and for Italian regions; the script grabs the data from W:Template:2019–20 coronavirus pandemic data/China medical cases by province and from Italian Wikipedia. I need a world map with Chinese provinces. --Dan Polansky (talk) 17:49, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Actual figures

As Merkel said, there could be as much as 60% of cases in population, 80 000 cases in a nation of 1.4 billion people is difficult to believe. As a result, the final results of death rate will change massively. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.39.214.62 (talk) 08:55, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

81,093 total cases by March 22 strains credulity. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.113.87.97 (talk) 04:04, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

Figures from Chinese government should be followed unless WHO says it's wrong or CLEAR evidence of cover-up is found. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 38.39.232.18 (talk) 13:06, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

China maintains to this day that only 300 people died at Tiananmen Square, while all others believe thousands died. They aren't reliable. 70.181.191.109 (talk) 01:48, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

There have been sure more than 3.000 deaths in China. The WHO is also corrupted by China, I wouldn't even trust their numbers. The WHO told the US it is wrong to close borders. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:908:1A4:3480:4DDB:BB6F:5F6B:136C (talk) 13:09, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

Add update, or caveat?: The first cases of the new coronavirus may have emerged as early as November.

• Marisa Taylor Exclusive: U.S. axed CDC expert job in China months before virus outbreak March 22, 2020 Reuters.com

The first cases of the new coronavirus may have emerged as early as November, and as cases exploded,... X1\ (talk) 20:15, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

It was already mentioned at 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic, so of course it should be mentioned here too—I've added it. —Granger (talk · contribs) 20:43, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

Incorrect and misleading maps of China related to the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic in mainland China

File:COVID-19 Incidence Map China 2020-01-22-en.svg

These six maps of China above, have incorrectly shown the Indian state Arunachal Pradesh as part of Tibet Autonomous Region in China, which is claimed by China but administered by India. Kindly fix these maps. Thanks! — Hemant Dabral^Talk 01:20, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

Taiwan is also NOT a part of China! This is not okay. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:908:1A4:3480:4DDB:BB6F:5F6B:136C (talk) 13:06, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

Using correct totals

Is this page using the totals for just mainland China (substracting Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan)? The total here seems higher than what we have in Template:2019–20 coronavirus pandemic data, which subtract those figures. United States Man (talk) 01:32, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

@United States Man: Mainland only. The NHC daily reports state mainland-only aggregates and give figures for the other three regions in the last paragraph. CaradhrasAiguo (leave language) 01:49, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

Then according to the source, shouldn't the total be 81,093 (which is in the source) instead of 81,496? United States Man (talk) 01:53, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

Questionable content

Paragraphs two through four of the "Context" section read like political propaganda. They contain sweeping generalizations, superlatives, emotional language, and poor use of qualifiers. These do not convey an objective view of COVID-19 or its surrounding medical history; they mostly invoke feelings and opinions. Whatever valid information exists within these paragraphs is therefore obscured and unclear.

I do not know how to fix this correctly (and the article is semi-protected anyway.)

Thanks.

2601:346:C280:58DF:F83B:CCD5:85:91FD (talk) 02:17, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

Ongoing RfC at Template talk:Cases in 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic

Calling attention to an RfC at Template talk:Cases in 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic#Mainland China to discuss if we should be consistent in defining "Mainland China" and which total we should be using. Thanks, United States Man (talk) 02:39, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

What's up with these 'Cite:Template Web'/'Cite Template News' references?

They don't give any solid link or citation when I read the page, functioning as something like vandalism. Did something messed up happen or is it just my device? Donkey Hot-day (talk) 03:13, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

@Donkey Hot-day: See #No_notes/references. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 18:36, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

Origin: Unknown to "First Reported in..." or "Emerged in..."

I see a lot of debate over the origin of COVID-19. I've seen "unknown", "Wuhan," and "Wuhan pneumonia" in infoboxes. The first reported cases have been Wuhan. Reliable sources have said this including UptoDate, the CDC, and WHO. Yes, some have gotten sick from the seafood market and some haven't but that's not a reason to put "unknown." Most of the problem is semantics. I believe that it's best to change "Origin" to "First Reported in Wuhan", "Emerged in Wuhan", or something similar because "first reported" isn't technically "origin." One more thing to point out, "origin" denotes "source" or "reservoir" which isn't the same as where it came from. COVID-19 (SARS-CoV-2) origins is a batcoronavirus. To say where the virus came from, the term "endemic" is appropriate, however, there hasn't been enough research into that. -DustyGoliath 16:50, 24 March 2020

Because this issue affects many pages, let's keep discussion centralized at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject COVID-19. —Granger (talk · contribs) 17:12, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

I just reverted someone with a NYT source. Yes let's all go to Wikipedia talk:WikiProject COVID-19. Iluvalar (talk) 18:00, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

Template include size limit exceeded

If you care about the template errors from the navboxes at the bottom of the article (and the fact that the list of references now isn't displaying correctly), I've started a VPT thread about the problem. Jc86035 (talk) 22:51, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

How is the currently-included map depicting the 'largest migrations in history' relevant to this topic?

The only connection with China is that the largest depicted occurred from the Chinese mainland, but in 2018.edit by User:79.71.128.34 00:11, 25 March 2020,     (DMBFFF (talk) 00:48, 25 March 2020 (UTC))

The migration of people for the Spring Festival (Chinese new year) in late January 2020 was a significant factor in spreading the disease. The lockdown in Wuhan occurred just before New Years Day. Imagine how different things would have been had those millions of people been allowed to travel as normal. Rincewind42 (talk) 02:40, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

It seems some Chinese are disinfecting with UV rays.

(similar to what I posted in Talk:Coronavirus disease 2019#some stuff about UV rays to disinfect)

China cleans bank notes in bid to limit coronavirus COVID-19 spread
Last week, China's central bank, the People's Bank of China, announced it would be cleaning thousands of bank notes by using ultraviolet light or high temperatures to cut off the spread of infection through money exchanges.
https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-02-21/china-cleaning-money-limit-coronavirus-covid-19/11983364

Buses undergo UV disinfection in China during COVID-19 outbreak
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pJo1p-RDKc4
0:52

DMBFFF (talk) 00:42, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

Setted usage

Lockdown and curfew Government-issued permit for Jintan residents. Jintan announced that each family should only have one member to be outdoor for shopping life necessities for every 2 days. See also: 2019–20 coronavirus outbreak § Outdoor restrictions

Ever since Hubei's lockdown, areas bordering Hubei including Yueyang, Hunan and Xinyang, Henan setted checkpoints up at roads connecting to Hubei to urge cars and people from Hubei.[229][230] Between 24–25 January, the local governments of Shanghai, Jiangsu, Hainan and other areas announced to quarantine passengers from "key areas" of Hubei for 14 days.[231][232] Chongqing also announced to screen every person who arrived from Wuhan since 1 January and setted 3 centers for treatment up.[233]

The word "setted" should likely be reduced to "set"

--Acheide (talk) 14:47, 26 March 2020 (UTC)Abraham March 26, 2020

Citation needed for 2nd sentence in the article

I cannot find an original source for this important sentence:

A Wuhan hospital notified the local center for disease control and prevention (CDC) and health commissions on 27 December 2019.

It doesn't really match with information on Timeline_of_the_2019–20_coronavirus_pandemic_in_November_2019_–_January_2020#Pandemic_chronology

• 12 December: new viral outbreak was first detected in the city of Wuhan, China, on 12 December 2019.

As this is a politically sensitive subject, there's a lot of false information out there and verifiable sources are top priority. Unfortunately I couldn't find any hard evidence, and also I'm a WP-noob, don't know the best course of action according to WP policy. --CasparV (talk) 15:40, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

Remove sentence with heavily biased source

"The government has worked to censor and counter reporting and criticism about the crisis, and to portray the official response to the outbreak in a positive light."

This sentence at the bottom of the introductory summary has no evidence and is reliant on two opinionated articles from The New York Times. This newspaper has continually shown itself to be anti-Chinese when writing about issues related to China. Is there any way we can modify this sentence or find reputable evidence to back it, preferably from the country that this article is aimed to be about? JMonkey2006 (talk) 09:52, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

NYT is a reliable source. —Granger (talk · contribs) 15:46, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

Country of origin of the source shouldn't matter. Google "china coronavirus censorship" and see if you can find reliable sources. I think this study by CitizenLab would be a great source to add. Or check out the interview with Ai Fen, that accused of censorship and got censored itself. --CasparV (talk) 16:03, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

Censorship, propaganda, and police responses

The first known infection by a new virus was reported in Wuhan on 1 December 2019. The early response by city authorities was accused of prioritising a control of information on the outbreak. A group of eight medical pe...

Only mentioning December 1 implies censorship was also from that day on. However, the first known infection was not a suspicious patient on December 1 and probably wasn't diagnosed with a SARS(-like) virus until December 26 (source). (Full censorship seems to have been from there until at least until December 31, when WHO was informed. Though after that, Wenliang and colleagues were still 'handled' by the authorities).

I am not experienced enough to (be allowed to) edit. Could someone look into making this paragraph less susceptible to false interpretation? --CasparV (talk) 16:34, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

China enters flood season

[1] Quoted in full:

"China's Ministry of Water Resources Saturday warned that floods are expected to hit the country and called on relevant departments to make preparation.

Heavy rains have hit parts of southern, eastern and central China since Wednesday, pushing water levels in some rivers well above warning lines, the ministry said.

China entered its flood season on Saturday, four days earlier than previous years, and the country may suffer from more and stronger rain as well as floods with more extreme weather forecast for the flood season, the ministry warned.

The process of repairing damaged water conservancy facilities should be pushed forward and examinations ahead of the flood season should be made to restore their functions in time, said E Jingping, minister of water resources.

He also called for more efforts on managing reservoir, preventing mountain floods and improving the precision of flood forecast."

I think that something about the heightened alert for seasonally early floods in China may be relevant to the pandemic, or relevant somewhere on Wikipedia--- but I don't know quite where and ask for your help finding that place.

Geographyinitiative (talk) 14:28, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

No notes/references

Something seems to be off... there are no notes and references listed at the bottom, and the link provided for them leads to wikipedia pages on reference templates... — Preceding unsigned comment added by Luisa Valencia (talk • contribs) 13:16, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

This is probably because there are too many references which hits a limit in the scribuntu backend. ""postexpandincludesize":{"value":2097152,"limit":2097152}" The max is hit before the page is fully rendered. This can be mitigated by splitting the page in smaller subpages.--So9q (talk) 15:11, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

I hid some of the maps and other templates which were causing the post-expand include size to exceed the limits, which fixes it for now, but we're very close to hitting the limit again just due to the sheer number of {{cite web}} templates on the page. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 18:34, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

Hm, so how does one prevent these errors other than hiding? Using other templates other than 'cite news' or 'cite web'? (I wonder if that's possible for alot of the news site links available) Donkey Hot-day (talk) 00:41, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

@Donkey Hot-day: For now, probably removing {{2019–20 coronavirus pandemic data/Mainland China medical cases chart}} would be the next step. Beyond that, you could hard-code the references instead of using {{Cite web}} et al., but in general when the citations alone exceed 2MB, it's time to split the article. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 19:14, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

The caption under the photo.

"Patronage was significantly reduced at May 4th Square Station of Qingdao Metro Line 3 during the epidemic."

Patronage? I can't find any sense in it. Please, could you explain it? 85.193.250.200 (talk) 12:03, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

Okay, now I understand. However, the word patronage is ambiguous, and its primary meaning is the support given by a patron, and hence my confusion. 85.193.250.200 (talk) 12:10, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

• Changed to "ridership" from "patronage". The change should make things less ambiguous. Risker (talk) 17:04, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

@Risker: Great, thank you :-) 85.193.250.200 (talk) 13:12, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

hospitalizations, intensive care

do we have a time series of hospitalizations and intensive care patients for china? W!B: (talk) 09:32, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Per capita map

Per the consensus at the overall pandemic article, a cases per capita map would be preferable to one that lists totals by province (thus skewing toward making it look like the pandemic is worse in more populated areas). If anyone is willing to create such a map (ideally an SVG that uses formatting similar to the main world maps at the top of 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic), I would support adding it to the subsection of that article on China's response. Sdkb (talk) 06:34, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Update: Pechristener helpfully identified that such a map exists at File:COVID-19 attack rate in Mainland China.svg. I'm going to make it the main map for the infobox. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 00:04, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Requested move 27 March 2020

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Clear consensus not to move. (non-admin closure) {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 00:32, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

---

2019–20 coronavirus pandemic in mainland China → 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic in China – Per China. Sawol (talk) 17:57, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

@Sawol: I don't understand the rationale for the proposed move. —Granger (talk · contribs) 22:03, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

I think the reason is that the article China is there but there is also Mainland China (excluding Hong Kong and Macau). Crouch, Swale (talk) 22:26, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

This article doesn't cover HK or Macau but rather is focused on mainland China. COVID-19 in HK and Macau is covered in separate articles. So on that basis I have to oppose. —Granger (talk · contribs) 01:36, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Oppose, there are separate articles about HK and Macau. Dede2008 (talk) 01:48, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose per all replies above. There is virtually no rationale for this move, as the proposer has not adequately explained any part of their reasoning. People also need to understand that Hong Kong and Macau are part of China, not independent nations, and there already exists the articles 2020 coronavirus pandemic in Hong Kong and 2020 coronavirus pandemic in Macau. Therefore, the "Mainland China" disambiguation is necessary to distinguish this article from the two aforementioned. – PhilipTerryGraham (talk · articles · reviews) 03:23, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Oppose. We mustn't let this page on a virus attract a geopolitics debate about Macau, Hong Kong, Taiwan and so on. The article doesn't discuss Taiwan, Hong Kong etc anyway as they have their own wikipedia pages. There is no reason to cause a media frenzy and get this page locked. Peter Kelford (talk) 14:03, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose There are separate articles on Hong Kong, Macau, and Taiwan.Dimadick (talk) 14:18, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose The NHC of China reports cases separately, and Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, have different epidemic situation, and are covered in respective articles. Peter Wu (2019) 02:46, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose per all the above reasons. Mgasparin (talk) 03:22, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
• weak Oppose per all the above reasons. Red China < China, Red China ≠ China. DMBFFF (talk) 16:46, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose As there already are separate articles for the regions of Hong Kong, Macau and Taiwan, it would be redundant to rename it as such. Doing so would require a merger of those articles as the name would suggest information on the pandemic in all of China. Shawnqual (talk) 21:24, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose Per arguments above. --Efly (talk) 04:43, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose Per arguments above. Rebestalic^{[dubious—discuss]} 10:06, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
• Comment Use the official name instead of "mainland China." i.e. "2020 coronavirus pandemic in People's Republic" or "2020 coronavirus pandemic in The PRC" or "2020 coronavirus pandemic in People's Republic of China" to differentiate it from "2020 coronavirus pandemic in Republic of China" which is Taiwan.—SquidHomme ^(talk) 03:26, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

  Hong Kong and Macau are part of the PRC but not mainland China. --Ahecht (TALK
  PAGE) 03:57, 3 April 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.

General RfC opened

Hello everybody, because arguments here can be applied to many other articles (e.g. Cinema of China, Video games in China, etc.) instead of this specific page only, I've opened a general RfC on "mainland China" vs "China" in article titles here. Feel free to discuss there! -- Akira😼CA 01:11, 2 April 2020 (UTC)

Lead

I think User:NavjotSR is right and the lead needs a re-write [2], but I think we should some sort of discussion specifically about the lead first. Certainly there are lots of places where the current text does not measure up to the MOS. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 15:07, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

MOS? Let me know what are the issues. The lead I have written came after I carefully read this section and made sure to include only high quality reliable sources. NavjotSR (talk) 15:18, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

The WP:MOS, the relevant one is Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Lead section. Its also generally best to wait until a talk page discussion has either been closed or WP:Consensus has been reached before implementing changes proposed there. Again I like your edits, but I think if we’re gonna take on this mammoth lead we should do it systematically. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 15:34, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Barron's analysis

On 13 February, Barron's reported that China's coronavirus data was not mathematically credible: "A statistical analysis of China’s coronavirus casualty data shows a near-perfect prediction model that data analysts say isn’t likely to naturally occur, casting doubt over the reliability of the numbers being reported to the World Health Organization". Specifically, the cumulative fatalities time series fit a simple mathematical formula with an R-squared of 0.99, whereas real-world data, according to a statistician quoted in the article, rarely produces an R-squared as high as 0.75

This is big time bullshit. Cumulative deaths in Spain fit an exponential curve with R-squared ~0.995 and Italy fits with ~0.988. Do you know if there is more recent time series analysis? Barron's speculation could have made sense on February 13, but it clearly does not match today's evidence at all. --MarioGom (talk) 16:47, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

As of today, cumulative deaths in the US fit an exponential curve with R-squared 0.997. Hopefully we can find some papers with proper epidemiologic analysis. --MarioGom (talk) 17:16, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

I also call into question the reliability of this source to make the extraordinary claim that real-world data [...] rarely produces an R-squared as high as 0.75 or that this is casting doubt over the reliability of the numbers being reported to the World Health Organization. The author of the column is specialized in markets reporting. The cited statistician is not specialized in epidemiology or science, he is specialized in markets. Market data rarely fits any kind of model too well, but epidemiologic data does. --MarioGom (talk) 17:33, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Notified: Wikipedia talk:WikiProject Medicine. MarioGom (talk) 17:37, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

I'm removing the paragraph per WP:EXTRAORDINARY: Any exceptional claim requires multiple high-quality sources. Red flags that should prompt extra caution include: [...] Claims that are contradicted by the prevailing view within the relevant community, or that would significantly alter mainstream assumptions, especially in science, medicine, history, politics, and biographies of living people. This is especially true when proponents say there is a conspiracy to silence them. --MarioGom (talk) 19:31, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

No source given for the "Government reprimands" section

Two pieces of information in this section is likely inaccurate:

1. "a group of doctors from Wuhan Central Hospital, led by Dr. Ai Fen, launched an alert on a "SARS-like coronavirus""

No source given. In fact, to be precise, the alert is literally "SARS coronavirus" instead of "SARS-like coronavirus". This can be verified in wiki: Ai_Fen. The reference[14] used by page Li_Wenliang includes the original photo for the alert.

2. "Eight of these doctors were arrested on charges of spreading false rumors"

No source given. And in fact, there are sources at Li_Wenliang showing that at least one of them is not arrested or detained, but admonished/warned, with the original photo for the warning letter. The current page itself also says they are warned, in the "Censorship, propaganda, and police responses" section. It would be appropriate to use "admonished/warned" and cite appropriate sources.

Ppwwyyxx (talk) 00:52, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

Recoveries

Are there any sources in english describing what the method for evaluating recovery is in these numbers? Is it recovery from symptoms or testing negative? And which tests are being used? 72.15.124.196 (talk) 15:05, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

At the moment, patients in China are discharged after two negative nucleic acid tests, taken at least 24 hours apart, and indications of clinical recovery, including resolution of symptoms, according to the National Health Commission (NHC).
— Reuters, 3 March 2020

The criteria might have changed to be stricter since then. --MarioGom (talk) 11:02, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

Possibility of under reported cases

There is a possibility that the numbers in China are much higher than believed.

For example several news sources claimed 42,000 asymptotic cases were excluded from the reports for confirmed cases. Not to mention some claims of China only reporting cases where people died after diagnosis.

I’m not trying to promote any conspiracy theories or spread misinformation but, we know that China isn’t a very reliable source on matters.

So I think we should add other sources on the number of cases. CycoMa (talk) 21:57, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

• Please see the discussion above. China isn't the only one, and the more I am reading the more I think this needs to be in the main article, or possibly as a split-out article. Risker (talk) 22:22, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

• • I think addressing the challenge that asymptomatic cases represent in controlling and accurately modelling the pandemic would be a good idea, either in this page or the main page. CharlieWilloughby (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 07:19, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

I can see a section called 2019–20_coronavirus_pandemic_in_mainland_China#Undercounting_of_cases on the article. But we need to mention on lead as well and this should be done soon. CodeSlashh (talk) 08:25, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

The reporting coming out of China suggests a significant under reporting of Covid-19 deaths by the Chinese government. Given these facts, the tardy response of Chinese government officials, and the number of deaths in Italy and Spain, the idea that China suffered so few deaths is implausible. As such, I think this section needs to be far more prominent in the article.Jaedglass (talk) 15:35, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Can you provide WP:RS on deaths under-reporting that do not mention the "3,500 urns in Wuhan" conspiracy theory or political actors in the U.S. government (as opposed to, e.g. NIH / CDC)? CaradhrasAiguo (leave language) 15:40, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Crisis management in China and Italy/Spain have been extremely different. Expecting the exact same transmission rate would be quite naive. Anyway, feel free to suggest reliable sources. --MarioGom (talk) 15:43, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

@MarioGom: I see Jaedglass has provided the Washington Post story that uncritically regurgitated the "social media users calculated 42K deaths from 3,500 urns" conspiracy theory. The inherent problem with this calculation, is that Vice admitted "seven crematoriums in Wuhan have been handing out over 3,500 urns per day since the restrictions were eased." This represents an obvious backlog...how can the crematoriums be possibly handing out urns during the complete lockdown of the city? CaradhrasAiguo (leave language) 15:47, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

CaradhrasAiguo: Sure. I know about this story and it could be due somewhere in the article with clear attribution. There is a lot of speculation around the story: the underlying source is dubious social media users, where the urns were used is dubious, the extrapolation is dubious, etc. --MarioGom (talk) 15:52, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Also note that we are extremely careful with COVID-19-related rumors and hoaxes circulating in social media. I don't think China should be an exception. --MarioGom (talk) 15:55, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Per Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources the Washington Post is a WP:RS. Arguments can be made to edit the language used to better summarize the text but arguments to exclude the source entirely based on reliability will have to be made on Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard and only after achieving consensus there can you then make that argument here. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 16:05, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Neither MarioGom nor I are arguing for excluding the WaPo entirely, in all circumstances; referring to WP:RS/N is a typical red herring. We are arguing that this particular article should be excluded on the grounds we mentioned above. As a comparison, would you argue that the pernicious WaPo "Russian hackers infiltrated Vermont's power grid" story back in Jan 2017 be presented without qualification, giving WP:UNDUE weight to fringe, disproven theories? CaradhrasAiguo (leave language) 16:11, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

As always more weight would be given to more recently published pieces, like this one entitled "Russian government hackers do not appear to have targeted Vermont utility, say people close to investigation” [3] and any retractions should be noted. When WP:RS mess up they own it, thats one of the things that makes them reliable sources. If the WaPo issues a retraction or publishes another story on the subject you are more than welcome to edit the article based on that retraction or more recent story. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 16:16, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Irrelevant tangent on WaPo

The above is clearly contradicted by stories such as this, and again, no addressing of the concerns MarioGom and I raised. CaradhrasAiguo (leave language) 16:20, 4 April 2020 (UTC) Are you seriously citing a 2008 article from ThinkProgress, a defunct fringe political website? I addressed MarioGom’s concerns with them as I share many of the same concerns. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 16:25, 4 April 2020 (UTC) They cited quotes from articles / editorial op-eds published by the WaPo itself. ThinkProgress's political leanings, and, for that matter, MMFA, are irrelevant, and yet another ad hominem. CaradhrasAiguo (leave language) 16:33, 4 April 2020 (UTC) I made no mention of "ThinkProgress's political leanings.” Horse Eye Jack (talk) 16:38, 4 April 2020 (UTC) Also you’re impugning WaPos editorial board which is separate from the actual management or editing of the paper. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 16:40, 4 April 2020 (UTC) You did precisely that with "Fringe political website" ([4]). CaradhrasAiguo (leave language) 16:45, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

• I have edited the paragraph, adding an additional source (South China Morning Post) that provides more context and provides further insight about dates ([5]). The Washington Post clearly states that these figures come from social media users. This required clarification in the text to avoid misrepresentation of WaPo's report. --MarioGom (talk) 16:19, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for your edit MarioGom, we don’t want to make it seem like Wikipedia or The Washington Post are making a statement thats attributed to a third party and your edit cleared that issue right up. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 16:21, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Estimates sourced to speculation on social media are extremely dubious. I find that they're given too much weight in the article already. We should give more weight to academic studies of transmission in China, rather than dubious speculation by social media or anonymous statements sourced to US intelligence agencies. I'll take a look myself for academic studies. -Thucydides411 (talk) 11:54, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Three articles on reliability of the data

Using a similarity in two graphs to argue: https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/04/07/chinas-data-reveal-a-puzzling-link-between-covid-19-cases-and-political-events and this one complains about China's changing definitions: https://time.com/5813628/china-coronavirus-statistics-wuhan/. And this one is about the issue of rate of reported infections in general and in various countries: https://bigthink.com/coronavirus/6-of-worlds-coronavirus-infections-detected?rebelltitem=2#rebelltitem2Kdammers (talk) 02:34, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

Poor organization of article, and little discussion of course of epidemic

The article is very poorly organized, with information scattered across different sections. For example, where do I go in the article to find out the general course of the epidemic? That's a critical (probably the central) subject that this article should cover, but it's barely discussed in the article. It's not discussed at all in the lede. Is the epidemic ongoing? Is it still growing exponentially in China? A reader who knew nothing about the subject would have no idea after reading the lede. There are two good figures in the article that show the course of the epidemic, and three at the very end, but no corresponding discussion of the overall course of the epidemic.

I propose that the article be reorganized as follows:

1. Context
2. Overview of the epidemic (This would cover the phases of the epidemic, and include a few figures showing case numbers over time. It would give a very quick overview of how the epidemic broke out, grew, was suppressed, and the current phase of low-level transmission and partial relaxation of controls, leaving detailed discussion to following sections).
3. Early response in Wuhan (largely the same as now)
4. Lockdown of Hubei and measures beyond Hubei (would include a short overview of "2019–20 coronavirus pandemic in Hubei" and include material from "Impact beyond Hubei" and "Response by the Central Government")
5. International and regional relations
6. Controversies and criticism (though much of this material could be threaded into other sections)

Anyways, this is just my proposal to give this article more focus. -Thucydides411 (talk) 15:05, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

Outdated infobox map

The map in the infobox (and used at the main pandemic article) currently has data from March 24, which is getting pretty old. It also uses a misleading scale (see commons:File talk:COVID-19 attack rate in Mainland China.svg). Could someone who knows how please update it? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 04:30, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

The line under Context: "It should be kept in mind that the Covid-19 rapid test manufactured in Peoples Republic of China only had sensitivity of 30%" should be removed

I mean it's not inaccurate but it's misleading and it definitely isn't the cause for the lower numbers.

Only Spain bought those 30% ones that weren't even signed off in China by their government, so unlikely they're using those kits everywhere.

Epicity1123 (talk) 23:16, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

You're right. The sentence as written was impermissible original synthesis. I've removed it from the article. —Granger (talk · contribs) 23:39, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

@Orientls and CodeSlashh: The Spain testing kits story has been refuted above, stop persisting with their re-insertion. CaradhrasAiguo (leave language) 18:56, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Accuracy of the Bloomberg article about causalties

In the wiki article, there is a sentence: "There were 13,856 cremations in Wuhan in the fourth quarter of 2019, according to Bloomberg calculations based on data from the city's civil affairs agency. That was 2,419 lower than in the fourth quarter of 2018. [406]"

Referring to the Bloomberg article [406].

In the Bloomberg article, there is a citation to the city's civil affairs agency [a], however, in the table in [a], I cannot see the number 13,856, there is:

火化遗体数 具 JZH014221000 56,007

Where "火化遗体数" should translate as the number of cremations.

Is it clear how the number 13,856 was derived by Bloomberg?

[406] https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-27/stacks-of-urns-in-wuhan-prompt-new-questions-of-virus-s-toll

[a] http://mzj.wuhan.gov.cn/tjxx/387166.jhtml — Preceding unsigned comment added by Zlebcik (talk • contribs)

This has been addressed by other editors elsewhere. The municipal website reports the cumulative year-to-date by quarter, so it simply subtracted the 2019Q3 YTD from the 2019Q4 YTD to obtain cremations in 2019Q4 only. CaradhrasAiguo (leave language) 19:59, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Should the lead mention donations?

I added some information to the lead about donations made from other countries to China to help deal with the pandemic in its early stages, and assistance provided from China to other countries later on. Both parts of this have been very widely reported in reliable sources; to give just a few examples, see these [6] [7] [8] about donations to China and these [9] [10] [11] [12] about donations from China. (These include both government aid and private donations.) The addition seems to have been caught up in an edit war about some other content in the body, so I'm starting this discussion to see if there's consensus for including this in the lead. —Granger (talk · contribs) 18:55, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

1) WP:NPOV does not mean we mention China made donations of testing kits equally alongside Spain recalled (non-state-approved, BioEasy-manufactured) testing kits (per The Guardian). 2) As Granger mentions, these donations are a combination of private and PRC government donations. IMO, simply lumping the two into wording such as China donated... or Spain, the Netherlands, Czech Republic recalled Chinese-made kits is not only omitting necessary nuance but misleading. CaradhrasAiguo (leave language) 19:16, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Seems WP:UNDUE because of the reports about the criticism levied on China for donating equipments of poor quality.[13][14] Mentioning all of this will make lead too overly detailed.Orientls (talk) 19:18, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Hmm, the two sources you linked seem to be focused on equipment purchased from Chinese manufacturers, so I don't think they're relevant to the donations at issue here. The second source you linked specifically says that "separate material donated by the Chinese government and technology and retail group Alibaba did not include products from Shenzhen Bioeasy." —Granger (talk · contribs) 19:25, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Orientls, please read your sources properly; you would not have missed the important details in Granger's comment if you did. CaradhrasAiguo (leave language) 19:33, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Czech also found China's supplies to be defective. China claimed they donated those but Czech said they had paid for it.[15] Another incident is where Italy was forced by China to buy the items which they had donated to China.[16] Are we also going to add this to the lead? I am unaware if any major country has not made any donations. This information should be better covered in sections and not lead. NavjotSR (talk) 04:39, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Navjot, your first source mentions Shenzhen Bioeasy, the problem firm that again appeared in Spain's defective test kits, without having to scroll down. You need to fully read your sources. Who's "China" in China claimed? CaradhrasAiguo (leave language) 05:38, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

You are the one with WP:CIR issues since you are giving more weight to Chinese embassy statement which was only made after their pants caught fire. In place of finding baseless loopholes in sources, you need to better come to the conclusion. What happened with relation to Czech, we cannot say China is making correct statements about donations. Heavily dubious info does not belong to lead. NavjotSR (talk) 07:39, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Good points, you've convinced me that the fairly complicated controversies about faulty equipment should probably stay in the body. The fact of donations being made (in both directions) is more straightforward and has received much more attention in reliable sources, though. —Granger (talk · contribs) 12:35, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Seeing no further objections, I've restored the content in question. —Granger (talk · contribs) 21:03, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Undue edits

Donkey Hot-day made large edits [17] by claiming he is providing "due weight" what seemed to be more of WP:FALSEBALANCE given the heavy dependence on opinion pieces and misrepresentation of sources. Horse Eye Jack had reverted those new edits but DHD happened to restore again without discussion. Orientls (talk) 08:59, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Seems to have been endorsed by CaradhrasAiguo; discussion is warranted. — MarkH₂₁^talk 09:05, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

@Donkey Hot-day, Horse Eye Jack, Orientls, and Mopswade: The back-and-forth on these edits (DHD 1, HEJ, DHD 2, Orientls 1, Mopswade, Orientls 2, Mopswade 2, Codeslash) is ridiculous and also losing edits in between, requiring further fixes. Please stop. — MarkH₂₁^talk 09:18, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Apologies Mark for removing your edits, I was just going to replace them when you did that for me. I think a mass removal of 6000 bytes of information, with the claim that is is removing "false balance" is quite a thin argument, and would definitely warrant prior discussion. Mopswade (talk) 09:26, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

@Orientls: The edit here removed my change, as opposed to restoring them which seemed to be the intent based on the edit summary. — MarkH₂₁^talk 09:28, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

@Mopswade: Your inability to take responsibility for your reverts is disruptive. Anyone with understanding of WP:RS can easily verify my argument. If you have no reasonable dispute then at least avoid edit warring. Orientls (talk) 09:44, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

You are all edit warring, and in the process have somehow lost even old edits like this one as well as intermediate edits like this one. — MarkH₂₁^talk 10:00, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

I suppose the edit warring has stopped now, after dragging in what seems to be a sixth editor. As far as I see, there is nothing egregiously wrong at the time of CA's version apart from some grammatical issues, with opinion pieces provided in large numbers and not written in Wikipedias's voice. Although I am not in the mood to revert the latest changes, I would think that such a large removal of information, endorsed by other editors, and not responded by the original reverter, would warrant some specific scrutiny on individual points, targeted edits, or at least some discussion, instead of a sweeping removal of information, some/all of which which may merit a place in the article. Mopswade (talk) 11:17, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

This feels to me like a very flimsy argument, perhaps an ironic attempt at censorship too. Per WP:SOURCETYPES, academia are the most preferred sources. I cited Stat & the very renowned Nature Journal, & many others from reputable outlets or journalists. Here, another one from Nature, a couple more from the renowned Science Journal, & a couple others from the prestigious Lancet that I could also add to support my additions on 'effectiveness' & 'control'. Oh, another one from The Verge, too. All from some cursory google searching. They outnumber the political news & magazine outlets cited here to warrant removal of this content for "due weight".

I only saw 2 opinion pieces in my previous citations, & one of them was by a medical director who referenced a scientific study. All of the sources are no less reliable than what's cited in conflict of it (Barron's is a sister newspaper to WSJ, & the FAIR piece only cited scientific reports (regardless, even if the latter was removed, one of the science reports can replace it, which means the statement I added would still warrant inclusion). Your proof for undue weight? It does not seem to exist here. Donkey Hot-day (talk) 12:29, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

We already added "WHO praised the effectiveness of measures taken in the country", then why you have to mention sources telling how China did something that other countries are not doing? It seemed unnecessary repetition. Their analysis is not exactly recognizing the "effectiveness of the response". A source which is dedicated to "challenging media bias since 1986" is actually reliable for you? You removed mention of British scientists and significantly lowered the presence of sources alleging China of underreporting. Your sources[18][19][20] don't support your claim that "analysts" say situation in China has been controlled. In fact they say that cases are still being reported but low in number. For all these reasons your edits had been reverted. Orientls (talk) 14:21, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

Nature news and opinions articles are not the same as academic papers published in Nature. The Science articles are also news not academic papers. The Lancet piece is a media release about an academic paper but not an academic paper itself. You also do appear to be incompletely or misleadingly summarizing the sources, hard not to do when its such a strong statement and there are so many sources. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 20:31, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

They all convey that China's 'contained', 'beating', 'slowed' the outbreak, or had effective measures taken, and do not reference under-reporting in any way as a major issue. Either way, the wording can be changed to another with similar meaning, & your argument focusing now on semantics for removing reliably sourced content does not hold water. Yes, you also provided no cited reasons for the unreliability of FAIR, & including health experts along with British scientists is redundant (but fine, let's humor that anyway). You're clearly trying to push a POV that the consensus is China's under-reported cases, & only China thinks they've beaten back/contained/implemented effective measures in the outbreak, which is not supported by many reliable sources. Your pushing of WHO praise as enough (when there's already a well-sourced criticism section on WHO in another article) also shows irrelevant bias. I'll be re-adding the edit if you have no substantial arguments against my sources.

@Horse Eye Jack: Could you cite a Wikipedia policy on that claim? WP:SCHOLARSHIP says "For example, a paper reviewing existing research, a review article, monograph, or textbook is often better than a primary research paper." & "Material such as an article, book, monograph, or research paper that has been vetted by the scholarly community is regarded as reliable, where the material has been published in reputable peer-reviewed sources or by well-regarded academic presses." Either way, they are review articles (or at the very least reports) from 'foreign analysts' which was the wording I used (probably one could easily argue experts too), and are certainly as reliable (if not more so) than the news articles cited against them for 'undue weight'. It's not "such a strong statement" either, all the sources added were remarking on the effectiveness of the measures taken (some of them using stronger wording than that). Donkey Hot-day (talk) 21:11, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

One can think they’ve done a decent job of “containing,” “beating,” and “slowing” the outbreak (those are very different opinions btw, it might be wp:synth to actually say they all directly support the statement made) *and* that Chinese data is unreliable, those aren’t now and have never been contradictory positions. I don’t think there is a practicing scientist on earth who trusts Chinese data, nobody who did would pass a peer review in a reputable publication. These are news reports, not review papers btw which are a specific type of scientific paper. They are definitely reliable, but you attempted to make the claim that they are peer reviewed papers and thats 100% Donkey doo. What you laid out here also seems to be an admission of POV pushing, it certainly isnt adressing an actual gap per WP:due which could be satisfied by just a single article presenting the other point of view not shoehorning a dozen WP:Overcites on a statement that they for the most part havent even directly made. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 23:09, 8 April 2020 (UTC)

You claim that just because they use the terms that indicate effective measures/response, doesn't mean the Chinese data is unreliable? Sounds like WP:OR & a possible strawman argument, as I wasn't trying to delete sources on under-reporting. Looking closer, the reference for the 'Li Keqiang' section also says: "At present, the spread of domestically transmitted epidemic has been basically blocked, but the risks of sporadic cases and regional outbreaks still exist" which is hardly the same as "essentially stopped and the outbreak has been controlled in China", so that's a wp:synth issue you neglected to mention in the first place. It applies to the DW ref too, which doesn't mention him, & in fact the sentence should not mention him at all b/c as search engine verification shows, that's not what he's saying in sources. So that's fine actually, I don't need to add the 'other analysts state' phrasing in there. But the rest of my edit looks valid enough, so I'll be re-adding those.

But really if you know everything, tell me what would be a "paper reviewing existing research, a review article" or an "article published by well-regarded academic presses" on the coronavirus if the ones I referenced aren't it? It seems to be you who is POV pushing (& also pushing WP:CIVIL, as if you want to make fun of my username, it's also easy to say what you presented here is Horse crap). Citing the essay WP:Overcite without providing evidence (other than out-of-place opinions & rudeness) that any of this doesn't support the wording used & is undue weight needing total deletion is hardly convincing. Donkey Hot-day (talk) 03:04, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

If your argument is that there is WP:SYNTH elsewhere in the article and I didn’t comment on it therefore my argument here is disingenuous thats just silly, two wrongs don't make a right. Thucydides411 posted an actual academic paper below, your inability to distinguish an academic paper from a news article doesn’t bode well for you (you appear to still be arguing that your news stories are peer reviewed papers). Please review Academic publishing, Academic journal, etc. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 16:57, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

As usual, you rely on dishonest, irrelevant, & ludicrous strawmans & whataboutery to push your flimsy points. It does not even matter whether they are peer reviewed or not, they are articles "published by well-regarded academic presses" & "review articles" according to WP:SCHOLARSHIP. I see you provided no evidence that the Science & Nature articles I linked are somehow less reliable than the news outlet sources argued here to warrant their removal. Oh & also on Science's commentary section here, "Commentary material may be peer reviewed at the Editors' discretion." The Nature journalist David Cyranoski, & Science journalists Dennis Normile & Kai Kupferschmidt (the authors of my cited articles) have also published research papers (yes, like the one Thucydides411 cited, thanks for more inane strawman arguments, HEJ). No need to question Jon Cohen either. Rutgers has ranked these people in comparison to the popular literature cited against them, no doubt they deserve the due weight.

So now your last resort is to yell WP:SYNTH at everything, when in fact my edit was simply following WP:PLAGFORM, paraphrasing text with the in-text attribution of "some foreign analysts", which is widely done & accepted on Wikipedia. If you cannot address the actual argument here with logic, then I'll be reinstating most of my edits (& fixing the 'Li Keqiang' synth issue you clearly don't care about). Donkey Hot-day (talk) 11:15, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

It is normal to seek better sources when you are making WP:EXCEPTIONAL claims while underestimating the prevalent facts. You are still yet to describe that how your sources supported your information. Orientls (talk) 15:51, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

Simply stating that DHD's wording constitutes WP:EXCEPTIONAL claims does not make them so. Certainly a far cry from the BS analysis published by Barron's which was refuted above. CaradhrasAiguo (leave language) 16:12, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

Please be aware of WP:NPA, accusing other editors of dishonestly will get you swiftly blocked. You’re arguing against a brick wall, I’m not objecting to the sources I’m just letting you know that you mischaracterized the nature of the sources and that they are *not* peer reviewed academic auricles. Also the plural of straw man is straw men. If you had actually paraphrased the texts this wouldn’t be an issue, the problem is that you didn’t actually paraphrase the immense volume of text you provided... Instead you crafted a rather explicit position and then tried to shoehorn the sources into that position even when they took a slightly but significantly different one. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 15:48, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

No, it's quite obvious it is you mischaracterising my argument into something about peer-review, pushing your strawman & denying it as usual. Perhaps you should try applying WP:NPA to yourself for once, as it's also obvious you started the incivility with 'Donkey doo' & POV pushing accusations (not to mention your talk page seems to have more frequent disputes than mine, I'm quite safe from being blocked if you're still here). And now you're going for grammar, did you also forget it's addressing not 'adressing', articles not 'auricles', or that's, not 'thats' etc.?

@Orientls Nature notes that "some researchers say that the situation in China is different because its government acted aggressively, using social-distancing measures to slow down the spread and extensive testing and isolating of infected people to stamp out potential transmission sources. This strategy helped the country contain the outbreak.", "The analysis concludes that after containing the virus with the severe lockdowns, 'China has successfully exited their stringent social-distancing policy to some degree'...'So far, so good,' says Andrew Tatem" & "'The extra work allowed them to stop the virus,' says Cowling." Harvard Business Review notes "Much has been written about the practices and policies used in countries such as China, South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan to stifle the pandemic.", "what truly characterizes their effective responses is the multitude of actions that were taken at once." & "the approaches of China, South Korea, Taiwan, and Singapore, which were able to contain the contagion fairly early." Chandran Nair writes of "successfully containing coronavirus", "competent governance", etc., the article from Helen Branswell of Stat is self-explanatory, NYTimes referenced Francois Balloux saying "they controlled the epidemic" (admittedly that's an article better sourced for other sections) etc. This is all plainly obvious to anyone who knows how to read, but here you are, still pushing undue weight & WP:EXCEPTIONAL 'fringe theories' claims with no evidence provided while blatantly ignoring scholarly & scientific sources. Words & opinions have no meaning here, provide some reputable links to support your claims. Donkey Hot-day (talk) 04:11, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

@Horse Eye Jack: "I don’t think there is a practicing scientist on earth who trusts Chinese data, nobody who did would pass a peer review in a reputable publication." The Lancet Infectious Diseases is a reputable scientific journal. This recent paper, which passed their peer-review process, uses official data: [21]. This example took about one minute of searching to find. If I were to search for ten minutes, I could compile a list for you. -Thucydides411 (talk) 12:21, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Interestingly, the peer-reviewed paper I link above directly states that containment measures in China, outside of Hubei province (the study is not about the epidemic inside Hubei province), were likely effective. From the abstract, "Overall, our findings indicate that strict containment measures, movement restrictions, and increased awareness of the population might have contributed to interrupt local transmission of SARS-CoV-2 outside Hubei province." -Thucydides411 (talk) 12:27, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

We use it because its the only data available on 1/5 of the world’s population, not because we *trust* it. Thats a decent source, but it doesn’t back up the statement "some foreign analysts later acknowledged the effectiveness of the response.” because of the pesky “might” which is the same sort of thing that keeps the majority of the already cited pieces from being appropriate, they say something close to the statement they’re being used to support but they don’t actually directly support that statement. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 16:50, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

HEJ, the part about objecting to might have contributed is an unhelpful moot point because focus of the The Lancet study that Thucydides411 cited is strictly epidemiology...it isn't "their place" to ascertain the effects of public health measures. Statnews directly quotes an mathematical epidemiologist as saying containment strategies implemented in China are successfully reducing transmission. CaradhrasAiguo (leave language) 07:07, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

Unless there is a strong consensus to back up that statement, I find it WP:UNDUE. Orientls (talk) 15:51, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

Yes, the author & Stat News must be somehow undue, even though the statement is supported by journals such as Science, Nature, & others. Deletion based on undue weight only applies to sources of questionable reliability, what you find does not matter if you cannot provide evidence supporting it. Donkey Hot-day (talk) 04:11, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

@Horse Eye Jack: The Lancet Infectious Diseases study (Zhang et al. 2020) is entirely based on Chinese official data, and it got through peer review at a well respected journal. This paper is a counter-example to your claim that no "practicing scientist on earth who trusts Chinese data, nobody who did would pass a peer review in a reputable publication". If you want to then argue about the difference between using Chinese official data as the entire basis for a scientific study and "trusting" the data, then I think you're arguing semantics, and that argument has no bearing on what we here at Wikipedia should do. The Lancet Infectious Diseases uses Chinese official data, and so should we.

@CaradhrasAiguo: Zhang et al. (2020) does make statements about the effectiveness of public health measures. It's an epidemiological study, as you say, but epidemiological evidence can shed light on how effective containment measures are. What the study finds is that the rate of infection decreased over time in the 9 provinces outside Hubei that had significant outbreaks. Here's what the authors say:

We found that the epidemic was self-sustained for short periods of time only (no more than 3 weeks) in provinces outside Hubei that reported a large number of cases,[32] and estimated that, since the end of January, 2020, Rt has been below the epidemic threshold in all studied provinces. This finding is consistent with the gradual decrease in the number of detected COVID-19 cases reported across China and suggests a beneficial effect of the strict public health intervention policies implemented in China. In particular, strict social-distancing measures were implemented in all the analysed Chinese provinces and included close community management (eg, case isolation and household quarantine of close contacts), suspension of public activities, traffic restrictions, and school closure.

-[22]

I'd like to look for other studies, so that we're not just relying on one particular study. However, based on this study, it would be fair to write something like, "Epidemiological evidence suggests that public health interventions in China outside Hubei province helped reduce transmission of the virus." -Thucydides411 (talk) 14:37, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

Yes its semantics, almost all academic discussions are. If we’re basing it on the study you’ve provided "Epidemiological evidence suggests that public health interventions in China outside Hubei province might have helped reduce transmission of the virus.” seems more appropriate, lets not turn carefully qualified statements into unqualified statements. Horse Eye Jack (talk) 15:48, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

My "unqualified" wording without the word "might" is an almost direct quote from the body of the paper (see the block quote above). -Thucydides411 (talk) 17:54, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

@Horse Eye Jack: Commentaries in prestigious scientific journals, such as those mentioned by Donkey Hot-day, are good sources of relatively expert opinion. I'd put much more trust in their opinions on medical issues than I would in reporting from major newspapers, for example. Views commonly expressed in those commentaries should be mentioned in the article. For example, this commentary ("From China: hope and lessons for COVID-19 control" by Azman and Luquero) in The Lancet Infectious Diseases discusses the Zhang et al. (2020) paper. Azman and Luquero write,

"Although the true causal nature of these transmission reductions is not addressed in Zhang and colleagues' analyses, it is probably due to the strict government-imposed restrictions on movement of people and social gatherings, widespread symptom screening, testing and quarantine programmes, and the strong emphasis on personal behaviour change (eg, hand hygiene, mask use, and physical distancing) to reduce the risk of transmission."

They return to the question of the efficacy of the control measures implemented in China later on:

"The trajectory of the epidemic curves in China alone suggest that these measures—some of them extreme—might have led to substantial reductions in transmission as of late March, 2020. China made difficult decisions with complex trade-offs between economic and social consequences and acute health effects on the basis of little historical data. These decisions pave the way for other countries to design responses to COVID-19 on the basis of their experiences. The encouraging results from Zhang and colleagues' study provide hope that rapid control might be possible, although with high economic and social costs."

On the basis of these sources, the article should make some statement about the efficacy of China's control measures. I've started a new talk section (below) about reorganizing this article, because it doesn't clearly explain the course of the epidemic. I would suggest writing a new section about the overall trajectory of the epidemic, and including assessments of the efficacy of control measures in China in that section, as well as the lede. -Thucydides411 (talk) 18:28, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

@Horse Eye Jack and Donkey Hot-day: This paper in Science deals directly with the question of the effectiveness of control measures in China. The abstract concludes, "This study shows that the drastic control measures implemented in China substantially mitigated the spread of COVID-19." Something should be added to the article to summarize this article and the Lancet Infectious Diseases (LID) paper, as well as the commentary in LID. -Thucydides411 (talk) 21:27, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Sure, the question is where it should be best placed (For me, it'd only seem to be where my previous edit had been), what's the best wording ("several studies have shown", or "researchers have noted" or something else etc.), & whether the Nature reports (& possibly Stat News or others) could be included with those studies. Donkey Hot-day (talk) 10:49, 15 April 2020 (UTC)