Talk:Chinese government response to COVID-19/Archive 1

Archive 1

Archive 2

Archive 3

Started

Not trying to throw cold water on your project here. Really. But I have to wonder about saying in WikiVoice that China's response "started" in December of 2019. That's disputed. For example, there is the matter of a WIV database to which public online access ended between 2am and 3am on September 12, 2019.[4] Was that a response to the pandemic? That's disputed. Adoring nanny (talk) 18:18, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

I see your point, thanks for making the change. ––FormalDude ^talk 08:39, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

Subsection "Disinformation and censorship"

Seems this title doesnt represent the active nature of the campaign. Perhaps instead of "censorship" is should say "Disinformation and Supression?" Or some other word? Does "censorship" encompass arresting citizen journalists? Should there be a different section for that? 2600:8804:6600:83:409:66E5:803F:B372 (talk) 14:16, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

About this article

This current draft article is a result of merging the content from the following locations:

1. National responses to the COVID-19 pandemic#China
2. COVID-19 pandemic in mainland China#Government response
3. China COVID-19 cover-up allegations
   

Any assistance with completing this merge is greatly appreciated. ––FormalDude ^talk 08:44, 20 December 2021 (UTC)

COVID-19 misinformation by China seems like it would have a good deal of useful content too. I think there are far too many COVID-19 articles in general (although understandable, as its the biggest global event in recent history), but I'm not sure which should be merged. --Animalparty! (talk) 08:37, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

I took a look at this draft yesterday. Seems to be in pretty good shape. Maybe get buyoff from a couple more experienced editors, then send 'er to mainspace. All the normal AFC criteria are met, the main thing to watch out for is overlap with other articles. –Novem Linguae (talk) 15:09, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

@Novem Linguae: one remaining issue I can see is the overlap between Draft:Chinese government response to COVID-19#Censorship and police responses and Draft:Chinese government response to COVID-19#Early censorship and police responses. Given the amount of content here, and the fact that it's come from three separate articles, I wouldn't be surprised if there are more overlaps I've missed in my glance over – this does seem to be the main outstanding one though. More eyes are definitely better! Jr8825 • Talk 16:32, 23 December 2021 (UTC)

Unreliable

The following sources are listed as unreliable at WP:NPPSG and we may want to remove them:

• 69 - sina.com.cn - original content from them is unreliable, syndicated content may be OK, I haven't checked which this is
• 71 - sina.com.cn - original content from them is unreliable, syndicated content may be OK, I haven't checked which this is
• 91 - ibtimes.com
• 133 - nypost.com

–Novem Linguae (talk) 04:50, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

I've fixed the last two, I'm not able to check the sina.com.cn source as it's not in English. ––FormalDude ^talk 09:22, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

They are stated as being reposted articles from 《参考消息》官方网站_参考消息电子版_参考消息报 (cankaoxiaoxi.com) which is a regular (state-controlled?) news website, and a Ningxia provincial government organ 宁夏纪委监委网站 (nxjjjc.gov.cn) respectively. Pieceofmetalwork (talk) 09:34, 24 December 2021 (UTC)

I replaced the Sina sources with some English sources. Jumpytoo Talk 00:39, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

Regarding recent removals

Thucydides411 When you make claims such as Remove disinformation sourced to social media speculation, which has been disproven by subsequent high-quality journal articles (diff, also [5][6]) can you provide citations to these journals so people can actually verify your claim. To be clear, this is a request for sources for those three diffs. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 01:54, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

There are a number of scientific studies of mortality and seroprevalence in China published in high-quality journals. They are incompatible with the social media speciation discussed by various popular news outlets (which are, of course, not particularly reliable sources for scientific information) back in April 2020. One study, published in The BMJ, finds that excess pneumonia deaths in China are fairly close to the official COVID-19 death toll. Other studies have looked at the seroprevalence in China, finding a seroprevalence of only a few percent in Wuhan, and virtually zero outside Hubei province. These seroprevalence figures are consistent with the mortality figures published in The BMJ, and with the official figures, but are inconsistent with the wildly inflated death figures speculated about on social media. We should not be including discredited speculation from social media that was covered back in April 2020 in the popular media. Ironically, that itself would be misinformation. -Thucydides411 (talk) 02:23, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

We cannot delete content just because it doesn't fit the current section title. Wikipedia is a work in progress and it always better to fix problems. If you have good independent sources contradicting existing sources, they can be added for WP:BALANCE, but we need to be mindful of WP:WEIGHT due to the censorship policies barring Chinese scientists from publishing what we'd normally expect them to. LondonIP (talk) 01:41, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

I'm sorry, but it's utterly unacceptable to disregard papers published in leading journals like Nature and The BMJ, simply because of the nationality of the authors. I'm troubled that you would even suggest we do so. If you think that social media speculation covered briefly in popular media in April 2020 should trump peer-reviewed scientific studies in to journals, then take that to WP:RSN. -Thucydides411 (talk) 03:12, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

@FormalDude: Please see the scientific studies that I linked to above, and then please self-revert: [7]. Wikipedia has strong policies about COVID misinformation, and discredited claims about the COVID-19 death toll do not belong in the article. -Thucydides411 (talk) 03:19, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

@Thucydides411: I skimmed the studies, not seeing anything that disproves the content of this section. ––FormalDude ^talk 03:29, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

@FormalDude: The study in The BMJ says that the death toll was approximately 4,600, which disproves the social media speculation about much higher numbers of deaths. The serological studies are consistent with the mortality found by the study in The BMJ.

Back in March/April 2020, various popular media outlets discussed speciation on social media about much higher death tolls. That speculation has been disproven by subsequent scientific studies. In other words, that speculation was misinformation, and we should not include it in this article. -Thucydides411 (talk) 06:05, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

I don't know that that exactly follows WP:NPOV. And this isn't just "social media speculation". It's speculation from "United States intelligence officials, British scientists, and British government officials". I'd like to hear what other editors think though, such as @ProcrastinatingReader. ––FormalDude ^talk 07:02, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

Earlier versions of the article have contained social media speculation: [8] (search for "urns"). I see that you did not restore this paragraph.

However, the speculation from various governments, including the Trump administration, does not belong here. The death toll in China has been well established by subsequent scientific studies (as discussed below in the "Alleged under-counting of cases and deaths" talk page section). This article is about the Chinese government response to COVID-19. I don't see what random, incorrect speculation from various other governments has to do with the subject of this article. -Thucydides411 (talk) 21:20, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

@Thucydides411: I've made this edit as a compromise, let me know what you think. ––FormalDude ^talk 10:26, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

• Some of the material in this section seems to have nothing to do with "Censorship and Propaganda", like the antibody sampling, the fact that asymptomatic cases were reported separately from symptomatic cases, and the Wuhan government revising the number of deaths. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 08:50, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

  I can agree with that. Feel free to move it, if you want. ––FormalDude ^talk 09:05, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

  Done – moved part, removed part that seems too minor to be worth covering. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 09:32, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

COVID-19 cover-up?

What happened to the cover-up page? I was compiling a list of sources but then I had a huge flood in my house and I was too busy with that. Has the page been deleted or merged into this page? ScrumptiousFood (talk) 14:48, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/China COVID-19 cover-up allegations Pieceofmetalwork (talk) 15:44, 4 January 2022 (UTC)

@ScrumptiousFood: the RM was closed by Sceptre who swiftly AfD nominated it for deletion, prompting a MR by Adoring nanny, an ANI, AN and RSN by Gimiv and the creation of this article by FormalDude. You can always file a WP:DRV if you don't like it, but I think its better to work on this article, and build consensus on whether there was or wasn't a cover-up, or at least allegations of a cover-up. That was the original contention of the RM that the community must still resolve. LondonIP (talk) 23:31, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

@ScrumptiousFood: The most recent discussion resulted in a consensus to retarget the cover-up redirect to this article. See Wikipedia:Redirects_for_discussion/Log/2021_December_24#China_COVID-19_cover-up_allegations. ––FormalDude ^talk 23:58, 5 January 2022 (UTC)

Material not relevant to this article

The article currently contains the following paragraph:

During the pandemic, no reports of cases of the COVID-19 in Xinjiang prisons or of conditions in the Xinjiang internment camps emerged. Anna Hayes, senior lecturer in politics and international relations of Australia's James Cook University, expressed concern about possible spread in the camps.

This paragraph isn't about the Chinese government response to COVID-19, so it isn't relevant to this article. It seems to be left over from the merge from the "cover-up" article, which was to some extent a WP:COATRACK of miscellaneous negative material. I removed the paragraph from this article but was reverted. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 10:39, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

I agree with the concern of coatracking (this article has a very high chance of going that way), but I think that section is relevant here. After all, how they manage the camps during the pandemic (such as the information they produce of conditions there related to the disease) is part of their response to the pandemic, in my opinion. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 10:51, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

@A. C. Santacruz: If we can find sources about how the Chinese government has managed the camps in light of the pandemic, that would be worth including in the article, but the quoted paragraph doesn't discuss that. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 10:57, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

How is it not related? Are the Xinjiang internment camps not a part of China? Of course they are, and of course they would be covered in an encyclopedic article about their government's response to a pandemic. All you've done is identify it as negative material, which is not alone a reason for removal. So please elaborate. ––FormalDude ^talk 10:52, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

The camps are a part of China, but the quoted material is not a part of the Chinese government response to COVID-19. In contrast, if we had reliably sourced information about what steps the Chinese government has taken to avoid the spread of COVID-19 in the camps, that would be relevant to this article. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 10:57, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

The source cited for those sections says the following (within the reference, which seems like bad practice and perhaps should be altered): No reports have emerged of conditions in the facilities since the outbreak began. But former detainees have previously described poor food and sanitation and little help for those who fell ill.{...}"According to my personal experience in the concentration camp, they never helped anyone or provided any medical support for any kind of disease or health condition," said Ms. Sauytbay, who fled to Kazakhstan two years ago, in a phone interview this month. "If the coronavirus spread inside the camps, they would not help, they would not provide any medical support."{...}Now the region is being jolted back to work. Labor transfer programs, in which large numbers of Uighurs and other predominately Muslim minorities are sent to work in other parts of Xinjiang and the rest of China, have resumed in recent weeks. The Chinese government's lack of medical care in these camps would be part of their response to the pandemic. Santacruz ⁂ Please ping me! 11:38, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

It would be, if we had a reliable source saying that the Chinese government hasn't allowed medical care in the camps in response to the COVID-19 pandemic. But the passage you've quoted doesn't say that – it just reports speculation based on someone's experience in a camp long before the pandemic started. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 12:05, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

It's not just speculation from someone's experience in a camp... it's speculation from subject-matter experts, people who have been studying both pandemics and the Xinjiang internment camps. ––FormalDude ^talk 23:30, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

I would support including something about the camps and the lack of COVID-19 statistics coming out of them, as this seems like an obvious area where China is not being honest with their reporting. However, the cited source is quite unconvincing, as it is essentially some former detainee guessing about it. I wonder if we can find a better source, perhaps a human rights organization such as Amnesty International reporting on this issue. –Novem Linguae (talk) 13:42, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

Xinjiang has had very few cases at all, so the fact that there hasn't been any substantial outbreak reported in reeducation camps is unsurprising. I agree with Mx. Granger that this paragraph is out of place in this article. The information content added by this speculation is basically zero. -Thucydides411 (talk) 01:09, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

Good point. Xinjiang having almost no cases is pretty convincing. Do we have a source for that? –Novem Linguae (talk) 04:26, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

We have an article COVID-19 pandemic in Xinjiang, which says there were a total of 902 confirmed cases (out of a population of about 26 million) as of August 2020. Like most other provinces of China, this is a very low case count by international standards. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 07:58, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

Large Covid outbreak in China linked to Xinjiang forced labour. More than 180 cases traced to garment factory where Uighurs must take up work placements. ––FormalDude ^talk 08:08, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

180 cases – a large outbreak by Chinese standards, but very small by international standards. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 08:23, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

No doubting that. Still think it might be due weight for this article. ––FormalDude ^talk 08:45, 28 December 2021 (UTC)

This discussion has gotten a bit sidetracked talking about reported case numbers in Xinjiang, but the paragraph in question remains irrelevant to this article, because the paragraph isn't about the Chinese government's response to COVID-19. I suggest we move the paragraph to COVID-19 pandemic in Xinjiang. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 17:49, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Seeing no objection, I will go ahead and implement this. Hopefully this will work as a compromise. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 18:29, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Good compromise, I support it. But I would also say that simply stating that there are no current statistics from the camps in this article would be WP:DUE. If we use the above sources to do it. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 22:10, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

I agree with Shibbolethink. Please don't take silence as agreement. ––FormalDude ^talk 07:48, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Not sure if you mean you agree about the compromise or you agree about due weight, but it seems to me this is not a due weight issue so much as a relevance issue. This article is specifically focused on the Chinese government response to COVID-19, not other information about COVID-19 in China. In any case, hopefully we can all agree that the material in question fits better in the article where it is now covered, and hopefully the compromise is satisfactory enough for us to move on from this issue. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 17:01, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

I agree with the compromise here. LondonIP (talk) 20:04, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

"Simply stating that there are no current statistics from the camps in this article would be WP:DUE" with a source directly supporting that, absolutely. —PaleoNeonate – 12:38, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

"contained the crisis reasonably swiftly"

The intro mentioned praise of China for "containing the crisis reasonably swiftly." Per WP:WIKIVOICE, this definitely needs a counterpoint. This PBS documentary [9] shows, starting just before 1:13:30, a WHO employee stating that the chance to contain the virus was lost because they didn't know it could be transmitted from person to person until too late. I'm not sure the best way to use this, but I do feel it needs to be used. Adoring nanny (talk) 15:33, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

The quote is "It was always going to be very difficult to control this virus, from day one. But by the time we knew that it was transmissible human to human, I think the cat was out of the bag. It had already spread. That was the shot we had, and we lost it." from an interview with Lawrence Gostin, a law professor specializing in public health law. It sounds like he is saying that human-to-human transmission was discovered too late for the virus to be fully contained. I'm not sure how that's relevant to this article, but it might be relevant to some other article about COVID-19. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 15:54, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

Relevant because, as the documentary shows, China spent much of Dec.-Jan. of 2019-20 claiming there was no H-to-H transmission, even though local doctors knew otherwise. Adoring nanny (talk) 16:20, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

China spent much of Dec.-Jan. of 2019-20 claiming there was no H-to-H transmission, even though local doctors knew otherwise – can this claim be cited to reliable sources? If so, it should probably be mentioned in the article (the quote from Gostin doesn't say that though). —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 16:55, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

Much of December 2019? The first cluster of patients was only discovered at the end of December. This can't possibly be true. -Thucydides411 (talk) 17:20, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

Li Wenliang warned his colleagues on 30 December. See his article. Therefore, he must have at least suspected that there was H-to-H transmission. The documentary I linked above (timestamp roughly 11-15 minutes) has doctors noticing a cluster in different locations in "mid December", but they don't specify a date. It has a sample being sent to a lab called Vision Medicals on December 24. Then it has a tech at Vision Medicals isolating a partial genetic sequence of coronavirus similar to SARS on 26 December. According to the documentary, a WeChat post about this was removed from the internet. Also according to the documentary (not sure the timestamp for this part), if a coronavirus can infect humans, H-to-H transmission is possible. These are the earliest instances known in the West. Again according to the documentary, China announced H-to-H transmission on January 20. Adoring nanny (talk) 22:39, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

If the first patient test results came back on 26 December (I think it was actually a day later), the claim that China spent much of December denying human-to-human transmission can't be right. This is even if we unrealistically assume that the Chinese immediately understood a novel virus and its transmission properties. China's initial announcement on 31 December 2019 said that precautions were being taken to prevent transmission, but at the time, whether human-to-human transmission occurred was still anyone's guess.

In any case, the argument that China "contain[ed] the crisis relatively swiftly" is based on the fact that China successfully ended its epidemic in early 2020 and has avoided a second wave. Whether or not you personally think China responded poorly in early January is not really relevant. The various scientific articles calling China's response a success are largely based on what happened from 20 January onwards. -Thucydides411 (talk) 23:31, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

By "much of Dec.-Jan.", I was referring to the period from approximately Dec. 27 to Jan. 20. The lab tech's message did say that what he had found was a coronavirus related to SARS. According to the documentary, if a coronavirus can infect a human, it can be transmitted H-to-H to at least some degree. Hope that clears it up. Adoring nanny (talk) 04:11, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

It's not so simple. The fact that a coronavirus can infect a human does not necessarily mean that it can be efficiently transmitted from person to person. If that were such an automatic assumption, then everyone would have known that there was human-to-human transmission the moment that China announced the existence of a novel coronavirus. There would have been no need for China to even state that there was human-to-human transmission. But of course, not everyone immediately assumed there was human-to-human transmission, because it's not so simple. Many people suspected there might be the possibility of human-to-human transmission, and Wuhan health authorities said they were taking precautions against transmission in hospitals. But knowing and suspecting are two different things. -Thucydides411 (talk) 06:15, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

• According to a very widely cited report by Nick Paton Walsh of CNN, the Chinese doctors knew about H-to-H transmission already in December, but were repressed by the government. The claim that China "contained the crisis reasonably swiftly" should be dated and attributed, and moved into the relevant section in the body. This claim contradicts what independent experts say in independent sources, so we should not give it undue WP:WEIGHT. LondonIP (talk) 01:59, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

  That's an opinion source, which greatly weakens its usability. However, the documentary says the same thing in a lot of places, i.e. the 11:00-15:00 passage mentioned above. That we can use. Adoring nanny (talk) 02:41, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

  The WaPo is an opinion piece, but the CNN article is a regular news report. I cited the WaPo oped as a secondary source on the CNN report. LondonIP (talk) 03:08, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

• Remove from lead per WP:GEVAL. Journal of Asian Public Policy is a little known journal and unsuitable for such an WP:EXCEPTIONAL claim. Most newer sources say the Chinese government's early response largely failed to contain the crisis. Gimiv (talk) 19:26, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

  This isn't an exceptional claim. Cases in China peaked in early February 2920, and the outbreak was over by early April 2020. Many articles and editorials in scientific journals refer to this as successful containment:

  • "Vaccination strategy and challenges for consolidating successful containment of covid-19 with population immunity in China", An et al., The BMJ, December 2021.
  • "Successful containment of COVID-19: the WHO-Report on the COVID-19 outbreak in China", Salzberger et al., Infection, April 2020.
  • "China's successful control of COVID-19", T. Burki, The Lancet, October 2020. From this article: While the world is struggling to control COVID-19, China has managed to control the pandemic rapidly and effectively.
  • "Sustaining containment of COVID-19 in China", Editorial by The Lancet, April 2020. From the article: The quick containment of COVID-19 in China is impressive and sets an encouraging example for other countries.

  We include criticism of the Chinese government response in the lede, but we should also include the widely held scientific view that China's measures quickly contained the outbreak. -Thucydides411 (talk) 20:33, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

  Yeah, this isn't an exceptional claim. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 22:30, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

In regards to this revert [10] by User:Thucydides411. The edit summary is misleading. We are citing NPR, not YouTube. Adoring nanny (talk) 02:24, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

You are, in fact, summarizing a lengthy video on YouTube in your own words. We don't normally cite videos at all, whether they're from NPR or not.

Beyond that, for an epidemiological question, such as whether the original outbreak in Wuhan was contained quickly, we should look to the scientific literature, but popular media. We should not balance out scientific views with views from pop media. -Thucydides411 (talk) 02:35, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

Had it been contained, we would not be dealing with it today. It wasn't. This is getting into WP:BLUE territory. Adoring nanny (talk) 06:04, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

If this were an article about the world's response to COVID-19, then the failure to contain the virus elsewhere would be relevant. The sources say that China successfully contained/controlled its outbreak. New infections were brought to zero throughout the country by April 2020. This is not an extraordinary claim, and it is repeated throughout the scientific literature on the subject. The lede should discuss it, because it's one of the most notable results of the government response in China. -Thucydides411 (talk) 14:40, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

If you think the summary of the video is inaccurate, you should improve it instead of deleting it, otherwise it may be considered disruptive. The question of whether the Chinese government's response to the initial outbreak was adequate is due for the lead, and there are a huge number of sources covering it, which must be representing fairly. We would not be in pandemic now if the Chinese government hadn't responded the way they did and silenced Li Wenliang and Ai Fen. LondonIP (talk) 00:02, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

We don't normally use videos as sources, and this is one of the reasons. We're all left trying to give our own takeaway from a lengthy video.

Above, I listed 4 different scientific papers from high-quality journals that say that China successfully contained or controlled the initial outbreak. Pitting an on-air segment from the pop media against the scientific literature is false balance.

We would not be in pandemic now if the Chinese government hadn't responded the way they did: This is your personal opinion, which you're entitled to, but it should not color how we write the article, particularly when it clashes with what the scientific literature says. -Thucydides411 (talk) 03:57, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

I think it's fine to cite a video from a reliable source, but we must be careful to stick to what the video actually says, not draw our own inferences (just like when citing text sources). —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 16:45, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

"is your personal opinion" Sources: Beijing acted against the coronavirus with stunning force, as its official narratives recount. But not before a political logjam had allowed a local outbreak to kindle a global pandemic.[11]

It was always going to be very difficult to control this virus, from day one. But by the time we knew that it was transmissible human to human, I think the cat was out of the bag. It had already spread. That was the shot we had, and we lost it[12] (1:13:30)

The coronavirus pandemic could have been contained if the authorities in Wuhan had notified the World Health Organization earlier and allowed an expert team to investigate in December 2019, according to Chen Chien-jen, Taiwan’s former vice-president, a renowned epidemiologist and health minister who made his name during the SARS [Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome] outbreak nearly 20 years ago.[13] Adoring nanny (talk) 00:55, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Do you have any scientific sources that say that China did not quickly contain the outbreak? I've cited a number of peer-reviewed scientific papers that say the outbreak was swiftly/effectively controlled/contained. Based on my reading of the literature, the dominant scientific view is that it was China's response that first convinced epidemiologists that containment and elimination was possible in the first place.

You keep quoting popular media. I'm sorry, but pop media is not terribly reliable when it comes to technical issues like epidemiology. When the scientific literature says one thing, but journalists without any scientific training or peer-review say something else, the scientific literature takes precedence. Newspapers are very bad sources for scientific questions. -Thucydides411 (talk) 01:12, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

• China contained the crisis reasonably swiftly? Is this a joke? Remove. Francesco espo (talk) 01:18, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

Section headings NPOV

I don't know what interpretation of NPOV you have Thucydides411, but it is beginning to concern me. These are not merely allegations of disinformation and censorship, it is objective evidence of disinformation and censorship. It is not at all broadly disputed among RS. To make it seem like it is disputed is impartial and not balanced. ––FormalDude ^talk 01:04, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

All sorts of information that has nothing to do with misinformation is being lumped together under the label "misinformation". For example, there's a large section that discusses how the Chinese government said that its response to the pandemic was successful. How is that "misinformation"? You may disagree with the Chinese government's claims, but these claims are ultimately subjective. Some people will think that China's low death toll indicates success, while others won't. But it isn't as if one opinion is "misinformation" while the other isn't. -Thucydides411 (talk) 02:27, 25 December 2021 (UTC)to present

There is no part of the disinformation section that "discusses how the Chinese government said that its response to the pandemic was successful."

I do disagree with the Chinese government's claims, which are 100 percent WP:PRIMARY sources and unreliable for that very reason.

Regardless of what we think is object/subjective, there is what the majority of RS claims, and the majority of RS make absolutely clear thaat China has propagated a COVID-19 disinformation campaign. They've been spreading lies and propaganda since the beginning of the pandemic, RS dictates that. It's that simple. Have you read this article or any of its sources? ––FormalDude ^talk 06:42, 25 December 2021 (UTC)

• Given what know of the Chinese government gag orders on Chinese scientists, extreme caution should be exercised when using Chinese scientific publications as sources for claims that are contested by other sources. LondonIP (talk) 01:27, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

  No, we we're not going to disregard peer-reviewed scientific articles in leading medical journals because of the nationalities of the authors. -Thucydides411 (talk) 03:46, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

How to summarize the Global Public Health source

@CutePeach and Thucydides411: There seems to be some disagreement about how to summarize the Global Public Health source examining the accuracy of the reported death toll. I'm starting this discussion to hopefully avoid an edit war. Let's see if we can find consensus for how to summarize the source's findings. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 14:30, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks for starting this section, Mx. Granger. Here is the relevant passage from the paper we're citing:

Political censorship and reliability of the COVID-19 statistics from China, the initial epicentre, has also been doubted. Four of the authors of this paper are healthcare personnel based in Hong Kong and wish to offer a perspective to serve as food for thought. Currently, around 1.5 million Hong Kong and Taiwan citizens are long term residents working in China, which comprise slightly over 0.1% of China’s population. Meanwhile, COVID-19 death toll from China is 4641 (Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, 2020; worldometer, 2020). This should theoretically translate into around five cases of COVID-19 death of such Hong Kong or Taiwan citizens. Should there be even one single case of COVID-19-related death for Hong Kong or Taiwan citizen living in China, it would be highly publicised because of political reasons. As a matter of fact, up to this date, there have been no such reports in Hong Kong or Taiwan. Therefore, while it is acknowledged that there was discrepancy in the COVID-19 death toll during the initial outbreak for reasons discussed in previous sections, our hypothesis herein suggests that the reported Chinese death toll would probably be not far from the actual number.

The reasons discussed in previous sections are not political, but rather practical. One of the major reasons for discrepancies that the authors explain is that testing was limited early on:

Unfortunately, due to the overwhelming scale of the pandemic and insufficiencies of testing kits and hospital capacities in the first weeks of the pandemic, many suspected cases did not have the opportunity to be tested and recorded

The authors note that this happened not only in Wuhan, but in Europe and the US as well:

Such a situation happened in Wuhan, the epicentre of the pandemic, at the onset of the outbreak. Nonetheless, as the reach of the coronavirus extended across continents, countries such as Spain, the U.S. and U.K. which became hardest hit by the pandemic were eventually left in a similar predicament

Our present summary of this is accurate:

In May 2020, an article in the journal Global Public Health examined the possibility of inaccurate death counts due to alleged political censorship, but came to the conclusion that due to the lack of any known deaths of Hong Kong or Taiwan residents in Mainland China, which would be newsworthy, the official numbers probably do not form a particularly large discrepancy from the actual death numbers.

The one thing we could add is that the authors believe discrepancies are due to technical issues such as testing shortages in the initial weeks of the pandemic. -Thucydides411 (talk) 14:51, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

The journal and the source both appear to be weak-ish. Not saying it's hopeless, but the citations are low, and the journal, while not predatory, doesn't look to be prominent. Adoring nanny (talk) 18:32, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

I would also note that sources generally report political suppression of reports in Dec.-Jan. of 2019-20, and possibly the next few months. Not later. No reason not to report both this early suppression and the later lack of evidence off suppression. Adoring nanny (talk) 18:35, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

This source looks fine to me, and it's in line with what other scientific research into both mortality and seroprevalence in China says: the official death toll is roughly accurate, and the seroprevalence is low (4% or less in Wuhan, and close to zero outside of Hubei province). See the statistics section for the references.

Any discussion of political suppression must be nuanced. Local doctors who published information on their own were silenced, but there was also official publication of key information (e.g., the official announcement of the existence of a cluster of patients with pneumonia of unknown etiology at the end of December 2019, just days after the first suspicious rest results). -Thucydides411 (talk) 18:45, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

• It is a weak source but I am fine with including it. However, the discrepancy it mentions with regard to the initial outbreak should not be omitted, and the fact that the conclusion is based on a hypothesis that suggests a probability should not be elided either. LondonIP (talk) 00:25, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

  The version I quote above does discuss the discrepancy. If anything, the above version does not make it clear that the authors think any possible discrepancy is due to technical issues (like insufficient testing). The version that you've reverted to (below) does an even worse job of explaining this, and removes the reason why the researchers think the official figures are accurate:

  In May 2020, a commentary article in Global Public Health researchers in Hong Kong examined the possible inaccuracy of China's death toll due to political censorship and manipulation, concluding with a hypothesis suggesting that though there was discrepancy in the death toll during the initial outbreak (due to insufficient testing capacity), the reported figures were probably close to the actual figures.

  This is not an improvement. -Thucydides411 (talk) 04:17, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

  Not to intefere with this discussion but it does seem pretty obvious to include the reason for their conclusion in the article, not sure why this discussion is still ongoing Corinal (talk) 07:06, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

  @Corinal: I agree, the text should say how the authors came to their conclusion. The version that CutePeach and LondonIP have been advocating leaves that out. -Thucydides411 (talk) 15:33, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

  @Thucydides411: your version didn't discuss the discrepancy in the right light imo. It looks like MxG improved on my version [14] and LIP included an important point that it is an opinion piece proposing a hypothesis suggesting a probability [​​https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:MobileDiff/1064556696]. Please suggest edits for further improvement here on the talk page instead of reverting. CutePeach (talk) 13:53, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

  What do you mean by didn't discuss the discrepancy in the right light?

  an opinion piece proposing a hypothesis suggesting a probability: What does this even mean? This is not something any scientist would ever write. I'm not even sure it's English.

  The authors used data (the absence of any deaths among Taiwanese or Hong Kong people in mainland China) to come to a conclusion (the true death toll cannot be much higher than the published figure). They didn't "propose a hypothesis suggesting a possibility," whatever that even means. -Thucydides411 (talk) 15:01, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

  Including the discrepancy is fine and I'd encourage someone here to write a version including both, but the reason is more important, also the version me and Thucydides favour is the original and should be kept until discussion is over. Corinal (talk) 18:34, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

  I agree with Thucydides411 and Corinal. –Novem Linguae (talk) 18:46, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

The authors clearly qualify their conclusion as a hypothesis. You can make their explanation more clear but please don't revert other changes, like the fact that this is a commentary piece. Francesco espo (talk) 19:46, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Okay, given the comments above, I would suggest the following (changes are bolded):

In May 2020, a commentary in the journal Global Public Health examined the possibility of inaccurate death counts due to alleged political censorship, but suggested that due to the lack of any known deaths of Hong Kong or Taiwan residents in Mainland China, which would be newsworthy, the discrepancy between the official and true death toll is likely not particularly large.

I think this summary should be acceptable to everyone. -Thucydides411 (talk) 20:41, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Seems like an acceptable compromise to me. However, "concluded" or "came to the conclusion" was also fine. Do other sources present this as a hypothesis? If so, it'd still be a likely one, nothing extraordinary, it's simply a constatation (unless one also believes that these authors are conspiring, that Taiwan statistics are doctored, etc). —PaleoNeonate – 13:12, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean by compromise. In which version is the reason not adequately explained? Here are the diffs [15] [16]. This is a primary source and without secondary sources, it should be presented the way the authors presented it, as a hypothesis. LondonIP (talk) 23:33, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

@PaleoNeonate: Based on your suggestion, I've changed "suggested" to "concluded". Here's the latest compromise proposal:

In May 2020, a commentary in the journal Global Public Health examined the possibility of inaccurate death counts due to alleged political censorship, but concluded that due to the lack of any known deaths of Hong Kong or Taiwan residents in Mainland China, which would be newsworthy, the discrepancy between the official and true death toll is likely not particularly large.

It seems to me that most editors who have expressed an opinion support something close to this, so I'll add it in soon. -Thucydides411 (talk) 03:49, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

I support this compromise. ––FormalDude talk 05:48, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

This seems fine to me. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 16:34, 11 January 2022 (UTC)

This seems fine to me too, but we should qualify it as a hypothesis, making a suggestion about a probability, not a statement of fact. Francesco espo (talk) 01:24, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

This seems fine, the hypothesis qualification is unnecessary as the claim is directly attributed in the article so isn't presented as a statement of fact but rather as that group's conclusion Corinal (talk) 16:15, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

I agree with this version as well. And given that it is the version available in our WP:BESTSOURCES and that we are already attributing it to the study, there is no need to further water it down using words like "hypothesis" The study concludes X, we report that its the study concluding X. We're not stating it in wiki-voice. No need to further hedge. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 12:18, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Discussion at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard § AP: Xi Jinping restricts publishing of COVID-19 data and research

 You are invited to join the discussion at Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Noticeboard § AP: Xi Jinping restricts publishing of COVID-19 data and research. –Novem Linguae (talk) 12:25, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

status quo ante

Could someone please take a look at the history and decide what they think is an appropriate stable version of the opening sentence to use while discussion about it is ongoing. Adoring nanny (talk) 12:43, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Here's the timeline I'm seeing:

1. Thucydides411 comment: If we do feel the need to include some pithy opening sentence to frame the topic, it should focus on the most prominent aspect of China's governmental response to COVID-19, which is the Zero-COVID policy. That is the policy that has dominated China's pandemic response over the last two years, and which continues to dominate it.

2. Adoring nanny comment: I'd be OK with that

3. Corinal edit: added specificity to the first sentence by talking about zero-covid (as suggested on talk page)

So it seems you agreed to this? At least, it was proposed on the talk page. ––FormalDude talk 13:01, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

NO. The "Provided" in my answer was the critical part, and no one seems to be agreeing to it that I can see. For example, have you changed your mind on the delete/redirect of the cover-up article? Adoring nanny (talk) 13:57, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

the delete/redirect of the cover up article is settled consensus at this point, it should not be revisited unless something substantial changes in the sources, or a significant amount of time passes. Certainly it is too early to revisit at this point. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 16:22, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

We all agree on starting with zero-covid but Adoring Nanny continues to try to undo the previous consensus regarding the cover-up article and related phrasing in this article. Corinal (talk) 14:01, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

No, please don't misconstrue my proposal of two linked changes as an agreement to do one of the changes without the other. I did not and do not agree with that. So the "we all" part of the above is simply not true. This is similar to the situation between me and another user elsewhere on this page. He thinks certain changes could be done, provided they are linked. I did some of the changes he wanted, but not all of them to his satisfaction. I have therefore not tried to push any change to the status quo ante prior to consensus, as it has not been reached. Adoring nanny (talk) 14:07, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Oh, i see, i thought you were supportive of that since you said "I don't mind having covid zero early in the lead." in your edit summary but i suppose not. Corinal (talk) 14:10, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Collapse off-topic.— Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 23:13, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

Adoring Nanny has quite a history of disruptive edits regarding COVID and received a COVID origins topic ban somewhat recently, its not very suprising this discussion has ended up this way. Corinal (talk) 14:18, 28 January 2022 (UTC) I actually don't think they have a TBAN, there wasn't consensus for the ban on ANI so it didn't happen. I agree there is disruption and they are not always collaborative, but neither are the rest of us 100% of the time :) I think as long as we are having these disagreements, the best way forward is to figure out the particular substance of the disagreement, drill down on details, and then have RfCs or pointed discussions, and then move forward on the basis of that consensus. In general, article talk pages are not the place for discussions of editor behavior (see: Wikipedia:Talk page guidelines) — Shibbolethink (♔ ♕) 16:17, 28 January 2022 (UTC) Oh, i thought they did, was it removed? Multiple editors mentioned it on the reliable sources noticeboard. Also they keep threatening me on my talk page, and are now claiming me mentioning their topic ban is a personal attack. I realise that talk pages are not the best place to discuss editor behavior but their actions on my talk page are essentially part of this discussion and originally shouldve taken place on this page anyway. I'd like to find the particular substance of the disagreement too, but this seems unlikely to happen. Corinal (talk) 20:25, 28 January 2022 (UTC) This is the wrong place for this. But just for the record: If I'm under a topic ban, I haven't been told about it. Adoring nanny (talk) 12:19, 29 January 2022 (UTC) I believe it may have been removed or something like that took place, or as stated above perhaps it didn't actually go through, I'm not entirely sure. I agree its not the place to discuss it, but i do encourage you to reconsider your editing history either way. Corinal (talk) 21:13, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

There is no good status quo for this article or the lead. It will not be possible to have a well written neutral article or lead unless we restrict primary sources and rely exclusively on independent secondary sources. I removed the zero COVID from the lead because that term wasn't used till much later in 2021. The zero COVID page is also using too many primary sources and is very unbalanced. ScrumptiousFood (talk) 17:27, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

It may not have always been called Zero-Covid, but thats what their strategy is called now, including their initial strategy. Corinal (talk) 20:38, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

WP:V

This revert [17] flies in the face of WP:V. In particular, it restores a verifiably-false sentence to the lead. In particular, as I explained in my edit summary [18], the statement On 8 January 2020, a new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) was identified by Chinese scientists as the cause of the symptoms. is simply not true. The virus had been identified by January 5 at the latest. See the NPR source in my edit.[19]. There was a later announcement of the earlier identification, and a still later release of the viral sequence. Adoring nanny (talk) 16:34, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

I would say regardless of how/if the lead should be changed....your edit introduced too much detail into the lead, which instead should be a very brief summary. It also editorialized and inserted POV criticism into the lead where not supported by the sources, and if it were, it would need to be done in an NPOV manner.

But as to your original question here, sequencing a virus is not actually enough to identify it as the cause of a disease. This is something people get wrong a lot, and especially about viruses. It was a big problem with the Mojiang Mine conspiracy as well. You can't just sequence a virus in somebody who's sick and say "This is the cause!" because people have all kinds of viruses circulating under the radar all the time! Often, they're clinically silent, and sometimes they're persistent!

You have to do a few other things to show it's really the cause of the illness: collectively, called "Rivers' criteria." These were fulfilled for SARS-CoV-2 later on. At the time, they were ANNOUNCING a virus that they believed to be the cause. it took the full publication of all the findings from Shi zhengli and George Gao's labs to really get to the "confirmation". [20] [21] [22] — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 16:52, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

Do you have a source that isn't YouTube? Would make it easier to support this suggested change. –Novem Linguae (talk) 16:54, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

@Novem Linguae: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/chinas-covid-secrets/transcript/ ––FormalDude talk 16:56, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

@FormalDude: @Novem Linguae: The transcript is pretty good, and I use it myself at times. However, it unfortunately does not contain all of the information in the video. For example, see the messages reproduced on screen in the sequence from 12:27-14:10. The messages do not appear in the transcript. However, from the transcript, one does get the gist, namely that on December 26, 2019, Vision Medicals knew they had a fragment of a SARS bat-like Coronavirus. Adoring nanny (talk) 18:03, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

I wrote a more NPOV version imo, but I think even my version should still be trimmed down. I think it's important we use the most up to date sources however, as you'll note that Zhang Yongzhen publicly disputes the version of events described above [23] — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 17:20, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

I've removed the claim that Zhang was "in direct opposition" to the order. We need to be careful to follow WP:BLP here. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 17:28, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

Heard you loud and clear, and completely agree. I've now written it as "Unbeknownst to Yongzhen" is that better? — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 17:31, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

It is funny, as an aside, to consider that, if Zongzhen had just received the samples in the mail like 2-3 days earlier, this entire thing would probably never have become an international controversy or fodder for hawkish posturing about government cover ups. Because Yongzhen's submission would have happened before the order from the NHC. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 17:33, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

Too many changes for me to keep up with at the moment. I may have time for a deep dive later. I will say that the Frontline at a minimum strongly implies, if not outright says, that Zhang was aware of the order. I'd encourage other editors to check that part of the source. Definitely don't say that he was unaware. Adoring nanny (talk) 17:37, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

Some experts dispute the characterization you had in your original edit. Frankly we probably need a whole section on this. See below: [24]

And, in fact, Zhang insists he first uploaded the genome to the U.S. National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) on Jan. 5—an assertion corroborated by the submission date listed on the U.S government institution’s Genbank....(Approached by TIME, Holmes deferred to Zhang’s version of events.)

It’s difficult to know what conclusions to draw. Dr. Dale Fisher, head of infectious diseases at Singapore’s National University Hospital, says he doesn’t think that any delay by the Chinese authorities was malicious. “It was more like appropriate verification,” he says. Fisher traveled to China as part of a World Health Organization (WHO) delegation in early February and says outbreak settings are always confusing and chaotic with people unsure what to believe.

— Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 17:46, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, that is better, though it may still need work. I'll try to take a closer look at this later. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 17:44, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

is there any way you could provide the quote from Yongzhen that shows he was unaware of the order/notice? I can't find that but I also haven't looked very hard... The edit about it on Yongzhen's wiki page uses this source: [25] which doesn't precisely say that, but does say that it was an order for local labs, and Yongzhen's lab was in Shanghai, not Wuhan. It says this: Holmes says the team had held off because of the government order, but Zhang says he wasn’t aware of the edict at the time but it also says Holmes disputed this to Nature, and he of course did not dispute in the Time piece as I described above. So I've just attributed to Zhang. We do need to put this somewhere in the body, per WP:LEAD — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 17:46, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

I agree, with multiple sources saying different things, it is probably a complicated question. Being aware of only one such source, I probably oversimplified it in my WP:IMPERFECT first attempt. I'll try to get back to this when I have more time. Adoring nanny (talk) 18:06, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

@Shibbolethink: I looked at the current version[26] of the article and at the Time and nature sources. The part about Zhang, I think, is confusing in one respect. The submission to GenBank was a release of the sequence beyond China. However, it did not, in and of itself, make the sequence public, because their review process takes time. The public release of the sequence was on 11 January. That's the key date the lead needs to contain. According to Time, that's what "sent shockwaves through the global scientific community." So I think that's the most important date to have in the lead.

I don't think the article needs to attack Zhang. I realize my earlier version probably appeared that way, which can simply be considered a mistake on my part. That said, I think the lead does need to say that the Government forbade the publication of the sequence, as this portion was a Government response, so it's part of the article topic. I also think it needs to say that the public release was on 11 January, and that this was not done by the Government.

Both Frontline and Time go into the fact that after the public release, Zhang's lab was closed for "rectification". I think we should mention this in the body but not in the lead. I'll hold off on any article editing for the moment. But those are my thoughts. Adoring nanny (talk) 03:31, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

I agree with the Jan 11th date, my only qualm is that if we include only this date, it looks as though Zhang kept the sequence out of public view, when in fact he did not. If we have to pick one of these dates (and I think we should, for the sake of brevity), then I think we should pick Jan 5. The same day he got the sequence, he submitted it to GenBank. I think that's a very important part as well. Re: the rectification mention in the body, yes, I would agree it needs to be mentioned there. And it should be contextualized with Zhang's statements about it being taken out of context, that it was more about meeting biosafety concerns, and not punishment. He was pretty clear about this in the Time article! — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 18:41, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

For once I am in more-or-less complete agreement with User:Shibbolethink. I would only add that the article is about the Chinese Government, not about Zhang. It looks to me like the Chinese Government was striving to keep the sequence out of view, while Zhang was striving to get it released. We should not make it look like Zhang was trying to hide anything. His attempts to get it into public view don't really need to be in the lead, but they also could be, depending on how one juggles all the considerations here. How one does all of that with brevity I don't know. I may make an attempt. If it fails on any of the multiple criteria we are trying to fulfill, it's probably out of the difficulty of fulfilling all of them, not out of any fundamental disagreement. Adoring nanny (talk) 18:47, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

the article is about the Chinese Government, not about Zhang my only thing about this is that, even in non-BLP articles, we cannot write something that would be a BLP issue. We cannot, for instance, say that the first time the sequence was "released" was Jan 11, because that would be incorrect and would also not be fair to Zhang as a BLP. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 18:49, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Well, lol. I thought we understood each other on this one. It was first publicly released on Jan. 11. I don't have any problem with including the earlier non-public release, though it runs into brevity issues as we then need to make clear that the earlier release was not a public release. Having been reverted, I'm not going to try again right now. But I don't object if you want to. To me, the key point that does need to be included is that the public release was on Jan. 11. I also don't mind saying that Zhang sequenced it on Jan. 5. The sources are clear on that. But I would not say that Jan. 5 was the first time it was sequenced. The NHC order seems to imply that this might have happened by Jan. 3, and this (possibly opinion) piece also has an earlier date.[27] So there is confusion about what date was first. I still think we are pretty close. Adoring nanny (talk) 00:11, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

I would consider the idea of earlier than Jan 3 complete sequencing to be WP:OR given only those sources. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 00:27, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

I'm not trying to push the Jan. 3 date. We could sidestep all of that by saying that Zhang sequenced it on Jan. 5, but not taking any position on the question of whether or not Zhang was first. Adoring nanny (talk) 00:47, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

The details of how the first genome was published, the lab that published it, etc. are too much for the lede. The lede should just briefly mention that a novel coronavirus was publicly identified by the China CDC as the causative agent on 9 January 2020, and that the sequence was published by Zhang Yongzhen on 11 January. The rest of the details (many of which are in dispute) can be covered in a subsection in the body. -Thucydides411 (talk)

Well Thucydes, I would tell you that he submitted it on Jan 5. I suppose if we say "released to the media" on Jan 11, that is still a fair and accurate statement. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 18:44, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

I agree that this is too much detail for the lead, though I'm not sure how best to summarize. It might be simplest to just say "January 2020" in the lead and discuss the complexity around the exact dates in the body. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 18:50, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

@Shibbolethink and Mx. Granger: How about writing fully sequenced and published in early January 2020 in the lede, and leaving the details to the body? -Thucydides411 (talk) 04:15, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Yes that would be fine with me. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 12:35, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

For me, that does not work. The fact is that the Government of China withheld this critical information for approximately 1-2 weeks, depending on which portion of the genome we are talking about. The thesis of the FRONTLINE documentary I keep linking to is that the Chinese Government hurt the world's chances of containing the virus by this type of action. We shouldn't gloss over it, especially not in the lead. Adoring nanny (talk) 19:20, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Frontline is not in a position to make that sort of determination. It's popular media: a TV show produced by non-experts. There are much stronger sources out there, such as the scientific literature on the epidemiology of the pandemic. Here's an editorial in The BMJ, commenting on China's response to the initial outbreak:

Just how effective the outbreak seems to have been contained is astonishing.

Later in the same article:

the success of the interventions demonstrates that strict and rapid response to an emerging epidemic can halt the spread of a new virus.

A news article in The Lancet leads off with this:

While the world is struggling to control COVID-19, China has managed to control the pandemic rapidly and effectively. How was that possible?

The article also quotes several experts, who say things like the following:

“The speed of China's response was the crucial factor”, explains Gregory Poland, director of the Vaccine Research Group at the Mayo Clinic (Rochester, Minnesota, USA). “They moved very quickly to stop transmission. Other countries, even though they had much longer to prepare for the arrival of the virus, delayed their response and that meant they lost control”.

I don't see why we should be using popular media to characterize the Chinese government's response to COVID-19 at all. Popular media sources are low quality for information about epidemiology or public health. The main thing that popular media sources have to add on these subjects, beyond what the scientific sources already tell us, are various political and nationalistic biases (of the type you'd expect to find, say, in coverage of China in American popular media).

If we have to resort to popular media to cover some aspects of this subject, I would be very cautious and steer clear of relying on them to make any claims about epidemiology (e.g., whether or not the virus would have spread out of China had the Chinese government responded any differently), the efficacy of public health measures, etc. -Thucydides411 (talk) 12:34, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Frontline and popular media are perfectly fine for this determination. They have high editorial standards and they fact check their claims. Without better sources refuting these RS, there is no reason we wouldn't use them. ScrumptiousFood (talk) 16:22, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

When it comes to scientific questions (such as the epidemiological questions we're discussing here), popular media is terrible, and generally has extremely poor editorial standards. Scientific journals are far superior for these sorts of questions: the papers are written by experts, there's expert peer review, and the editors themselves are usually experienced scientists in a relevant field. I would read Bloomberg for news about the stock market, but God help me if I ever resort to relying on them for their epidemiological claims. -Thucydides411 (talk) 22:19, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

That looks reasonable to me ("fully sequenced and published in early January 2020") as a concise summary that accurately reflects the sources. We can go into more detail in the body. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 20:17, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

• The details relating to how the first genome was published are arguably very WP:DUE for the lead. While this wouldn't compliment the CCP's narrative of events, the closure of the lab that first published the sequence was widely reported [28], and Zhang Yongzhen cannot be used as an WP:INDEPENDENT source to dispute these reports - given what we know of Xi's "game of chess". It's really not clear which lab was first to sequence the virus and publish it, given all the censorship of COVID-19 data - but it is a very important matter on the subject of government response to a disease outbreak. CutePeach (talk) 14:27, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

  He's not an independent source, but he is an RSOPINION, so his version of events should be covered. It would also be a BLP violation to show the view you're expressing but not Zhang's view. The view and facts expressed in the article that quotes him are RS-worthy, and help us understand the consensus version of events as well. These sources (e.g. Time) show there is disagreement also among experts about whether the lab closure was "punishment." — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 16:26, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

  My point was that the details of how the genome was first published are due in the lead, and since it was the government that issued the gag order on COVID-19 data and shut down Zhang's COVID-19 research, there is no BLP violation here (remember this?). I have no objection to using Zhang's response in his own bio, but I would object to using him as an independent source to challenge or refute a report from a secondary source in this page. Most respondents to my RFC on RSN agree Chinese academics are not WP:INDEPENDENT sources to be used in such a manner due to the COVID-19 gag order foisted upon them by the Chinese government. CutePeach (talk) 14:25, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

• Most respondents to my RFC on RSN agree Chinese academics are not WP:INDEPENDENT sources This is mathematically not true. As of right now, by pure tally, most respondents to the RFC have said that your question is loaded and overly broad, and should be closed with no action. Be careful drawing consensus about unclosed threads, and recognize that majority=/=conclusion. AKA don't count your chickens before they hatch.
• remember this? This is irrelevant, as we are talking about besmirching the reputation of an individual (Zhang), not an organization. We can't go around saying bad things about people (that his lab was closed because he was being punished) and not publishing what that person said about it in RSes (that it was not punishment).
• I would object to using him as an independent source to challenge or refute a report from a secondary source Well, then it's a good thing we'd be using a secondary independent RS (the Time article) to present his view, not his own self-published ideas.

— Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 14:31, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

My RFC vote was that Chinese academics are not independent on censored subjects and this is one of those subjects. True or not, I do not think we should object to using Zhang's response in Time and Nature magazine, as they are part of the narrative of events. It is only a problem if his response is used to omit the reports about the closure of his lab for "rectification" and omission of his contribution from the "official narrative" [29]. His response to the western press could have been directed by the 中宣部, and there is no way he would have been allowed to talk without their approval, so we have to exercise caution. CP can withdraw their RFC and focus it to this question if this dispute becomes protracted. ScrumptiousFood (talk) 17:33, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

• It is well known that Chinese President Xi Jinping’s regime censored early reports that a new, deadly coronavirus had emerged in Wuhan and hid evidence of human-to-human transmission, thereby enabling a local outbreak to become a global calamity. What remains to be determined is whether COVID-19 emerged naturally in wildlife or was leaked from a lab — namely, the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) [30]. ← all of this is due in the lead imo. Maybe not in the first paragraph, and maybe not with this source, but perhaps in the second or third paragraph with two or three of the many sources covering these details. ScrumptiousFood (talk) 06:59, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

That's an opinion piece. The claims made in that passage are extremely dubious, at best, and are not due in the article, let alone the lede. -Thucydides411 (talk) 10:17, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Which claims did you find dubious? ScrumptiousFood (talk) 10:39, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Every claim in that passage. The outbreak was announced within 3 days of the first suspicious test results, a novel virus was identified as the cause within less than two weeks, clear evidence of human-to-human transmission did not emerge until mid-January, and the lab-leak hypothesis is a scientifically fringe conspiracy theory. -Thucydides411 (talk) 12:04, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Which sources claim:

1. The outbreak was announced within 3 days of the first suspicious test results
2. The novel virus was identified as the cause within less than two weeks
3. Clear evidence of human-to-human transmission did not emerge until mid-January
4. The lab-leak hypothesis is a scientifically fringe conspiracy theory

If editors agree your sources are good, we can use them to balance the claims made in RS like SCMP [31] [32] [33] and Caixin [34] [35]. ScrumptiousFood (talk) 12:57, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

The fact that the first test results were delivered on 27 December 2019 and that public health authorities in Wuhan first began announcing the outbreak on 30 December is widely known (this is covered in the Caixin articles you linked, for example). The virus was first isolated on 3 January 2020, and the China CDC held a meeting with the US CDC on that same day, informing them about the discovery of a novel coronavirus. Top US government officials apparently concluded from the meeting that the outbreak was "a very big deal" (there's a news article about this meeting here). The novel coronavirus was publicly announced as the cause of the pneumonia cases on 7 January 2020 (as discussed by the WHO here). As for human-to-human transmission, most of the cases that were known about early on were linked to the Huanan seafood market. There was speculation, but the first clearly identified cases of human-to-human transmission were in mid-January 2020. I'm not going to go into the lab-leak conspiracy theory, because this has been covered endlessly elsewhere on Wikipedia, and I don't want to rehash that conversation.

we can use them to balance the claims made in RS: You're asserting that these sources back up your claims, but as I've pointed out, they confirm the timeline I'm explaining to you. Wide-ranging claims of a cover-up simply do not match up with the well documented timeline: the outbreak was announced 3 days after the first test results, the Chinese government informed the US government on 3 January 2020 of the novel coronavirus, etc. -Thucydides411 (talk) 22:49, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Opinion pieces generally aren't reliable for statements of fact, per WP:RSOPINION. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 21:40, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

POV tag

@CutePeach and Thucydides411: Please stop edit-warring over the POV tag. CutePeach, since you added the tag, it would be helpful if you could discuss your concerns here on the talk page. Most of the discussions above have not had new comments in more than a week. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 16:41, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

The tag really has to be substantiated here on the talk page or removed. As it is, I see no basis for adding it. I see a talk page without any major active discussions. The only "issue" I see, if it can be called that, is a suggestion from a few weeks ago that we add scientifically discredited speculation from two years ago in the popular media about much higher death tolls in China, which is a non-starter. We're obviously not going to include long-ago discredited conspiracy theories in the article.

If there are actual neutrality issues in the article, they should be raised here. Tagging the page without actually raising concrete concerns on the talk page is inappropriate. -Thucydides411 (talk) 18:23, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

I believe it is called "drive-by" tagging. It must be supported by consensus here on the talk page. If there is no consensus to support there being an NPOV issue, then the tag is removed. That's the process outlined in the PAG. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 19:01, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

@Shibbolethink: I agree with you about WP:DRIVEBY. However, I don't think you need a consensus to tag. What you do need is an explained POV issue that makes sense. I don't think USER:CutePeach has provided one yet. However, I have got to say that I think I have provided one in my MOS:FIRST issue. I don't like tagging things because it's ugly and annoying. For that reason, I've held off. But I'm getting close on this one. The article should follow MOS:FIRST and it doesn't. It's that simple. Adoring nanny (talk) 00:17, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

I don't really see what part of MOS:FIRST supports your argument here. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 02:03, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

Why are you arguing about a POV tag instead of trying to resolve the dispute? Let's resolve the dispute in the alleged under-counting and then we can remove the tag. See Template:POV#When_to_remove. Francesco espo (talk) 23:48, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

Because no one quite knows what the "dispute" is. Is the "dispute" the fact that we aren't giving more weight to 2-year-old, scientifically discredited speculation from popular media? The death toll and level of infection in China are very well established by numerous scientific studies. A consensus developed in previous discussions that we should give more weight to the scientific view, so I'm at a loss as to what the "dispute" is here. -Thucydides411 (talk) 00:53, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

The death toll and level of infection in China are very well established by numerous scientific studies. This is the dispute, which is why there is 50k word discussion above and a 100k word discussion on RSN. Please don't act dumb.

A consensus developed… No it has not and you know it. CutePeach (talk) 13:34, 12 February 2022 (UTC)

This is the dispute: It's not in dispute at all in the scientific literature, and repeated attempts to insert discredited conspiracy theories from two years ago are getting tiresome and, frankly, disruptive at this point. -Thucydides411 (talk) 15:09, 12 February 2022 (UTC)

It would seem you are having some trouble reading the room. Perhaps a formal close of the RFC on RSN would clarify doubts. LondonIP (talk) 00:58, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

I think it certainly would. But be careful what you wish for. RfC closes are definitive for some time, and it may not come out the way you think. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 02:04, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

My opinion -- the Covid-zero absolutely belongs in the lead. It has unquestionably been a part of China's response, and sources have documented it extensively. I don't think that removing it is helpful. The same is true of misinformation, secrecy, and censorship. All four components have been well-documented by sources and are exclusively covered in the body, and they absolutely belong in the lead, including (per MOS:FIRST) the first sentence, or a sentence very close to the first one, if the length of that sentence is a problem, which seems to be the case. However, if we can't agree on both of those elements, then I think there is a dispute, and in that case we do need a tag. I would be interested to hear what the other participants in this discussion think of that. Pinging all participants in this discussion @CutePeach, Mx. Granger, Francesco espo, Thucydides411, and Shibbolethink:. If I missed anyone, others should feel free to add. Adoring nanny (talk) 17:09, 12 February 2022 (UTC)

In my opinion, zero COVID belongs in the lead, but not in the first paragraph. The Chinese government's response and its zero COVID strategy (by that term) isn't found in RS till late 2021, as noted also by ScrumptiousFood [36]. The zero COVID term was coined by the Independent SAGE in the UK [37] and only adopted by China in late 2021 to explain its fantastically low infection and fatality count [38], which is also being promoted on Wikipedia with the same rational. Any mention of zero COVID as part of the Chinese government's response should be properly sourced without any SYNTH. LondonIP (talk) 01:45, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

Though the term "zero-COVID" may not have been coined until 2021, the goal of eliminating all COVID-19 transmission is the defining feature of China's COVID-19 response, and has been since early in the pandemic. It should be a core focus of the lead. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 07:53, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

Covid zero is just the term coined for Covid-19. The process has always been called...Find, Test, Trace, Isolate and Support" or (FTTIS)" as seen in academic publications. This problem of group tagging and same vague argument is spilling over into related articles, talks pages and a DYK nomination.[39]--Moxy- 19:31, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

Yes, it appears to be a rather strict set of POV editing to remove any mention of this strategy or its similar mentions. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 21:02, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

Comment with the latest attempt I made to fix the lead[40], and the subsequent revert[41], I am reluctantly shifting my position. I'm afraid I now support the tag. I've explained quite clearly why the current lead is POV, and neither discussion nor a couple of edits are helping. I don't like to do this, and I hope we can find a consensus and get rid of the tag soon. Adoring nanny (talk) 19:51, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

draft of the first paragraph

I am starting a draft of the first paragraph. It is a recent version which I wrote but was of course promptly reverted. I invite other users to contribute. I am particularly interested in contributions from people who disagree with me a lot but are among the cooler heads of contributors here.

User:Adoring nanny/sandbox/cgr is the draft

Despite the fact that I wrote it, I think this initial version is frankly terrible. In particular, the sentences after the first two do not connect will with the first two at all. That said, I think it does at least conform to MOS:FIRST.

I do have one request for contributors to the draft. Please let me have the "last word" on reverts for now, both on the draft and its talk page. I will use this to keep the discussion on track, not to push my own POV. In other words, if I think your edit is on track towards trying to get some kind of consensus, then I will leave it even if I disagree. It's my sandbox, but I do want to work towards consensus among people with diverse views. The way the editing and discussion of the article itself are going, I don't think that is likely to happen there at the moment. If you think I am abusing this, you can let me know at User talk:Adoring nanny/sandbox/cgr/adoringnannysucks. Adoring nanny (talk) 05:04, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

Discussion of article content should really go here, on the article talk page. -Thucydides411 (talk) 09:20, 6 February 2022 (UTC)

In general I agree with that. But it wasn't working here at that particular moment. An invitation for further contributions. If there aren't any, I'm likely to put it into the article for editors to do with as they see fit. Adoring nanny (talk) 10:13, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

Now that we need admin approval for any change to the article, I'll renew my call to other editors to come work on the draft of the first paragraph. It's still WP:IMPERFECT. Adoring nanny (talk) 18:04, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

This is a great idea. Can you give a high level idea of the scope for this draft? Pious Brother (talk) 07:23, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

first paragraph

I think the first paragraph needs something like the following:

The government of China has also responded to the pandemic with censorship, secrecy, and misinformation.

It's a part of the Chinese Government's response to the pandemic and is well documented by sources. Furthermore, per MOS:FIRST and WP:LEAD, these topics, which are heavily covered in the body, should be in the lead -- and the first sentence. The move to later in the first paragraph was a suggestion at my draft. While MOS:FIRST suggests it shouldn't be moved like that, failing to do so makes the first sentence unreasonably long, so I'm OK with it. Adoring nanny (talk) 11:18, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

References

• Agreed, but disinformation would be more accurate. CutePeach (talk) 13:36, 12 February 2022 (UTC)
• There was just a discussion on this in the above thread, "hide information about" in the opening sentence. Opening up a new section on the exact same topic is confusing. As you can see above, several editors objected to very :similar wording to what you've proposed here. I can just repeat what I said above:

• The allegations of secrecy, misinformation and censorship are already discussed later in the lede. If anything, they have too much weight in the lede.
• The zero-COVID policy is the major element of China's response to COVID-19, overshadowing all other aspects of the response by a large margin. This is a major policy that China has followed over the last two years, which has received massive attention in both the media and the scientific literature, and which is very different from how most countries responded to the pandemic.

I'll just add one more consideration:

• The focus on censorship, secrecy and misinformation is very one-sided and misleading. As has been very well documented in the media, Chinese authorities publicly announced the outbreak in Wuhan within days of the first patients being identified, the China CDC briefed the US government days later, on 3 January 2020, and announced that a novel coronavirus was responsible on 7 January, and Chinese scientists published the genetic sequence of the virus on 10 January. Most of this is before the first known death due to COVID-19, on 9 January. There were also some instances of secrecy and censorship, such as local authorities in Wuhan reprimanding the doctor Li Wenliang for sharing preliminary information on social media, but this is only part of the story. The other side of it is that a lot of information about the outbreak and the virus was rapidly discovered and published. Boiling this all down to a statement that "China has also responded with censorship, secrecy and misinformation" is not WP:NPOV.

The issue of censorship, secrecy and misinformation is already covered later on in the lede. That part of the lede could be worked on, but this material is not DUE for the first paragraph of the lede, and it should be represented in a neutral manner. -Thucydides411 (talk) 15:30, 12 February 2022 (UTC)

Not sure what is the relevance of an editor's opinion that Covid-zero was "the major element of China's response". In any case, sources don't treat it that way. Adoring nanny (talk) 16:48, 12 February 2022 (UTC)

• While I definitely the censorship/misinformation is appropriate for the lede, it feels clunky/jarring to put it in the first paragraph? Especially since it doesn't get touched upon again until 7 paragraphs later. I think in general, the lede has way too much timeline information that should be trimmed. Using U.S. federal government response to the COVID-19 pandemic as a reference, what I'm thinking of for the full lede that would give an more appropriate summary to the main topics would be:

• Paragraph 1: Describe the zero-COVID strategy, and how China applied it in the initial Wuhan outbreak (a merger of the current lede paragraph 1, 3, 4)
• Paragraph 2: Describe how China continues to apply zero-COVID to this day (the current lede paragraph 5)
• Paragraph 3: Describe the censorship/misinformation (the current lede paragraph 7)

Jumpytoo Talk 21:11, 12 February 2022 (UTC)

@Jumpytoo: The problem with that is it runs afoul of MOS:FIRST. It could work if you inserted a paragraph 0 before all of the above that mentioned both Covid-zero and censorship/misinformation/secrecy. Adoring nanny (talk) 00:14, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

you keep citing MOS:FIRST, but could you please quote which part of that MOS entry you are referring to? — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 02:06, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

The first sentence should tell the nonspecialist reader what or who the subject is, and often when or where.

Covid zero is a part of the response. It is not the response. Adoring nanny (talk) 11:51, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

It is the primary constituent part of the response. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 21:02, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

If such a paragraph 0 could be made that flows well, then that could work, but I just currently can't see how the proposed sentence can be added to the current version of the lede without it being clunky & making the lede feel disorganized. Might be time to start a rewrite of the lede? It sort of gives the vibe the article hasn't been updated since 2020. Jumpytoo Talk 07:29, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

And to be clear, I value a lede that's flows better than one that checks the MOS:FIRST boxes. Jumpytoo Talk 08:02, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

It's already clunky. I worked on a 1st paragraph with input from other users at User:Adoring nanny/sandbox/cgr. It still has room for improvement, but I think it's better than what we currently have. I tried putting it into the article but was of course promptly reverted. Adoring nanny (talk) 11:58, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

Hmm, thinking about it more making a sentence about reactions that describes the praise for the zero-COVID response and the criticism for the lack of transparency and spread of misinformation could be a suitable paragraph 0, as it gives a smoother ride towards the transparency/misinformation stuff. For example (very rough though): Aspects of the response have been controversial among scientists and media. The zero-COVID approach has been praised as contributing towards an effective response, but there is also criticism on the government's lack of transparency and spread of misinformation. Thoughts?

And as an aside, do you have a better source for the misinformation part? I'm not comfortable to solely sourcing it to a article based off what Trump-era U.S officials said. I did a skim on Google Scholar and there might be some academic studies that could be used to support it, but I haven't looked deeply at them. Jumpytoo Talk 19:55, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

A source for the word "misinformation"? I'd have to look. A source for misinformation as a concept? More like a lake full of them. Rather than overwhelm you with the firehose, here is a documentary, together with its transcript, that summarizes the Dec.-Jan. 2019-2020 portion the case extremely well. If you want more, as in open up a fire hydrant more, feel free to ask.[42][43] Adoring nanny (talk) 20:18, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

• I agree that there's too much timeline in the lede. In addition to your suggested paragraphs, I would add in one extra paragraph about the economic effects of the policies, vaccines (development & production, exports, the domestic vaccination program), and medical products exports (based on the current paragraph 6).

  In the paragraph on censorship/misinformation, I would ensure the presentation is more balanced and accurate than it presently is. It goes on at length about censorship and promotion of fringe theories, but does not mention the other side of the coin, which is very well documented (e.g., the rapid announcement of the outbreak, announcement of the virus as the causative agent, publication of the genome, publication of fundamental early research into the virus, etc.). Overly broad statements like, the Chinese government made efforts to clamp down on discussion and hide reporting about it would give the casual reader the impression that the Chinese government tried to keep the virus and the outbreak a secret, which is just incorrect. Both were publicized by the government very early on. As is well documented, the government tried to control the flow of information (i.e., by reprimanding Dr. Li Wenliang for sharing information on social media), but it also carried on its own messaging campaign that acknowledged the outbreak (e.g., announcing the outbreak on national television on 31 December 2019). -Thucydides411 (talk) 21:51, 12 February 2022 (UTC)

@Thucydides411: You keep saying the announcement was "rapid". But it's just not true. They knew they had a novel coronavirus by December 26. They announced one on January 8. Per [44]

So let me tell you what international law requires. If the government knows about a novel infection that meets the criteria within the International Health Regulations, and a novel coronavirus by definition meets those criteria of a potential public health emergency of international concern, the government is obliged by law to report that to the World Health Organization within 24 hours.

So it was reportable. The failure to report clearly was a violation of the International Health Regulations.

Adoring nanny (talk) 00:10, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

I agree that the censorship and misinformation probably merit mention in the lead, but not in the first sentence. The comparison to U.S. federal government response to the COVID-19 pandemic is useful. User:Jumpytoo's suggested structure sounds fine to me. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 07:50, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

• I just read MOS:FIRST and I agree with Adoring nanny. Well done to Shibbolethink for finding a source that mentions zero COVID as part of Chinas response, but we also have sources saying zero COVID may just be part or a censorship and propaganda campaign, so we need to include those per WP:NPOV. China's claims to having zero deaths over two years is a truly WP:EXTRAORDINARY claim, and must be WP:BALANCED accordingly. CutePeach (talk) 16:25, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

  Do we have extraordinary evidence (BESTSOURCES?) to support the claim here that "zero COVID may just be part or a censorship and propaganda campaign"? Random news outlets which have no specialist expertise do not overrule quality academic literature. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 21:04, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

  Actually the onus is on those making the extraordinary claim and China's claim of having zero deaths since April 17 2020 - per China CDC and NHC - is the extraordinary claim here. Defending a nation of 1.4B against a respiratory virus with international lock downs and disinfectants is pure WP:FRINGE/PS - and the fact we are even having this discussion is a reminder of why we needed the RFC on RSN. This source shared by SF shared [45], explains exactly why the CCP is supposedly still pursuing this policy, and the author is an expert in public health in China. This source shared by LIP [46] quotes Dwyer on his suspicion about China’s fatality rate being 50 times lower than Australia, and there are other sources questioning China's statistics from other angles. If you are going engage in WP:TAGTEAMING and edit warring, we may have no choice but to request an ArbCom case and work this out in a workshop similar to this one [47]. CutePeach (talk) 15:35, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

  having zero deaths since April 17 2020 - per China CDC and NHC: China has recorded two deaths since that date, actually.

  Defending a nation of 1.4B against a respiratory virus with international lock downs and disinfectants is pure WP:FRINGE/PS: What? It's pretty much universally acknowledged that China has pursued a zero-COVID strategy, and has had virtually zero community spread of the virus since April 2020. If this is what you're disputing, then I'm sorry, but you're not operating on the basis of reality.

  This source] shared by SF shared, explains exactly why the CCP is supposedly still pursuing this policy: Do you realize that the source you're highlighting here directly contradicts your basic assumptions about zero-COVID not working in China? The author (Yanzhong Huang) is arguing that China's zero-COVID strategy has been so successful at preventing infection that virtually nobody in China has natural immunity (i.e., they only have vaccine-induced immunity, because they haven't been exposed to the virus). You can't simultaneously argue that China's claims of having virtually zero infections are a lie, and then go on to tout articles that explicitly argue that China has been so successful at preventing community transmission that virtually nobody in the country has natural immunity. Which is it? -Thucydides411 (talk) 17:44, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

  China has recorded two deaths since that date I think this captures the problem with this page perfectly, so that even those editors pretending to be impartial would not be able to block an ARMCOM case. LondonIP (talk) 19:01, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

  "those editors pretending to be impartial" - This is a personal attack which assumes bad faith. Everyone here is trying to be impartial. Please strike it. Thanks. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 18:21, 16 February 2022 (UTC)

Journalistic opinions

Why was this “Journalistic opinion” section added it back?2605:8D80:541:667F:4DFD:EC42:1E57:5C1A (talk) 01:56, 11 March 2022 (UTC)

• Because we don't remove content subject to discussion (see above), because getting involved in discussion is much harder if the content in question is not easily accessible. Kirbanzo ^{(userpage - talk - contribs)} 00:53, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

Kirbanzo that is completely incorrect, the bold edit was reverted 5 times during the above talk. As per WP:NOCON You should revert your Re-addition of a bold edit that has been contested from the beginning.2605:8D80:541:667F:A8A2:A293:781B:F57F (talk) 01:54, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

• @Kirbanzo
  1) adding an rfc template is not starting an rfc. you have no neutral opening statement, no options provided...
  2) You are failing to follow BRD, and re-inserting disputed material.
  3) If concerned about preserving the content, why not do so as an option in a correctly formatted RfC? Or simply understand that every version of this article is available easily on the history page.
  4) It can also be commented out using invisible comments. There is no reason to keep disputed information on the page, we must return to the status quo while the RfC is underway. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 05:06, 13 March 2022 (UTC)

  Fair enough. I'll hold off. Kirbanzo ^{(userpage - talk - contribs)} 05:08, 13 March 2022 (UTC)