Talk:Timeline of the COVID-19 pandemic in the United States (2020)/Archive 1

Archive 1

Orphaned references in Timeline of the 2020 coronavirus pandemic in the United States

I check pages listed in Category:Pages with incorrect ref formatting to try to fix reference errors. One of the things I do is look for content for orphaned references in wikilinked articles. I have found content for some of Timeline of the 2020 coronavirus pandemic in the United States's orphans, the problem is that I found more than one version. I can't determine which (if any) is correct for this article, so I am asking for a sentient editor to look it over and copy the correct ref content into this article.

Reference named "abcnews.go.com":

• From Donald Trump: Santucci, John; Mallin, Alexander; Thomas, Pierre; Faulders, Katherine (September 25, 2019). "Trump urged Ukraine to work with Barr and Giuliani to probe Biden: Call transcript". ABC News. Retrieved October 1, 2019.
• From 2020 coronavirus pandemic in California: "Six Confirmed Cases of Novel Coronavirus in California, CA DPH press release". Archived from the original on February 5, 2020. Retrieved February 3, 2020.

I apologize if any of the above are effectively identical; I am just a simple computer program, so I can't determine whether minor differences are significant or not. AnomieBOT⚡ 05:58, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Heading changed into months

Can the months be the heading of the article? Having just one heading looks a bit unkempt. We can use heading for the months, and the dates as subheading 1. SunDawn (talk) 06:37, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Dynamic map to fill up white space adjacent to table of contents?

There is a lot of white space to the right of the table of contents that will only grow larger. I think a map or infographic would tie it together better, ideally something like this map to show the spread of cases across the US up until the last state (WV) was confirmed. JoelleJay (talk) 02:04, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Allegations of money dumping

Georgia: Senator Kelly Loeffler (R-GA) joins Bill Barr of North Carolina in making millions ($1,275,000 and $3,100,000 in stock) off alleged insider trading because of her position on the Senate Health Committee.[200][201]

Should political/criminal stuff be put in here? I think this should be deleted. The topic is about pandemic not about their corruption. Updating this info on their own wiki page, and pandemic of their respective state is still good, but adding political stuff in timeline of pandemics, in my opinion, is out of context.SunDawn (talk) 05:38, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

A check on the source provided gives the name of Richard Burr, not Bill Barr. I am removing Bill Barr reference. SunDawn (talk) 05:41, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

It turns out that the incident happened on 13 February, my bad for not noticing it sooner. I have removed it for the time being.SunDawn (talk) 05:47, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Let’s please move last half week back to “2020 coronavirus pandemic in the United States”

(1) It makes that article more useful for readers, and

(2) It recruits a little more help in a livelier article. For example, we did not begin March 21 until 6:48 March 22, with this edit:

https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=Timeline_of_the_2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_the_United_States&diff=946759671&oldid=946744010

@SunDawn: and @Mungjerry311: Thank you for diving in there and helping out, and for doing your good work. And would you like some more help? I think keeping the last couple of days at the livelier site will help. Let’s please try it and see how well it works out.

And by saying “half week” to our readers, we buy ourselves a little flex. It can be 3 days, 4 days, and maybe, maybe it can even be 5 days before we run into trouble. Of course, if people have the time, I recommend keeping it at three days so we’re staying ahead of the curve.

This will generally involve moving days from 2020 coronavirus pandemic in the United States back to our page here. FriendlyRiverOtter (talk) 15:27, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

—————-

Some persons understand issues chronologically and others more topically. And even if chronologically is, in some sense, not quite as good, well, don’t both medical school and law school extensively use the case study method, as well as topics? Yes, they do.

It’s good to have both.

It’s actually good to develop some degree of skill in both, even if one is a person’s preferred style. Now, we do not endeavor to be a news source, but pretty much as always, we’re trying to achieve multiple goals at the same time. And with Coronavirus in the United States, we say in a boxat the beginning “Information may change rapidly as the event progresses,” We accept this. But this doesn’t mean we want to get completely swept away where our article merely becomes a museum piece. As always, multiple goals. FriendlyRiverOtter (talk) 21:27, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

I'm personally against the daily list style of news clips either on the main article or even the Timeline article, for a few reasons: Unless there is some context to a news clip, which does not expect a reader to put the puzzle piece together and do what an editor should have done, it's a lazy form of contribution. And when placed in the article in context, is should also be done in a prose style to keep it readable.

The other problem is that the timeline for this ongoing pandemic isn't like reading a chronological travelogue, but it's like reading different daily travelogues, or news events, in different states, where in reality the exact day is probably less important than what happened. So the end result is it becomes a barrier to reading and understanding. IMO, if we want to include a piece of news, it should be placed to give it relevance. So I'm against a daily bulletin board on the main article.--Light show (talk) 22:17, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

It sounds like you just flat-out don’t like the case study method!, which of course is perfectly okay with me. But you’d probably agree that a certain percentage of other people do like it, right? FriendlyRiverOtter (talk) 02:09, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

Actually, I prefer case studies since it's a great way to dive into a topic, or case. But what is it about any of the news clips from March 21, for example, that helps us study the case, whatever the case may be? Beats me. With 50 states and 5,000 daily newspapers, the number of articles about the pandemic are unlimited. What is it about those daily clips that they have in common, and in what context?

I originally thought there might be a way to use all those clips for all the months, and felt the only way to make them usable would be to have 50 sub-sections, one for each state, and then in chronological order. But I didn't want to bother, and decided that a prose summary of the month, or even week, would be better, so I did January and then February. Now that I look at those, they're a mess with those giant charts, so I expect many visitors will just skip the page. -Light show (talk) 02:29, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

Okay, with 5,000 newspapers, well, it’s the whole de-centralized model, if 10 people each pick something they think is pretty noteworthy, we might end up with something pretty good. If 8 people do this and two people focus on pet theories and topics, well, the result might still be pretty good, although quirky and off-beat, and that’s not entirely a bad thing. In either case, it’s something that I could not get on my own, or at least in not any reasonable time frame. FriendlyRiverOtter (talk) 19:39, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

The thing is that the main pandemic article is getting too big. The timeline is forked because the size of the wiki article is so big that it broke down the template on the bottom of the page, and at some point it broke down some of the references. I think timeline should stay here for a while, but big important stuff (maybe like CA went to lockdown or NYC went to lockdown) should be on the main page, while the less important ones (number of cases in such state, such governor did this, etc.) should be here. And yes, I need some help as I only cover some states, mainly NC, SC, WV, VA. SunDawn (talk) 03:01, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for calling it like you see it, that’s all I can ask. FriendlyRiverOtter (talk) 22:31, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

Table: 2020 coronavirus pandemic by United States state

The "Deaths" and "Recov" columns appear to be labeled backwards? Refer to 2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_the_United_States#Current_number_of_non-repatriated_cases_by_state Jb45424 (talk) 13:27, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

They are. Someone needs to proofread their edits. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:601:CB7F:8B00:D2E:CDDB:9D3E:1AE7 (talk) 23:11, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

Washington State has as of now zero deaths, per the table. OMG for accuracy in Wikipedia. 80.169.130.122 (talk) 16:41, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

This article will soon be too big

We know very well that this page would eventually reach the limit of page size. If April came, should we move all of the March timelines to a new page? Or any other suggestions? SunDawn (talk) 05:39, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

SunDawn Yeah. The only way around it would be April timeline having its own page like the world timeline has different pages for each month. --Shawnqual (talk) 20:04, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

ShawnqualActually, right now it's not that bad. Currently, (March 31) we are at 1,408,524/2,097,152 bytes, which is ~67% of the maximum post-expand include size. Just leave it as is for now. If we limit the number of references we add per day, we may avoid breaking templates. Though it may be a different story if the crisis goes on for many more months. Mgasparin (talk) 15:07, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

It looks like this article is becoming "Timeline of the 2020 coronavirus pandemic in Ohio and Michigan". Do we constantly need to see the same states every day? And the same information it seems? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:6C54:7F80:9E:9089:36E9:DC75:3F5D (talk) 01:15, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

False content.

The table claims to show the number of cases. WE KNOW THAT IS NOT TRUE! Why isn't there a clear disclaimer that 1. We do not (and can not) know how many people (in the USA, or *anywhere* for that matter) have had the disease. 2. The numbers are based on severely limited, rationed, testing. 3.The backlogs (lag) is days or weeks (depending on priorities of labs involved as well as volume of tests, etc.)4. The "COVID-19" cases are those patients who have gotten tested while their disease was active. 5. We know for a fact that the number of cases can, at best, only be estimated but to get *good* estimates, we need good testing which we do not have. The lead should reflect these uncertainties. As serum tests are deployed, we should get better estimates of the number of cases. Given that many people who have the disease are asymptomatic, and that testing (with some exceptions - i.e medical workers, etc.) is limited to those wanting to get tested and who have experienced symptoms, it SHOULD be clear that this information is unreliable. I don't dispute I find it interesting, I simply believe there should be a clear disclaimer that these are only some of the cases. I suspect that the number of deaths (in the USA) is much more precise, but even those numbers aren't all based on autopsy results; and some are likely due to other causes (as well as some attributed to other causes which were actually due to Covid-19).174.130.70.61 (talk) 20:47, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

New York state stats are incorrect

The state chart lists only the NYC deaths for New York. If you click on the Johns Hopkins page and click the US and then go to Admin1 on that same list now click on New York (state) and now you can see the number of deaths for the state is at 19,413. NYC is 15,074. https://coronavirus.jhu.edu/map.html

Thanks Bobber — Preceding unsigned comment added by 72.160.120.35 (talk) 22:49, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

References

Why daily updates for certain states?

Do we really need to have daily updates for only certain states like Michigan and Indiana? This seems arbitrary and unhelpful for a general timeline of events. Unless I hear arguments otherwise, I'll be removing these at some point. --ZimZalaBim ^talk 18:01, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Yes, please get rid of those. There are better places to go to get raw statistics like that. Flashcube (talk) 00:46, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Pinging those watching this page one more time about this. I think updates to a state's infection/death count should only be listed if it is a significant milestone (ie, 1000 or some number) or it is tied to another news item (announcement of a lockdown, etc). --ZimZalaBim ^talk 22:39, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

What happened to the population and cases/100,000 rows?

I was looking at the cases per 100,000 for understanding how many cases were changing. Now I think those columns are gone. Phecht7 (talk) 15:14, 19 May 2020 (UTC) — Preceding unsigned comment added by Phecht7 (talk • contribs) 19:36, 18 May 2020 (UTC)

Tenses

Can we please make up our minds whether this article describes things that have happened (past tense) or things that are happening (present tense)? The constant switching back and forth is annoying. 216.255.171.122 (talk) 20:57, 19 May 2020 (UTC)

Data not in sync with other pages.

Not sure what is happening with the list of cases in this table. It doesn't seem to match the data on the page that lists by date the number of cases. At least not for Michigan. The table is showing 64000+ cases yet the data by date shows a total of 59000+ and that number matches the cases on the individual Michigan page. Thanks Mary 6/9/2020. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Grossgirl64 (talk • contribs) 22:58, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

I see that confirmed and probable cases are added together on the state list but not on the individual pages. Shouldn't they be the same? Grossgirl64 (talk) 02:12, 11 June 2020 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

The following Wikimedia Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion:

• May 1, 2020 Ohio Anti-COVID-19 Lock-down Protest.jpg

Participate in the deletion discussion at the nomination page. —Community Tech bot (talk) 01:52, 28 June 2020 (UTC)

I removed all the state-specific, standalone "death toll" counts

If it had anything more than bean counting, it stayed. Hopefully that will relieve the edit pressure, but if not, what else would you take out? dbabbitt (talk) 14:41, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

If you want to be aggressive, you could remove all the references to "cases" as that's just bean counting also. dbabbitt (talk) 16:10, 22 July 2020 (UTC)