Talk:Pandemic prevention

Page rename

Suggest renaming this article to Pandemic preparedness or Pandemic preparedness and response, as per WP:COMMON name in public health policy [1] [2] [3] [4] [5]. Technically, only infection and disease can be prevented, in the hope of preventing an epidemic from spreading worldwide and becoming a pandemic. From what we know of the COVID-19 pandemic, we can’t prevent pandemics with the public health framework currently n place, and we can only do so by improving the ways we prepare and respond to them. CutePeach (talk) 13:04, 18 October 2021 (UTC)

Just a quick repetition of something I said elsewhere since I think it's also relevant here, you should start a proper WP:RM if you think the article should be moved. But the proposed title doesn't seem to be suitable, the whole article is largely about preventing pandemic. The lead itself says

Pandemic prevention is the organization and management of preventive measures against pandemics. Those include measures to reduce causes of new infectious diseases and measures to prevent outbreaks and epidemics from becoming pandemics.
It is not to be mistaken for pandemic preparedness or mitigation which largely seek to mitigate the magnitude of negative effects of pandemics, although the topics may overlap with pandemic prevention in some respects.

And the whole article seems to consist of discussion about ways pandemics can sometimes be prevented including one example where it alleged was successful. If the whole article is wrong, and none of what it's saying is actually useful, then the likely solution would be to send the article to WP:AFD rather than move it. While there is some overlap between the work needed to prevent a pandemic and prepare and respond to one, most of the information there doesn't seem useful for an article on pandemic preparedness and response since by and large that's not what it's talking about.

Now for the new stuff. There seems to be some contradiction in your comment. You say "Technically, only infection and disease can be prevented, in the hope of preventing an epidemic from spreading worldwide and becoming a pandemic", but if you succeed in "preventing an epidemic from spreading worldwide and becoming a pandemic" then you've prevented a pandemic from developing, which seems to be what this article is currently about. Likewise if you prevent an epidemic from being started in the first place whether by quickly detecting and responding to novel diseases in such a way that they don't spread, or by preventing the cross-over from other animals.

I'd also note that the inability to always prevent a pandemic doesn't mean you can never prevent one. Depending on the case of prevention measures, the relative chance of success and the cost of failure, it might still be useful to try and prevent pandemics even with the knowledge you won't always succeed, perhaps even with the knowledge you'd rarely succeed.

Likewise the inability to prevent a pandemic now (whether "with the public health framework currently n place" or simply our current level of technology etc) doesn't mean it might never be possible. It's generally perfectly reasonable to have articles on stuff which has widely been discussed in reliable sources which we hope to one day be able to achieve in the future even if we can't at the moment, although the article should make it clear it isn't possible.

Not all infectious diseases are the same, and so while there are some related measures some aspects are not so similar including our chances of success. E.g. there are more similarities in alleged success in preventing SARS-CoV-1 from causing a pandemic, and the failure to prevent SARS-CoV-2 from causing a pandemic because both are respiratory diseases. Less so in the failure to prevent HIV/AIDS from becoming a pandemic (according to some definitions anyway), or the as to now success in preventing ebola from becoming one.

However since there is some degree of overlap, it may make sense widen the scope of this article, so it will include both pandemic prevention, but also preparedness and response. In that case it may make sense to discuss whether a widening of the scope makes sense first then come up with a putative title, before starting an RM if you feel the discussion suggests widening makes sense.

Nil Einne (talk) 06:04, 15 November 2021 (UTC)

Nil Einne and DGG, please check the supporting sources more carefully. The first paper cited in the "Prevention versus mitigation" section which the lead statement is based on was authored by a marketing and business academic published in a journal from a reportedly fraudulent corporation. The second paper was authored by more reputed scientists in 2010, but is at odds with what I would describe as the prevailing view of scientists, in more recent academic symposia and literature. The third and fourth references are WP:MEDPOP and WP:RSOPINION, respectively. They should be attributed as opinions and balanced accordingly.

As for the page name change, seeing as the WHO included the term prevention in their zero draft for the recent WHA special session, I would suggest we rename this page to Pandemic Prevention, Preparedness and Response. CutePeach (talk) 15:35, 15 December 2021 (UTC)

• I am not going to work or argue in this area.That doesnt mean I won;t make an ocassional comment, but I leave it at that. Sometimes people think it helps, but not always DGG ( talk ) 08:28, 17 December 2021 (UTC)

Pandemic prevention#Biosafety technologies and POV concerns

This section has POV concerns given that it restates many disputed things in wiki-voice. Secondly, it is heavily duplicative of the section it links to in a hatnote (Pandemic prevention#Bioresearch and development regulation), basically just distilling the most disputed parts of that section in a POV way. I believe this section should be removed if not heavily rewritten. — Shibbolethink ^{(♔ ♕)} 15:18, 13 March 2022 (UTC)