Talk:COVID-19 pandemic/Archive 21

Semi-protected edit request on 20 March 2020
Hello, the Ministry of Health has confirmed 38 new cases in Dominican Republic, bringing the total number to 72. Can you make the change in the table? Sources: https://elnuevodiario.com.do/salud-publica-confirma-38-nuevos-casos-de-coronavirus-en-rd-suman-72/ Thank you 186.149.179.120 (talk) 15:30, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Pictogram voting wait.svg Already done   Alucard 16  ❯❯❯ chat?    17:05, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Static link in from Central Notice
Please note, there is a static URL link to this page from a Central Notice (meta:MediaWiki:Centralnotice-Programmatic translations 2020-covid-article-link) please do not move the page without consideration for this. — xaosflux  Talk 02:46, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
 * thank you for notice--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 16:07, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

China is, of course, bald-face lying.
Only 400 new cases in two weeks in a population sink of nearly 1.4 billion? This is a test to see how much BS the world will swallow. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:444:380:8C00:2872:122F:AC8B:AB0D (talk) 17:45, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm actually super interested to know if you have a reliable source on that --49.195.179.13 (talk) 18:28, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
 * They are not lying, but now that we know the virus last for about 14 days and have a basic idea of the death rate (and by that i mean, we are not all gonan die), there is no need for systematic tests beyond what they did. We can follow the exponential growth of the virus via their death count alone. And there is no such exponential growth, which is a good news. It's coherent with what China have been saying and the twitter war with trump about who started it.
 * This being said, I heard people speculating that china is miraculously healing, and that's complete BS. They just stopped testing. Iluvalar (talk) 18:43, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Increasing fatality rate
We have surprassed the 4 percentage of fatality rate, sadly this most important data sometimes was in the article (I mean the overall fatality rate), but it is now deleted. We are now at 7893/194515=4.05 percentage. 87.97.82.243 (talk) 18:19, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
 * No, that number is pretty much useless out of context. The number of CONFIRMED case is directly proportional to the amount of tests we throw at it. It's kinda obvious that china gave up testing all of it cases on feb 4. Although they will keep reporting death cases with much more accuracy then confirmed case. I think it's about 100% certain at this point that COVID'S virulence is at least on par with other coronavirus and therefore it's conservative to expect it to hit about 1/20 to 1/10(?) of the world population. In my opinion, you can easily add two 0 to your 194515 give or take one order of magnitude. So we'd be at 0.4% (4x a seasonal flu) to 0.04%(1/2 a seasonal flu). I hope it helps. Iluvalar (talk) 20:41, 17 March 2020 (UTC) That is correct, all the mass hysteria is caused by "1/2 a seasonal flu."--Maxaxax (talk) 22:53, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
 * "The cluster of mainland China (except Hubei province) still has a decreasing trend in CFR with an estimate of 0.15% (95% CI: 0.12–0.18%)". Just found this souce, it was in february. Iluvalar (talk) 01:43, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Seasonal flu does not overwhelm your healthcare system, and does not make it run out of ICU beds. Start paying attention, and look at Hubei and Italy. --Dan Polansky (talk) 12:43, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I only see that Italy found a cold during a cold season as soon as they had the tests available. Italy didn't notice or cared about any surge of death before they had the tests. Which correspond exactly to what would happen if the virus was a seasonal cold. I see no exponential growth of death cases in Hubei, staying well under the normal mortality rate of the region. Also strongly indicating that the virus is not in it exponential growth phase and that the starting flow of cases was strictly caused by tests availability (just like everywhere else in the world). This reinforce the hypothesis (up to 99.5%) that the early detected cases in Wuhan were not the very first infected and that COVID-19 (being overall mild) had time to spread across the world. Chances are, it's already in peak strength across the globe. Iluvalar (talk) 18:00, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Why is Italy seeing healthcare capacity problems that it does not see in common cold? I quote: ' “It’s not a wave. It’s a tsunami,” said Dr. Roberto Rona, in charge of intensive care at the Monza hospital. “It’s something that makes you change completely how you run a hospital.” '. You'll find plenty of such articles; are they unreliable? Do you believe that certain regions in Italy are not running out of ICU beds? Why did Chinese suddenly have to build additional hospitals real quick this year, but not during last year's common cold season? Do you believe that Italy normally run out of ICU beds during common colds epidemics? --Dan Polansky (talk) 19:34, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
 * At the peak of the flu season ? Yes. Iluvalar (talk) 23:13, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Do you have any sources on China quickly building additional hospitals during peak flu season, in 2019 or other years? --Dan Polansky (talk) 07:12, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
 * It is very unlikely for China to have built any hospitals for flu in the past, since China has been noted for reporting remarkably few deaths from flu for many years - . Hzh (talk) 12:01, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Dan, you have to explain to me how the speed at which we build an hospital prove the deadliness of the virus. I also believe you'd be surprised how many hospital a population of 1.4 billion people need. Iluvalar (talk) 12:27, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
 * You have not answered a single question I asked; there is one answer "Yes" and I don't even know to which of the multiple questions. You must not be looking only at things that seem to confirm your hypothesis; you must have a very serious look at things that threaten to refute your hypothesis. Let us try again, one question at a time: Why is Italy seeing healthcare capacity problems that it does not see in common cold? --Dan Polansky (talk) 14:17, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Bed Occupation worldwide typically sit at 80%. It doesn't take much to fill the remaining beds during the flu season. I don't know why you say that "it does not" during normal seasons.
 * The mass hysteria at the moment is real. Tell people they will die if they cough, and you get your hospital filled instantly. It's not surprising.
 * Sadly my evaluation rely on the death count. So when I say the cold will likely be 50% tougher this year, I can't really tell if we are talking about fatality rate or virulence. I could be talking about 10'000-100'000 extra cases every week in italy alone. Iluvalar (talk) 18:01, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
 * (outdent) Since Wikipedia is not a forum, but Wikiversity allows original research, you may present your original research in COVID-19/Iluvalar; I placed my questions at COVID-19/Dan Polansky and there is COVID-19/Julian Mendez. If you ping me in your original reseach page at Wikiversity, I may have a look to see whether I can ask more questions and continue in the interaction there, but I don't promise anything. --Dan Polansky (talk) 19:05, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Map now a mess!
The per capita map has adopted a new level: 1-10/100 million. Unfortunately the colour chosen (cream) wipes out national boundaries, making it impossible to know where one country begins and another ends. This is especially seen in Africa. Please choose a colour which is different from the border colour - or else, choose a different colour for borders! One not in the black/red/cream/white spectrum! Ptilinopus (talk) 00:20, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
 * here's another complaint about the light yellow. I'm inclined to agree. Sdkb (talk) 07:07, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree. Do you have some colour suggestion? I am not that good with colour picking. Raphaël Dunant (talk) 08:10, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
 * How about pale violet? Ptilinopus (talk) 13:26, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I'd stick to shades of red for consistency. The totals map seems to be working using only five non-gray shades; I'd stick to the same for the per capita map. Sdkb (talk) 23:55, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

No confirmed recoveries
Nothing was said about any recoveries in Poland yet and the Minister of Health didn’t say that there was a recovery in Poland or nobody yet knows about that. Hi poland (talk) 10:54, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
 * , your discussion title is a little misleading. Do you mean that out of all confirmed cases, none of them have been reported to have recovered and the article says that there are some who have recovered? Tenryuu 🐲  ( 💬 • 📝)  16:09, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
 * in Poland we have only 1 confirmed recovered patient - Polish Press Agency,  - Polish Public (goverment) TV,  the data from https://www.worldometers.info/ are not accurated, there are wrong Natanieluz (talk) 16:20, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
 * , maybe the Google translation software isn't up to snuff, but nothing in either article you provided claims that Patient Zero is the only one who recovered; furthermore, those articles were written on the 17th, two days ago, so the situation could have changed significantly by then. I've checked a stats page on Poland and the number of positive cases matches the one on Worldometers, and both were updated today on March 19th. -- Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝)  16:44, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
 * yea, I see your point but Iam watching every day MOH press conferences on TV, maybe you want to look at that-  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Talk:2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_Poland#Recovered_people.  Natanieluz (talk) 16:51, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
 * , I am not the best person to ask to watch MOH press conferences as I do not speak or understand Polish.
 * Following that discussion it unfortunately depends on what external sources say. Unless there's a reason to doubt the MoH and KPRM IT that's reported in another reputable source like supposes, it's more than likely that we'll stay with those sources. (Trust me, I feel your pain every time I see South China Morning Post used as a source.)
 * If you have reputable sources that state that the number of reported cases recovered is inaccurate, please include them, but make sure it's mentioned in the text of the article. Tenryuu 🐲  ( 💬 • 📝)  17:54, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
 * If you have reputable sources that state that the number of reported cases recovered is inaccurate, please include them, but make sure it's mentioned in the text of the article. Tenryuu 🐲  ( 💬 • 📝)  17:54, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
 * If you have reputable sources that state that the number of reported cases recovered is inaccurate, please include them, but make sure it's mentioned in the text of the article. Tenryuu 🐲  ( 💬 • 📝)  17:54, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Non-COVID deaths of SARS-CoV-2 positive people
There is not 6 deaths in Poland there is still 5. Hi poland (talk) 13:34, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
 * How to handle this in Wikipedia is (so far) an open question. See the PL COVID-19 talk page and the WikiProject talk page. Boud (talk) 00:35, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Australia will closed schools because of lockdown very soon
Australia states will be lockdown like NSW. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 112.213.208.242 (talk) 13:28, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
 * do you have a link for this?--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 00:57, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Transmission rewrite details & rationale
Hello, Wikipedians: I came to this article to simply read and became alarmed when I read the following sentence: "Droplets stay suspended in the air for only a short time in air at 65% relative humidity (RH) and 21 to 23 °C (70 to 73 °F),[224] but may stay viable and contagious on a metal, cardboard, glass or plastic surface.[225][226][227] "

The reference is titled "Coronavirus can persist in air for hours and on surfaces for days: study", yet is joined improperly to the statement "Droplets stay suspended in the air for only a short time in air" as if it supports the statement. It says the opposite; the van Dormalen article reported worldwide and summarized in the Gene Emery article in Reuters, says the droplets remain infectious in the air for up to three hours. This is a serious error as it misinforms people about COVID-19 transmission.

Transmission is the heart of this article and the one section people will want to read. I understand this to be a good faith edit; 3 hours is quite a short time to be at Disneyland, but quite a long time for infectious particles to remain in the air. This study has been reported worldwide to the extent that people on the streets have heard about it. This finding means it is plausible that someone can potentially sneeze in a room in a public arena, walk out, have someone else walk in and become infected, hours later.

I began to look at every link to see whether the article says what the citation claims it is saying. There are too many errors not to do a re-write. There is a citation error that creates a misquote of the Appendix summary article, which never refers to the studies' findings as being a "short time", and another error by joining these two independent clauses with a comma, when the articles do not say what the citation says they do.

I separated the two clauses with a period. I checked the references, and confirmed using a word processor that the van Doremalen article has a summary (the Emery article, with a bare URL), and a [preprint from March 13. However, van Doremalen The New England Journal of Medicine article itself with the actual study that found the 3-hour aerosol viability was not here. So I added it.

I added a blockquote for the finding (van Dormalen) summarized by Emery, "The tests show that when the virus is carried by the droplets released when someone coughs or sneezes, it remains viable, or able to still infect people, in aerosols for at least three hours." I left the period inside the quotation mark, because this is a quote from America, as per MOS. This is an easy summary to help readers get the main point.

I added context about how the study was done. Until this study, behavior on surface was uncertain. The second part of the original sentence, saying it "may" stay viable is vague. The Appendix summary shows the data, and the findings need to be reported. I changed a citation error caused that misquoted the Gene Emery summary in Reuters (17 March 2020).

I summarized the findings of the study on viability tested different environments (air, copper, cardboard, stainless steel, and plastic). Added references from CNN and NIH. I made several changes to references (name order, wls, etc). I took out the bare URL and created a link for the Appendix (technical details) page. I then wove material up from the bottom, where there had been two subjects in a single paragraph. I moved one to incorporate into the news about the two SARS viruses' similarities. The other stated it was thought the virus lives on surfaces like other coronaviruses but it wasn't known. This was mis-referenced to material that does not say that. I moved it to join another reference where it is an accurate citation. Also, the material on the two viruses now makes the point that they both may be super-spreaders, which is important to include.

Tying two sentences together (which have their own references) with a comma requires scrutiny that the statement is accurate. I encourage you keep all edits, especially on this global pandemic page, crisp and clean and closely tied to their source. If anyone makes a good faith edit hoping to make the language more friendly by using a comma in this way, I suggest you treat it instantly as an error and undo.

I do these kinds of complicated edits in my word processor. Other editors therefore will not see the step-by-step process with edit summaries, that is why I am leaving this summary report. Thank you for your time in reading these explanatory notes. I preserved all that I was able. Here is a permanent link to the page on March 21, 2020 the time of my edit.

Having not seen this article before (I came here to read it, not to put on my editor's cap), I thank all editors who have been working hard to write it in such a short period of time. It is a remarkable effort, and the visuals in particular, including diagrams, are exceptional.Al Leluia81 (talk) 07:48, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
 * thanks al leluia but I worry we are overemphasising one study as opposed to the WHO, ECDC, and CDC as WP:MEDRS compliant sources. They conflict and they don’t clearly explain their rationale when they do. —Almaty (talk) 07:59, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Area now accurate. WHO does not seem to disagree.Al Leluia81 (talk) 08:26, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Cases of the Republic of Cyprus
I think that in the list with the cases for every country you should include the TRNC into the Cypriot cases as the North Cyprus is not recognized from any country in the world but Turkey — Preceding unsigned comment added by Dim.vas.nikol (talk • contribs) 19:57, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus, yes thank you for pointing this out--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 00:44, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
 * See --MarioGom (talk) 09:10, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

CFR def'n oopsie?
It says "The case fatality rate of COVID-19 (that is, the fatality rate among the subset of infected individuals with symptoms)".

I am not an expert on the definition of CFR, but shouldn't it be something like "The case fatality rate of COVID-19 (that is, the fatality rate among the subset of infected individuals who have been diagnosed)".

An infected person without symptoms could be diagnosed (an asymptomatic "case"), and conversely an infected person who shows symptoms might not be diagnosed if medical care is not sought (probably mild symptoms, not-life-threatening).

(Also, I wonder, does a false positive diagnosis count as a "case" (included in the denominator)? Or an error in CFR?)

--Slieredna (talk) 07:06, 21 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Slieredna The devil's in the detail. Any estimate of the CFR is subject to errors & omissions in both the diagnosis and the cause of death; when health services are strained as currently this will be especially the case. There's also a timing issue in an ongoing outbreak. The median time between diagnosis and death is 14 days. Currently there are 11k deaths and 277k cases (CFR = 3.9%) but 14 days ago the number of cases was about 100k so we can assume that today's 11k deaths came about in this group of 100k. That gives a crude CFR of 11% which is scary.
 * Now that Wuhan has zero new infections, both the deaths and the case count are stable so it's possible to calculate a more reliable CFR.
 * See also discussion further up []Robertpedley (talk) 09:58, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Tsai's "traditional Taiwanese greeting"
I would appreciate if someone wrote an article about the fist and palm salute, and link to it in the caption, because it's not uniquely Taiwanese. It has a history dating back to the Western Zhou Verkanto (talk) 14:30, 20 March 2020 (UTC)


 * — Please feel free to do this yourself. All you need is one to two good sources and a few sentences to start an article. Getting things started helps massively for others to build upon it as well. Help:Your first article. Carl Fredrik  talk 15:01, 20 March 2020 (UTC)


 * I've made the change. The fist-and-palm salute (抱拳) is about as well known in Chinese culture as shaking hands is in the West, so there's no need to have a specific reference to it. -Thucydides411 (talk) 10:23, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Is this Merkel citation MEDRS-compliant? Acceptable to include politicians opinions?
In this edit, User:Da Vinci Nanjing reinstated for the second time content to the Epidemiology section that I removed because it is medical content that does not comply with WP:MEDRS and does not belong in the health section of this article. (It probably doesn't belong in the German article either, unless there is a section for political opinion that is not medical content.) This is edit warring. I thought discretionary sanctions were in place on these articles? Sandy Georgia (Talk)  16:24, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
 * The discretionary sanctions header has now been applied to this page, but I do not know where to find the notification template to make sure that receives the message.  Meanwhile, the non-MEDRS text is still in the first medical section (Epidemiology) of the article.  Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  17:15, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Community discretionary sanctions are in effect. I suggest requesting enforcement on AN or ANI. - MrX 🖋 18:53, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
 * It's a poorly written attempt to explain herd immunity, I've changed it now. Robertpedley (talk) 21:57, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
 * No, it is worse than that. It is still using non-MEDRS sources to make a medical statement of dubious accuracy.  Please restore the medcn tags until resolved, and do not remove maintenance tags without solving the issue-- the tag clearly said a MEDRS source was needed. Political speculation in medical content based on laysources is harmful. Could we get  or  to have a look at lay press sources quoting a politician being used to make statements about epidemiology?  Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  22:16, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
 * , I agree that we should stick to MEDRS for medical content, but this is also a political subject, and Merkel, for example, was summarising what her best experts will have told her. It would be different if it were Trump or Xi of course, for reasons that shouldn't need explaining. Guy (help!) 22:53, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
 * And you've highlighted the problem, ; if we are going to add political statements to the medical sections of the article, then we open the door to all politicians. There are plenty of COVID articles, and sections of articles, dealing with Germany; the content could at minimum be moved out of Epidemiology to a more appropriate place. Adding a poorly sourced statement from a politician about one country only to the Epidemiology section of a broad overview of a pandemic is not good practice; shall we add epidemiological laysource speculation about every country and from other politicians to that section as well?  Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  23:02, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
 * , Agreed. But it's tricky because there is a political element. I honestly don't know what to do for the best, other than WP:ATT and clarify the difference between statements of fact backed by WP:MEDRS and political statements. Guy (help!) 23:05, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I offered a solution above; the text can be moved somewhere more appropriate for the reasons I outlined (I added to the post above after I pinged you, as I am wont to do :) Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  23:06, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
 * ANd if we want to add that kind of speculation to the Epidemiology section, why use laysources when we have models from the Imperial College that could accomplish the same thing content-wise?  Why are we using laysources when we have higher quality sources?  That is what MEDRS is about, no?  Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  23:10, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
 * , that seems reasonable to me. Guy (help!) 11:45, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I've warned User:Da Vinci Nanjing. The present text (sourced to BBC News and Der Spiegel) is That is still problematical because it ignores the likelihood of herd immunity being achieved through vaccination as it is with measles. Because the mean transmission rate of SARS-CoV-2 is probably between 2 and 3, it follows that it requires a population immunity fraction around 60% to 70% for infections to no longer sustain themselves. That much is accurate, but if immunity were to be achieved by infection alone, we would be possibly be looking at hundreds of millions of fatalities worldwide, and it seems unlikely that any government would be willing to sustain as much as 2%–3% of its population dying from the virus. Unfortunately, I'm having problems finding top-quality sources that discuss the issues around SARS-CoV-2 and herd immunity. The best I can find so far is National Geographic, which gives a decent explanation and a balanced overview. Nevertheless, it's still short of what I'd want for a MEDRS source. My advice would be to remove that paragraph for the moment, pending a quality review article or a statement from WHO or similar to use as a source. --RexxS (talk) 23:20, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Agree with ... this slope is too slippery, and not a door we should be opening. MEDRS has served us well, and this is not a good case for ignoring it.  If we want to scare readers with models and projections, I suggest we use the Imperial College source instead of the laypress. Sandy Georgia  (Talk)  02:29, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Can we please switch to JHU or Oxford as opposed to worldometer as more medrs than worldometer for claims of case count. —Almaty (talk) 03:31, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Why should those sources be prioritized ahead of Worldometer? MattSucci (talk) 05:22, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
 * because worldometer is proprietary and unverifiable, readily admit they are an estimate, and also they source wikis, and have been double counting. —Almaty (talk) 09:05, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Why should those sources be prioritized ahead of Worldometer? MattSucci (talk) 05:22, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
 * because worldometer is proprietary and unverifiable, readily admit they are an estimate, and also they source wikis, and have been double counting. —Almaty (talk) 09:05, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Worldometer vs JHU (CSSE)?
Which is better and for which reasons? JHU has erroneous data for both Austria and Italy. I'm certainly not an expert, but I think consensus should be arrived at here before someone unilaterally decides on the JHU site. MattSucci (talk) 09:11, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
 * when we call it erroneous, are we just saying that it’s a little bit behind? We are a WP:NOTNEWS encyclopaedia and we can certainly afford to be a little bit behind, I wholeheartedly disagree with the media statements made in relation to this above. —Almaty (talk) 09:52, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Please, see . Worldometers is great to prioritize countries and find some sources (in their Latest Updates section) but a few times per day they post wrong data. Sometimes because of a transcription error (e.g. Spain a few days ago), sometimes because they use unreliable sources (e.g. viral WhatsApp audio in Angola). Once they post a number based on wrong data, I haven't seen them fixing it by lowering the count in any case. I don't think it meets Wikipedia standards for reliable sources at all (WP:RS). --MarioGom (talk) 10:17, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
 * yes I’ve been saying this for weeks like a broken record. —Almaty (talk) 10:23, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
 * And I have seen JHU with erroneous info too, and strange country names, as if vandalised. I think either can be used, but need to be checked for errors. In the short run we may copy some errors,but it will soon change, and a suitable comment in the table can point out where things go wrong and not to use the particular site (like for Switzerland). JHU is more opaque than WOM where the information comes from. BNO is even more convenient to find sources, but it too has errors at times. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 10:24, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
 * For countries that have an official or otherwise stable reliable source updated daily (or even hourly), I think there is no value at all in using WOMC just to get a possibly unreliable figure just a few hours in advance. For others, I prefer looking for reliable sources in the press. --MarioGom (talk) 12:20, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

"Biggest global event since WW2" sentence in intro
A day or two ago the sentence Some commentators have called the pandemic the biggest global event since World War II. was added to the end of the intro. I'm not sure that description is all that justifiable — although we don't yet know what the death toll of the virus will be, it's currently around 11,000, which absolutely pales in comparison to something like 220,000 deaths from the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami. And there's the entire Cold War. Even if the description is justifiable, I think we'd need better examples than Joe Scarborough saying so and an opinion piece from Axios. And even if we had stronger examples, tonally I think there are concerns about hystericizing. So, should we remove it? Sdkb (talk) 01:05, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
 * seeing as how such text might feed fear its probably best left out, for the time being--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 01:08, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
 * "Biggest" is ugly, "most significant" is better. Also "one of the most significant" better reflects the sources. --RaphaelQS (talk) 02:00, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
 * The new version, The global socioeconomic impact of the pandemic has been compared by some commentators to such events as World War II, yet another example of implementation on this page without consensus, is significantly worse. The pandemic in its current state has caused nowhere near the socioeconomic disruption of WW2. I'm going to just take out the sentence., "most significant" would have been better than "biggest", but "significant" is still a vague term. Sdkb (talk) 04:09, 21 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Agreed with, until a scholarly economic analysis can be produced to shown to quantify the economic impact of this pandemic in real terms above all other post-WWII events, the layman commentatariat should be treated as far from definitive. This thing hasn't even killed (yet) as many as the Great Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami. Caradhras Aiguo ( leave language ) 04:22, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree with RaphaelQS that "one of the most significant" would be better. Clearly it is a massively significant global event of huge magnitude, in terms of both the ongoing health crisis and the economic crisis. I think it would be acceptable to have one sentence in the lead such as "Some commentators have called the pandemic one of the most significant global events since World War II." But more sources to reflect this from well-known commentators would be better and therefore it's perhaps best left out until more sources emerge. Regards, Kind Tennis Fan (talk) 05:03, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I was happy to see this go. It might be a valid point, but the sources don’t warrant inclusion in the lead. By the time WW2 had lasted as long as this has so far, there were about 85,000 military deaths and tens of thousands of civilian deaths. Multiply that by four for the impact on a world of 2 billion instead of 8.
 * What I disagree with most is that including that statement here lavishes attention (and money) on the “commentators” who made it. I didn’t check that they’d pass the standard of notability, but, if a statement like that is to appear in the lead, the standard is higher. If a head of state says that, we should include it. But, here, “biggest thing since WW2” is just an opinion, and so is “the  is blowing this out of proportion”. We cannot reward a “commentator” for saying something first, especially if we ignore those who say the opposite. Roches (talk) 10:43, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
 * It's a contentious sentence and I don't mind that it's gone, but the comments here looking at the current number of deaths are rather missing the point. We will undoubtedly exceed, say, the 220,000 deaths from the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami in time. Bondegezou (talk) 16:23, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 21 March 2020
Please add the following text in: Impacts/Environment section. Add the text as a new paragraph, after the last sentence in the Environment section.

As a consequence of the unprecedented use of disposable face masks, significant numbers are entering the natural environment and in particular, to rivers and seawater. In some cases, the masks have been washed onto beaches where they are accumulating. This accumulation has been reported on beaches in Hong Kong and is expected to add to the worldwide burden of plastic waste and the detrimental effects of this waste to marine life. AntC55 (talk) 02:39, 21 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Yes check.svg Done Interstellarity (talk) 14:39, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 21 March 2020
zimbabwe has 3 cases 41.246.30.236 (talk) 11:26, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Red information icon with gradient background.svg Not done: please provide reliable sources that support the change you want to be made. Interstellarity (talk) 14:40, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 21 March 2020
The country that the corona virus will be more is sirlanka because they don't good facilities and there are more countries can't name them it could be Iran too. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 5.107.17.162 (talk) 22:14, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
 * ok, what is the request?--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 22:24, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Contributions of India
India has done a lot of contributions in this pandemic, Plz include them too. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Hardaat Singh Baath (talk • contribs) 21:41, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
 * do you have a link(source) for said contributions, thank you--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 22:26, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Lithuania
In lithuania there's 69 people sick, 1 severe case, 1 dead now. You can check in the 'Epidemiology' section of the main page by pressing on lithuania. There are many refferences. Lukeris14 (talk) 06:08, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
 * can you provide one source then?--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 13:43, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Pakistan's figure
There was a calculation error in yesterday's Pakistani figures. Kindly update as per government's official watch center here--119.160.119.159 (talk) 08:58, 22 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Someone updated it already. Thank you. --MarioGom (talk) 15:43, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

First sentence of the second paragraph
"The virus primarily spreads between people via respiratory droplets, produced during coughing or sneezing."

WHO says "The main way the disease spreads is through respiratory droplets expelled by someone who is coughing."

CDC says "The virus is thought to spread mainly from person-to-person .... through respiratory droplets produced when an infected person coughs or sneezes."

I think this summary is perfectly fine. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 16:38, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Is it an important point to make the the respiratory droplets can be picked up from surfaces some time after the cough or sneeze? The wording above might give the wrong impression that you're only at risk if you're coughed/sneezed on. Bondegezou (talk) 17:09, 20 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Sure we can add this key less common method. With WHO saying "these droplets land on objects and surfaces around the person. Other people then catch COVID-19 by touching these objects or surfaces, then touching their eyes, nose or mouth." Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 17:13, 20 March 2020 (UTC)


 * There has also been much media debate (at least in Sweden) about how long droplets can stick around in the air. It wouldn't hurt to have a short mention of this, seeing as the public is asking the question. Carl Fredrik  talk 17:13, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
 * the WHO say “The disease can spread from person to person through small droplets from the nose or mouth which are spread when a person with COVID-19 coughs or exhales” the main method is respiratory droplets (not airborne droplets)... these droplets can go to the surfaces, it’s the same method. New study shows much less long than previously hypothesised. But we must include exhaled . —Almaty (talk) 17:34, 20 March 2020 (UTC)


 * I think this may be incomplete though. As more has been learned about the virus, there's a growing focus on asymptomatic transmission and Wikipedia may be a little behind the curve here. Indeed, once mask shortages are resolved, the US may see mask recommendations change to include use by asymptomatic individuals. Currently, the full CDC statement is...


 * The virus is thought to spread mainly from person-to-person. Between people who are in close contact with one another (within about 6 feet). Through respiratory droplets produced when an infected person coughs or sneezes. - CDC


 * People can catch COVID-19 from others who have the virus. The disease can spread from person to person through small droplets from the nose or mouth which are spread when a person with COVID-19 coughs or exhales. These droplets land on objects and surfaces around the person. Other people then catch COVID-19 by touching these objects or surfaces, then touching their eyes, nose or mouth. People can also catch COVID-19 if they breathe in droplets from a person with COVID-19 who coughs out or exhales droplets. This is why it is important to stay more than 1 meter (3 feet) away from a person who is sick. - WHO


 * While technically correct in terms of priority, it may be time to reduce the emphasis on coughing. - Wikmoz (talk) 22:33, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Both the CDC and WHO state that the primary method of spread is through respiratory droplets. Yes there are a bunch of less common ways. We mention a couple in the lead. The rest of the secondary methods belong in the body. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 04:45, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
 * User:Doc James yes they agree respiratory droplets, but the WHO uses exhale, repetitively, I believe and suspect as a very careful qualifier rather than a strictly known medical reason. So we should emulate. —Almaty (talk) 05:19, 21 March 2020 (UTC)


 * WHO says "The main way the disease spreads is through respiratory droplets expelled by someone who is coughing". Lets list the main way first. Spread by simple breathing is believed to be less common. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 05:38, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
 * User:Almaty it does not say touching contaminated surfaces is a primary method of spread so those two sentences should not be joined together. Maybe we need a RfC to figure this out? Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 05:43, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
 * we agree that the surfaces is not the primary method I’m trying to shorten it so that we can put exhale back in. Because at last count WHO uses exhale many more times than surfaces. people are too worried about the surfaces when they need to be focusing on distance IMO. —Almaty (talk) 05:52, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
 * to Be clear, as of today my understanding of the order of mode of spread is as follows, from the WHO, ECDC, CDC and Australian health department.
 * respiratory droplets produced from coughing
 * or exhaling
 * surfaces, although it doesn’t survive as long as hypothesised few weeks ago and
 * asymptomatic transmission.
 * therefore, the lead needs to give due weight to this order. —Almaty (talk) 06:09, 21 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Only comment would be that asymptomatic transmission is not mutually exclusive to #1-3 (a throat clearing cough or occasional sneeze) and less easily ranked. Also, ECDC also references exhaling... "The virus seems to be transmitted mainly via respiratory droplets that people sneeze, cough, or exhale." - ECDC - Wikmoz (talk) 06:57, 21 March 2020 (UTC)


 * The one issue that I see with "The virus primarily spreads between people via respiratory droplets, produced during coughing or sneezing" is that it indicates no uncertainty, whereas CDC carefully says "is thought to". --Dan Polansky (talk) 07:59, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Agree uncertainty is needed. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 15:12, 21 March 2020 (UTC)


 * this has been a hot topic all along, whenever I insert the required qualifiers over the last few weeks User:Doc James has removed them, I have no idea why he feels so certain. We have to leave it to the reader, ECDC seems to be best communicating the uncertainty—Almaty (talk) 09:08, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Okay have started a RfC here . Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 15:12, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Typo in Beginning Section
"It may also be spread from touching contaminated surfaces and than touching ones face"

"than" should be changed to "then". I don't have a wikipedia account, so I'm suggesting here due to the semi-protected nature of the page.


 * ✅ - Appears to have been fixed by another editor. - Wikmoz (talk) 03:10, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 20 March 2020
touching contaminated surfaces and than touching ones face.

touching contaminated surfaces and then touching one's face. Kempu2015 (talk) 18:33, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
 * ✅ - - MrX 🖋 18:40, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

How can we get this talk page under control?
The amount of attention being devoted to this article is immense, and as might be expected, it's making this talk page really unwieldy and unorganized. Even with the 24hr archiving, there are still tons of duplicate discussions being opened up, making it difficult to centralize discussion on discrete topics like the maps. I'd like to use this thread as a space for proposing solutions to get things under control. Some ideas: I'm sure there are more ideas that aren't occurring to me, but the basic gist is that experienced editors should be more aggressive about cleaning up this talk page than we normally would be for one with a more normal level of activity. Also, I should note that for the related issue of the edit history of the article itself also being extremely unwieldy, I requested that we add a line to the edit notice encouraging better edit summary usage. Cheers, Sdkb (talk) 04:38, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Introducing a pinned list of established consensuses similar to the one at Donald Trump.
 * Relax the norms about not changing section headings, applying WP:SECTIONHEADINGOWN to better define what discussions are happening in each section.
 * Using the archiving and collapsing templates more liberally to stop proposals unlikely to pass before they suck up too much oxygen and generate clutter.
 * More readily transferring comments made in an inappropriate place to the appropriate centralised discussion.
 * I have been grouping discussions. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 04:48, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks! I guess we just need more others helping you and/or more aggressive grouping, then. Sdkb (talk) 05:13, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I pulled the archival down to 18h to decrease the number of discussions here. Not sure if that's the best idea or not.  Feel free to change it back if you disagree. Mgasparin (talk) 09:42, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

people don’t refactor like they used to, strikethroughs aren’t necessary, one can summarise —Almaty (talk) 11:46, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm not too familiar with the history (if there's a page documenting that, I'd be curious to see it), but I think refactoring might need to start coming back. Sdkb (talk) 19:06, 17 March 2020 (UTC)


 * I think a WP:NOTFORUM edit notice might be warranted, for one thing. Dekimasu よ! 15:55, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Implement that as well as semi-protecting both the article and talk page to only autoconfirmed users. Caradhras Aiguo ( leave language ) 15:58, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't think protecting the talk page is warranted. It's very rare to make it impossible to add all edit requests. On the other hand, moving the article itself to extended confirmed is a possibility given the level of protection at other related articles. Dekimasu よ! 16:00, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Ok, then blocking any new users who commit any NOTFORUM infractions. I considered local blocks, but there are too many national / regional sub-articles for that to be feasible and a topic ban would be more feasible logistically anyhow. Caradhras Aiguo ( leave language ) 16:17, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Page notice added. Dekimasu よ! 16:21, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
 * looks good--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:30, 17 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm glad to see the talk page edit notice. I agree with that protecting talk pages is generally a last-resort; if we did do so, we'd need to create a sub-talk page so that non-autoconfirmed editors could still participate. Regarding extended-confirmed protection, I think a request would probably be denied given there's not too much vandalism currently, and if it did pass, that might just result in this talk page getting flooded even more with edit requests. It does seem that not all editors are heeding the article page edit notice; perhaps change the i icon to a caution triangle? Sdkb (talk) 19:06, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

I think the problem is none of the header notices, which provide a lot of info, show for mobile users. Rotideypoc41352 (talk · contribs) 03:55, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Are people on mobile really editing a page as huge as this? Oh my. If they are, is there any way to get the notices to show for mobile users? Sdkb (talk) 00:09, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
 * There's been some discussion of getting the edit notice to display on mobile here; it's tracked in phabricator at . Sdkb (talk) 00:11, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

Copying a comment I made below following yet another instance where we were having a discussion, only to realize that someone (we don't know who) had gone straight to editing the article itself: [There is] a concerning phenomenon with this article, where editors trying to engage on the talk page are being steamrolled by editors completely disregarding the talk page/established processes for consensus and making major edits to the article with poor edit summaries. There is simply such a flood of edits to the page that any given edit is not being given adequate scrutiny unless someone notices the change through reading the article itself. This is the exact opposite of the incentive structure we want, and I think it's leading to a decline in the article quality. Sdkb (talk) 06:34, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

I just added a notice to the top of this talk page encouraging editors to consider contributing to one of the sub-articles instead (scroll up and look for the notice with the orange stop sign to read it). Should this be added as another edit notice when people edit the article directly, or should we add a line to the main edit notice for the article stating the point in brief and linking to the template? Sdkb (talk) 18:14, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

Proposal: Add a "current consensuses" header at the top
like the one at Donald Trump. This may prevent unnecessary discussions that have been repeatedly been discussed over and over again. Interstellarity (talk) 22:15, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Survey

 * Support. This should be uncontroversial. We just need to make sure that anything on the list actually does represent consensus, and realize that consensus can change. - MrX 🖋 22:55, 18 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Support. Agreed it should be uncontroversial; it's just a matter of someone taking on the work to create it. It should include only discussions that have taken place on this talk page and either been closed or reached a clear consensus. Sdkb (talk) 00:07, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
 * disagree strongly because seemingly minor things such as “exhaled” as User:Doc James and I have disagreed and then agreed on, need to be repetitively discussed, over and over again... the point of the encyclopaedia —Almaty (talk) 16:23, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
 * The point of a current consensus header isn't to prevent WP:CCC; it's just to make it easier to identify what the current consensuses are and to find the discussions where those consensuses were previously achieved. It does have the effect of making consensuses a little more solid, but that's a good thing for an article as important as this one. It'll be nice to have an easy shortcut to give to an editor who tries to overturn an established consensus. Sdkb (talk) 21:06, 19 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Support, definitely needed considering the amount of traffic and edits this page gets. Would hopefully help to calm the talk page down, even if it's just a bit. QueerFilmNerd  talk 00:10, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
 * — Is calming down the talk page even a good idea? We're in a unique position to both produce very important sources of information for the world — and to attract new editors. Whatever we do I think we shouldn't ignore the fact that this is a one-time only opportunity for Wikipedia to bring in new eyes. We should try to scare off as few new editors as possible. Calm is also boring… Carl Fredrik  talk 14:15, 22 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I think it is something needed at this point. A talk page can only be effective when it's short enough that editors editing the article can scan it to see whether the part they're changing has previously been discussed or is currently under discussion. This talk page has become too large for that, resulting in the talk page and page becoming disjointed, which is resulting in editors overly boldly editing against consensus somewhat overwhelming those of us trying to talk things out. Much of what's filling up this talk page is what I'd describe (for lack of a better term) as crud. With the right strategy, we can hopefully fend much of that off without losing the good contributions.
 * As for welcoming newbies, if we're overwhelmed, they're absolutely sure to be, so we should welcome (or at least not bite) them if they're here, but they may have a better experience if we redirect them to calmer sub-articles like the country response ones. I have plenty more thoughts on welcoming newbies; I'll leave an invite on your talk page to some of the work we're doing at the WP:Welcoming committee. Sdkb (talk) 16:38, 22 March 2020 (UTC)
 * That's definitely the wording I was aiming for! The talk page is becoming very overwhelming and long, not to mention that previous possibly discussions on topics are hard to find in the archived talk pages. Listing them will allow readers to realize what we've come to consensus on so far and make it easier for people coming to the page. QueerFilmNerd  talk 17:40, 22 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Support Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 15:39, 21 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Ambivalent — Following the Talk:Donald Trump-example might not be a good idea. While there is certainly a lot of editing, there isn't nearly as much controversy or political opposition here to disrupt the editing environment in the way that it was doing there. Add to that the technical solutions introduced to allow for simultaneous editing and that COVID-19 is also arguably more historically important than Trump, with facts changing much faster: consensus can be and will need to be retried frequently. That said, I'm not sure enough about any alternative to vote against the proposal — I just think people should have this in mind. We don't want to go around banning or discouraging lots of new WP:Good faith editors. (Yes, I'm implying a lot of the editors on the Trump-article were politically motivated in ways that were WP:NOTHERE…) Carl Fredrik  talk 14:12, 22 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Those are valid distinctions. I think the general consensus here is that we need something; there's lots of room for ideas about exactly what, though. I've split off discussion into a separate section below so that we can flesh things out further. Sdkb (talk) 17:40, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

Discussion

 * I was the one who implemented the current consensus table on the Donald Trump page. To do so would require one of two things first: either an agreement by the community here to adopt the "bold, revert, discuss" method which would require a list of current consensus items for people to work with, or discretionary sanctions (such as are found with the template:COVID19 GS editnotice) which would require a list against which editors can determine what does and does not come under the sanctions. Either option will work, its just a matter of which would be preferred here. TomStar81 (Talk) 12:30, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Glad to have your input here! I'm not totally clear on what the differences between and upsides/downsides to each of those would be; could you explain further? Sdkb (talk) 05:44, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Certainly! The difference is in the purpose of the consensus list. For the Donald Trump article, the consensus list came about as a result of my actions in enforcing the discretionary sanctions for post 1932 political officials. An administrator had applied a 1RR mandate to the article, and I caught an editor who had made two revisions within 24 hours to restore the picture, so I blocked him. After getting an angry reply concerning community consensus I investigated the matter and came to realize that he was right and I was wrong, so I applied a 1RR exemption in the article . After a few weeks it was realized that the consensus went further, so a talk page discussion spawned the consensus list in an attempt to provide a safe haven for editors operating to keep the agreed to consensus for the page from getting shelled by the admin corps for 1RR violations, a task that it continues to do to this day. Implementing this scheme would be beneficial should the admin corps apply the general sanctions for the subject matter to this page specifically since a consensus list would then allow editors to revert to the current consensus for article without the risk of being sanctioned or blocked for it, but at present no editor has applied the generation sanctions template to this article. Keep in mind that that a pitfall of this approach is that any current consensus list will of necessity have to be permanently protected to prevent people from tweaking it without a discussion first , which means that discussions concerning consensus that gain consensus will likely need admin closure in order to add or adjust the list, and if the list builds as Trump's has then current points will be eventually be superseded by newer points, which can make the list long and perhaps for some confusing.
 * "Bold, revert, discuss" by contrast, would result in something closer to the FAQ list at the Barack Obama article being applied; its intended to by fluid and to answer the questions for the community concerning edits to the page and why things are the way they are here. This is a list still bound by consensus, but since there is less perceived friction for the Obama article than the Trump article it comes across as being more welcoming to the public, but you'll note that it doesn't explicitly allow for 1RR exemptions because the public is better able to police and enforce rulings on the article through the use of the FAQ system as opposed to the current consensus list. Keep in mind though that without specific discretionary sanctions in the article at present any FAQ list may not be read as a "you must do this" pronouncement, it may instead be read as a "you are encourage but not required to observe this" pronouncement. We can partially beat that with protection for the article page, but non-observation may eventually grow enough that people demand a more substantive approach to the consensus list.
 * As a practical matter, it doesn't matter which option the community chooses to implement, both have the same general purpose, but they differ slightly in the delivery towards the their goals by addressing slightly different problems: the consensus list for addressing the 1RR restriction and thus providing immunity (as it were) to editors enforcing the current consensus, and the FAQ list for addressing the common problems/issues/debates/etc which the community has reached consensus on. Either one works here, its just a matter of which option the community thinks will ultimately allow for better control of the subject matter. TomStar81 (Talk) 13:08, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks for the explanation! One more question from my ignorance: I'm not fully clear on what it means that the COVID-19 sanctions haven't been applied specifically to this article—doesn't the talk page here have a header saying "Warning: Active Community General Sanctions"? Or is that new since your previous message?
 * I like some aspects of both approaches. I like the fact that the Trump list includes links to the relevant discussions, since otherwise there's no solid proof that a consensus I might want to overturn really is that strong of a consensus. But I like the fact that the Obama FAQ includes explanations to explain to more newbie editors why a consensus was reached without them having to click through. Regarding the difference in "hardness", for lack of a better term, I think the level of perceived friction here is closer to Obama than to Trump (and it's unique from both, in that the issue isn't partisans pushing edits that reflect their POV so much as it is a flood of edits from editors who don't know about the prior consensuses or aren't experienced enough to know it's important to respect them). That said, once a consensus has reached the point of getting on the list, I think it ought to be taken more as a "must abide by" than a suggestion (perhaps I'm just not flexible enough), so I like that aspect of the Trump list.
 * I'd love to hear thoughts from others. The flood of "support" !votes isn't doing much good at this point—it's clear we need something, and what's needed to move forward is discussion on the specifics rather than blanket support of the general concept. Cheers, Sdkb (talk) 16:26, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
 * If you look at active sanctions section on the talk page, you'll see the only sanctions currently on this article specifically are that editors must be informed of general sanctions after which they may be sanctioned under the GS applicable to the article and that violations need to be reported to ANI (those are the bullet points). There is currently no mention whatsoever of a mandate to obtain consensus before changing the information in the article, nor is there a revert restriction mandate in effect on the article. (In fact, the editnotice template currently in use for the article at the time I write this is falsely claiming that edits in the article reflect consensus when no such agreement has - at the moment - been reached.) In order for a list or an FAQ section to be installed here the community would have to agree to adopt consensus first and then list the current consensus for whatever it is that the community deems consensus is needed for so as to enforce a consensus approach, or they would need to petition an admin to apply a 1RR or 0RR restriction to the article in which case a consensus list would be needed to show what is exempt from 1RR or 0RR (you can look at the talk page for Donald Trump which has an active arbitration enforcement template which explicitly states a 1RR restriction and then open the collapsed tab for "Remedy instructions and exemptions" which shows that the list exists to ensure that reversion in accordance with its will don't result in blocks). TomStar81 (Talk) 12:06, 22 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Actually, I should clarify one more thing with regards to what I wrote above before I go to bed: the general sanctions adopted are armed, as it were, so they are live, its just that they have not all been specifically applied to the article at the time I post this message. To put it more simply, if you imagine the general sanctions to be a battleship, then the guns are pointed towards the article, but no one has explicitly said "fire" as it were, so the community needs to decide if it wants the artillery support and if so where it should go. Once that happens, we can start getting more hands on as it were with the article's content and contributors, depending on the grievance(s) in question. TomStar81 (Talk) 12:51, 22 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Starting doing this here Talk:2019–20_coronavirus_pandemic. We need a place to keep links to consensus. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 17:21, 22 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks! I'd recommend we move the list to a subpage and extended-confirmed protect (or at least semi-protect) that page to prevent inexperienced editors from disrupting the list. We should also change the way linking is done to match the format at Donald Trump, so that if discussions come up twice, we can link to both. Sdkb (talk) 17:31, 22 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Agree on both. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 17:32, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

Animation slideshow in the infobox
When I play the slideshow, I couldn't drag the map freely. The map slideshow encounter technique error and should be removed or replace by new one. The Supermind (talk) 13:22, 22 March 2020 (UTC)
 * technical issues sometimes happen--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 15:49, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

More specificity about the 5 day incubation period
This is a reference that I want to put into the main paragraph, https://dx.doi.org/10.7326/M20-0504 -- we know with good confidence that the onset is really around 5 days, and that the vast majority of covid-19 symptoms will appear within that 14 day quarantine, subject to caveats as stated in the paper. --HappyCamper 11:22, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
 * not a review--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 13:42, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

List countries by deaths not by cases detected
The info box lists by cases detected which is ridiculous since it is dependent on the capacity and policy of each country and is in no way indicative of the gravity of the situation. It leads to perverse results such as Germany appearing above Iran when Germany has among the lowest number of deaths in Western Europe. Php2000 (talk) 16:04, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
 * The table is sortable. Feel free to hit the sort by deaths button. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 16:10, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
 * That sort option doesn't appear to be available on the mobile version of the page. I don't have a strong opinion on which order is better (though I lean slightly towards sorting by deaths), but at least for mobile users the default display does make a difference. 68.7.103.137 (talk) 16:46, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Panic buying is not precise.
To quote NSW Health, [https://www.health.nsw.gov.au/Infectious/alerts/Pages/coronavirus-faqs.aspx There is no need to bulk-buy products at supermarkets including toilet paper, paracetamol and canned food. It is prudent for households to have a small stock of non-perishable groceries to cover the event that in the coming months the household has been asked to self-isolate for 14 days. However, it’s important to note the role of family and friends in supporting those in isolation and also to note that online grocery delivery services are now available in most areas of NSW.] so there is rational reason to stock 14 days of non perishables. —Almaty (talk) 04:52, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't think the article is saying the panic buying is rational; just that it's happening. Sdkb (talk) 05:21, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
 * yes but some people are panic buying, some people are calmly following government recommendations, some are hoarding, and tis time to comment on the distinction. —Almaty (talk) 05:24, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
 * How do you make a distinction between "calmly following government recommendations" and "panic buying" ?


 * Some governments have suggested those 70+ remain isolated for up to 14 weeks. Given that, I would certainly attempt to buy 14+ weeks of toilet paper, canned food and pasta supply — which of course is textbook panic buying... I don't think you can make a simple distinction.... Panic buying can be both rational and irrational — there isn't anything de facto irrational with panicking if the end-result of the panic is beneficial to the individual. Carl Fredrik  talk 07:11, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
 * I just propise that we don’t say panic buying anymore, for all the reasons noted. Bulk buying is a good term —Almaty (talk) 10:25, 21 March 2020 (UTC)


 * It’s still panic buying if it’s done by a person who doesn’t have a valid reason. It means that people who do have a valid reason can’t get things they need because someone bought 200 gallons of hand sanitizer “just in case”. We can’t change the terms we use, at any rate, unless sources do so first. Roches (talk) 10:53, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
 * — I'm saying that it's panic buying even if it is for a valid reason. Not wanting to be caught out is a valid enough reason — but is also still panic buying. If you know that toilet paper tends to be out in the store, you're totally rational in buying twice as many rolls as normal in an attempt to avoid it being out of stock when you need it the next time — yet you're still engaging in a collective panic buy, even if you're totally rational about it.


 * Mass psychology is extremely interesting because it can be irrational at once scale, and rational on another — in the same way that extreme fear and avoiding all contact is irrational for any one individual, but can collectively stop an outbreak. So, there is no reason to stop talking about panic buying, we need to accept that this is the terminology, and that you can be totally rational about panic buying. Carl Fredrik  talk 13:20, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

It seems churlish of talksters here not argue for the semantics of the word panic without reference to its wikipedia page - the page exists ! The precision called for here is, like so many words in the English language, open to the interpretation of its metaphoric root, and we must resist the pedantic. Indeed, the differentiation of the roots of panic and pandemic bear scrutiny rather nicely. There might be a better word whose mythic etymology resides in a biblical story for example - loaves and fishes perhaps? The Old Testament abounds with possibilities, but the insipid exegesis demonstrated here amounts to rather barren expatiation. Domskitect (talk) 13:11, 21 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Panic buying ≠ panic. Carl Fredrik  talk 13:42, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

, you've changed the intro to link to bulk buying instead. That page is not relevant; it refers specifically to buying large quantities so that they can at a reduced price, which is not what's going to happen here. I'm going to revert, as I don't see consensus here to change away from panic buying. Sdkb (talk) 19:00, 21 March 2020 (UTC)


 * I support your revert --  Carl Fredrik  talk 19:35, 21 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Unintended consequences are missing in the article. As for "panic" a little cheer up that explains everything here.--TMCk (talk) 20:39, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Adding current impact based on data from WHO


— Preceding unsigned comment added by Givingbacktosociety (talk • contribs)
 * Note: A similar request was made at Talk:2019–20_coronavirus_pandemic_by_country_and_territory. Sdkb (talk) 08:02, 21 March 2020 (UTC)


 * — I think I see what you're getting at showing these graphs, but would you mind clarifying the legend and providing suitable captions? Does the graph auto-update? If not, I'm uncertain if we will want to include 2 day old data. Carl Fredrik  talk 16:07, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
 * The graphs will not autoupdate. And WHO report is updated once a day.Givingbacktosociety (talk) 20:52, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Oops, the edit request was made by, not me. I think my note may have confused sinebot into not adding their signature; I've added one manually. , please remember to sign your posts using four tildes ( ~ ). Sdkb (talk) 16:31, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
 * marking closed as stale after request was archived. –Deacon Vorbis (carbon &bull; videos) 13:51, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

Case fatality ratio table
I removed the table you added, because it needs better sourcing to be included. The information is certainly interesting, but it is also not properly sourced, and you've clearly calculated the ratios yourself (with far too many significant figures). I'm copying your suggestion here below so that others can see it, and potentially use the data to bring it up to snuff.
 * By :


 * {| class="wikitable sortable"

! Country ! Total cases COVID-19 ! Deaths ! Case fatality Rate (CFR)
 * 🇨🇳 China || 80880 || 3213 || 3,972551929
 * 🇮🇹 Italy || 31506 || 2503 || 7,944518504
 * 🇮🇷 Iran || 16169 || 988 || 6,110458284
 * 🇪🇸 Spain || 11825 || 533 || 4,507399577
 * 🇰🇷 KOR || 8413 || 84 || 0,998454772
 * 🇩🇪 Germany || 9367 || 26 || 0,277570193
 * 🇫🇷 France || 5423 || 175 || 3,226996128
 * 🇺🇸 USA || 9454 || 155 || 1,639517664
 * 🇨🇭 Switzerland || 4164 || 43 || 1,032660903
 * UK || 1543 || 36 || 2,333117304
 * }
 * 🇩🇪 Germany || 9367 || 26 || 0,277570193
 * 🇫🇷 France || 5423 || 175 || 3,226996128
 * 🇺🇸 USA || 9454 || 155 || 1,639517664
 * 🇨🇭 Switzerland || 4164 || 43 || 1,032660903
 * UK || 1543 || 36 || 2,333117304
 * }
 * 🇨🇭 Switzerland || 4164 || 43 || 1,032660903
 * UK || 1543 || 36 || 2,333117304
 * }
 * }

Best, Carl Fredrik  talk 16:37, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Yah. Better for us not to do original research on this ourselves. It takes time from diagnosis to death so numbers outside of China will have issues with accuracy. It also depends on what proportion of less symptomatic cases are counted / detected, and how many deaths are written off as being due to other stuff. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 16:46, 20 March 2020 (UTC)


 * For anyone interested in building upon this table, there is some commentary that might be relevant to take into account at, with John Ioannidis stating that our only truly reliable numbers are from the Diamond Princess, where case fatality rates have been much lower and indicate a CFR between 0.05% to 1%. While not a WP:MEDRS source, having the Diamond Princess as a separate entry is certainly worth it in a CFR-table. Carl Fredrik  talk 16:53, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
 * We have the WHO who states 3.4% and I think it is still appropriate to go with that. Not everyone from the Diamond Princess have recovered. Well they may have been older they were also healthy and richer than normal. Plus go care in an unburdened health care system. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 16:57, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
 * There are multiple challenges with CFRs, so we should definitely not be calculating them ourselves. There's the time lag, as mentioned and see also  and . There's also the problem about under-counting cases: see.
 * Instead of calculating, we should draw on what reliable sources say about them. We've got the WHO figure and there are lots of other reliable sources to draw on: see Talk:Coronavirus_disease_2019 for some discussion. We've got some text discussing issues at Coronavirus_disease_2019. Bondegezou (talk) 17:07, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Can a comment be added under this table, acknowledging the big range in case fatality rate, and that this may be related to big differences in how much testing countries have done with - for example - South Korea and Germany doing far more testing than other countries, and showing far lower fatality rates. This is a very important topic, that needs to be explained. There are lots of current news articles about this. For example: https://www.pmlive.com/pharma_news/german_coronavirus_infections_climb_but_deaths_remain_low_1329617?fbclid=IwAR1htLdvxuXXfzX4s4UVYsafboaLlBEf2PdwTrPK8Baczxoi-1_kWOZpxXc — Preceding unsigned comment added by Surfingdan (talk • contribs) 22:08, 20 March 2020 (UTC)


 * The CFR will vary dramatically by region based on testing volume and as Doc James points out, based on population demographics, healthcare system quality, and the time since the outbreak started in each given region. Accordingly, we shouldn't attempt country-level calculations. The 3.4% number was based on data included in the WHO Situation Report from 3 March (90,870 cases and 3,112 deaths). If we are to present a CFR number, I think it is safe to include the WHO situation report global data and divide the two numbers. Something like:


 * The WHO reported on 19 March that there were 209,839 confirmed cases and 8,778 deaths,[ref here] which indicates a case fatality rate among confirmed COVID-19 cases of 4.18%.


 * However, there's still a WP:OR risk here so we could look to a reputable source that's regularly doing the calculation or just wait for the WHO to officially divide the two numbers. - Wikmoz (talk) 22:14, 20 March 2020 (UTC)


 * I'd say remove, some of these countries have artificially low fatality rates, because people who have the virus and have not died yet remain alive... for now. --Calthinus (talk) 22:20, 20 March 2020 (UTC)
 * A more interesting and useful table would be the ratio of recoveries to deaths, rather than counting active cases as survivals. --Calthinus (talk) 22:22, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Please, please do not remove this table. This is an incredibly important topic, which needs to be acknowledged and ideally explained - i.e. that countries are reporting such widely different case fatality rates. It's also a topic that is getting a lot of news coverage. For example: https://www.ft.com/content/c0755b30-69bb-11ea-800d-da70cff6e4d3 and  https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/why-does-germany-have-low-coronavirus-death-rate/  — Preceding unsigned comment added by Surfingdan (talk • contribs) 22:28, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

See Case fatality rate. Also see https://www.cebm.net/global-covid-19-case-fatality-rates/, which appears to be presently being kept updated with info from https://www.cebm.net/global-covid-19-case-fatality-rates/ the Confirmed Cases and Deaths by Country, Territory, or Conveyance table at https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/ Wtmitchell  (talk) (earlier Boracay Bill) 06:21, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
 * this doesn’t look like consensus to me. We don’t need a table, we can use text or put it on each countries page, —Almaty (talk) 08:58, 21 March 2020 (UTC)


 * Agreed, there is no consensus to include the table, or even more explicitly there is consensus not to include it in its current state. I will see if I have time to go digging for some verified CFRs, as there are decent sources releasing numbers from Italy, Germany, S. Korea, USA, China and the Diamond Princess now. However they all need to be put into perspective with clarification of testing rates and health system loads — which is further reason to delay introduction of any table, because if we compare different sources: we need to be able to describe how or why they are different. Wikipedia doesn't just list pointless statistics. Carl Fredrik  talk 09:08, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Can mention at least be made in the text that there is a very wide range in reported case fatality rates across countries, from 0.27% to 10%. This is a critically important topic, as these are numbers that governments are reporting and referring to, to make policy decisions right now. Also, as the table has now been removed, mention of that table needs to be removed from the text. Thanks Surfingdan (talk) 09:19, 21 March 2020 (UTC)


 * User:CFCF I think academic sources, at the moment, are avoiding CFR calculations for all the reasons stated above. In a couple of years' time statsiticians will sit down with the benefit of hindsight and work it out reasonably reliability. User:Surfingdan support your suggestion. Robertpedley (talk) 10:13, 21 March 2020 (UTC)


 * If we have sources to that effect — I think we should describe that as well. On the whole, I also agree with : It is a good compromize to give the range of calculations; give one or two WHO-published major estimates, and then to describe the uncertainty.
 * We will likely see a large change in the numbers in April, not only because the pandemic progresses, but also because new antibody-tests are being produced, and European countries will start testing asymptomatic people for whether they've had COVID without knowing it, which a fair few actually may have. Carl Fredrik  talk 13:12, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
 * There are plenty of academic sources discussing the CFR: see Talk:Coronavirus_disease_2019. We can write useful text, describing a range of fatality rates, using WP:MEDRS-compliant sources. We don't have to calculate anything ourselves. Bondegezou (talk) 16:27, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

After the current text that "The crude mortality ratio (reported deaths divided by reported cases) is 3 to 4% per the World Health Organization as of 6 March 2020.[220] However, the reported rate varies by country, age, and other health problems.[221]" I feel that caveats also need to be added that there is a big risk of "sample bias" in reported numbers of cases and death ratios, and that fatality rates will likely decrease over time, as has been the case in other pandemics, such as Swine Flu. Firstly, some governments have openly admitted that they have focused testing mostly on the seriously ill, and yet it has been known for some time - including by the WHO - that most people who contract the disease have only mild symptoms. This means that (as mentioned above in the epidemiology section) numbers of cases may be underestimated - which in turn means that mortality ratios will be over-estimated (as they are simply deaths divided by cases). Secondly, countries that have done the most testing - notably Germany - are reporting far lower fatality rates. Thirdly, a very similar situation was observed with Swine Flu - there was a wide variation across countries in initial fatality rate estimates (0.1% to 5%), these then decreased over time, and the final WHO estimate ending up being 5 times less than the lowest initial estimate (0.02%). Fourthly, this has already been recorded in China, where initial very high case fatality rates (17.3% - for people with symptoms 1 - 10 January) decreased massively to just 0.7% (for those with symptom onset after 1 February). There is thus a very big risk that current mortality (or fatality) rate estimates are currently being over-estimated in most countries, and it is likely they will decrease significantly in future when more testing has been undertaken, especially of those with only mild symptoms.Surfingdan (talk) 21:39, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Current event template
Hello, shouldn't the article have a "Current event template" as the pandemic is ongoing? 80.0.45.128 (talk) 23:50, 21 March 2020 (UTC)
 * Good thought, but no; that template is intended for short-term use. See the hidden text warning at the top of the article. Sdkb (talk) 00:13, 22 March 2020 (UTC)