Talk:COVID-19 pandemic death rates by country

Table only takes a few minutes to update
Sorry to barge in here, but you missed out Cambodia 364 cases no deaths, independently verified; and Laos less cases also no deaths. You can check www.khmertimeskh.com for Cambodian daily totals and ASEAN countires. 202.62.41.81 (talk) 10:37, 28 December 2020 (UTC)


 * I personally think you can removed all under-develloped countries (most of Africa), all dictatureship (China, Iran, North Korea...) because their numbers simply put cannot be trusted 24.79.242.46 (talk) 18:42, 18 October 2023 (UTC)

See how: User:Timeshifter/Sandbox107. --Timeshifter (talk) 20:21, 18 July 2020 (UTC)

Instructions for instant table update without flags and country links
Return to top.

See: User:Timeshifter/Sandbox110 for instruction details. See User:Timeshifter/Sandbox107 for tables.

Updating the table (without flags and country links) is quick and easy. Copy the table right off the John Hopkins source page. Paste it into tab2wiki. Uncheck all the boxes except "Compress table". Click "Do it". Copy wikitext to COVID-19 pandemic death rates by country. Keep existing header wikitext. Change date. Done. --Timeshifter (talk) 08:39, 11 August 2020 (UTC)

Is this article needed?
I'm interested in the way you managed to get the table updating — it'd be helpful to have that sort of functionality for other COVID-related tables, and more importantly on Wikidata so that other language editions can use them, too.

Regarding this page, though, I think it would be better to add your table to one of the existing integrated pages, rather than creating a new one. Readers are being overwhelmed with similarly-named pages — the deaths section of the pandemic article now has hatnotes for four pages (COVID-19 pandemic deaths, Mortality due to COVID-19, COVID-19 pandemic death rates by country, and List of deaths due to COVID-19), none of which are all that easily distinguishable by their title alone. There's also country-specific death information at COVID-19 pandemic by country and territory. Could you find a way to do that? Unless there's some justification I'm missing, I'm going to have to nominate this page for deletion if it sticks around. &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 16:49, 21 July 2020 (UTC)


 * Don't waste your time on the deletion attempt. It is unlikely to go anywhere, and will just waste other people's time. Look at the page views banner at the top. This page is already very popular in only a few days. It provides unique information. The title of this page is very specific. Spin-off articles like this are common concerning COVID-19. As witnessed by this:


 * I don't know anything about wikidata. And I am not interested in it. I am interested in tables, sorting, etc., and help write Help:Table and Help:Sorting. But even though I help write those pages there are many areas of those 2 topics I don't understand very well.


 * See User:Timeshifter/Sandbox107 for info on how the table is updated. It only takes a few minutes. Rather than waste your time on deletion BS, maybe try doing something constructive like updating the table here. You know it's kind of insulting to ask me for help on another table project while belittling the very useful table here.


 * I don't know where the wikidata stuff you linked to will go, but there are already multiple methods discussed in the Visual Editor section at the end of Help:Table that may be an alternate route for your needs. I wrote that section. --Timeshifter (talk) 19:50, 21 July 2020 (UTC)


 * I'll add my comments to the Afd discussion but want to make one comment here. I appreciate your substantial contributions to Wikipedia and I think Sdkb does as well... or at least is complementary of your skills. The concerns raised in the deletion proposal sound reasonable. It is not "BS" or "belittling" or a waste of time to try to keep this critical content well organized. At least it's not in my view. You link to WP:CIVIL on your user page so you're definitely familiar with WP:GOODFAITH. - Wikmoz (talk) 04:20, 23 July 2020 (UTC)

nan?
We need a note on the table saying what nan stands for (I've no idea, and I'm sure a lot of other readers don't know either). It certainly should be a number, so it's not NaN. Grutness... wha?   14:50, 3 August 2020 (UTC)
 * I am just guessing, but it looks like death rate (Deaths per 100,000 population) numbers got below 0.00
 * So they needed some way to indicate that other than 0.00
 * Because technically that is also inaccurate. As long as there are deaths in a country, the death rate is not zero.
 * So NaN may be the correct term, but the Wikipedia page is baffling to me in its explanation.
 * Here is a Wikipedia search: define nan "Not a Number"
 * https://www.google.com/search?q=define+nan+%22Not+a+Number%22
 * Good luck. I gave up after a few results. --Timeshifter (talk) 01:14, 5 August 2020 (UTC)


 * I added this to the table. It may get revised later:
 * nan at the bottom of the table stands for NaN (Not a number). This is for death rates below 0.00 per 100,000 population. The death rate is not truly zero if there are any COVID-19 deaths in a country. The death rate is just not a number that can be represented in the number format used for this table.
 * --Timeshifter (talk) 11:36, 10 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Unfortunately, this explanation is not true. Of course, it is possible to represent the death rate as a number. Example: Yemen currently lists death rate as nan. However, the same table lists 515 deaths in this country. Since the Yemen population is relatively well known as 29 million, the death rate can be computed as for all other countries: 515/290 = 1.8 per 100,000. Note that this number is orders of magnitude larger than the smallest value currently listed. T om ea s y T C 09:54, 12 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks for catching that. I just removed the nan note. I was wrong in my assumption. I must be slipping. :) --Timeshifter (talk) 13:10, 12 August 2020 (UTC)
 * Then we need an explanation for the "nan" if it isn't a deaths/100K less than 0.01. Today's figures are: for Syria (85 out of pop. 17.5 million) 0.48; Gambia (84 from 2.4 million) 3.5; Bahamas (27 from 0.4 million) 6.75; Burma (6 from 54.4 million) 0.01. The Diamond Princess had 3,711 people on board and there were 13 or 14 deaths (depending on whether you believe JHU or the Japanese Ministry of Health, Labour and Welfare), giving a death rate per 100,000 of 350. NaN (not a number) usually refers to a calculation that divides zero by zero, so perhaps JHU doesn't believe that numbers of deaths and population numbers are accurate enough to be counted for those six examples. --RexxS (talk) 22:27, 23 August 2020 (UTC)

Template styles
If it's easiest to just update the raw table, then moving it to a template at Template:COVID-19 pandemic death rates by country allows articles that include the table, such as this one, to style the table using template styles. I've created a template to hold the styles at Template:COVID-19 pandemic death rates by country/styles.css with some example styling that can be easily modified. --RexxS (talk) 20:36, 20 August 2020 (UTC)

alphabetical order
Can someone please make the table(s) of countries alphabetical? And what means: "nan"? --Corriebertus (talk) 13:14, 2 September 2020 (UTC)
 * The table is ordered by the number of deaths per 100,000 population. You can change it to alphabetical by clicking on the diamond next to the 'Country' heading.
 * Nan probably means 'not a number', but I have no idea why those countries should have that label. The table is transcluded from the John Hopkins University coronavirus website, but they do not explain what nan means. See the discussion above. Dudley Miles (talk) 14:29, 2 September 2020 (UTC)


 * I don't see any "nan" in this John Hopkins University coronavirus website: .   Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 00:25, 21 September 2020 (UTC)


 * John Hopkins has now removed all nans. Dudley Miles (talk) 08:20, 21 September 2020 (UTC)


 * So, an editor on this page should update this article and follow suit. And the (confusing) "nan" notations can be removed.     Joseph A. Spadaro (talk) 18:20, 21 September 2020 (UTC)

Confirmed cases per 100,000?
Any chance of adding a column like that? For comparing countries, only rates give an accurate comparison, not actual numbers. (Otherwise, a tiny country would look like it was succeeding marvelously, even if almost its entire population was getting infected, or dying, or whatever else was being compared.)

Thanks. Sorry that I don't know how to do this.

Dudley Brooks (talk) 19:17, 27 September 2020 (UTC)

Case fatality rate
Sorry to be thick, but could we have an explanation for "Case fatality rate" please? (Or a link to one) Thanks 92.27.188.173 (talk) 10:03, 14 October 2020 (UTC)
 * See Case fatality rate. I have added a suggestion to add the link in the updating instructions. Dudley Miles (talk) 22:02, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Incomplete data
Just scanning the table, it seems to me some of the poorer countries don't have complete data sets on the pandemic within their borders, thus skewing the results. If my hunch is correct, and someone can prove it, we should prominently display a disclaimer at the top of the article. YoPienso (talk) 00:49, 29 November 2020 (UTC)
 * We have to rely on our sources for that sort of disclaimer, not on editors' hunches. The source for the data provided is There might be something there to investigate. --RexxS (talk) 02:11, 29 November 2020 (UTC)
 * I was not relying on my hunch, stating if it "is correct, and someone can prove it."
 * This article talks about the dearth of reliable data from lower- and middle-income countries (LMICs):
 * Research papers are, however, just starting to demonstrate the huge scale of data inaccuracies related to COVID-19 cases and deaths in LMICs.
 * More generally, it is widely recognized that data on the number of cases reflect the availability of testing much more than the actual status of the pandemic. Consequently, the data being published for different LMICs . . . come with a very large health warning and do not provide a basis for meaningful analysis.
 * This one is specific to data from Africa:
 * Experts caution that data collection in many African countries is incomplete . . .
 * Even if the source for the table doesn't include a caveat, the fact that other sources discuss the incomplete data is enough for us to include one. And the source itself does list four reasons why "Countries throughout the world have reported very different case fatality ratios":
 * Different rates of testing
 * Different demographics
 * Overwhelmed facilities
 * Unknown reasons
 * YoPienso (talk) 04:54, 29 November 2020 (UTC)
 * Why not write some content summarising the sources and add it to the introduction to this article? --RexxS (talk) 02:03, 30 November 2020 (UTC)
 * "The source for the data provided is..." That may be where the numbers for this article are pulled from, but it's not the origin of the data. There's no indication there anywhere of the original data source for these numbers. How is Johns Hopkins getting the numbers? Magic? Some undisclosed agency? A collection of undisclosed sources? I searched the Mortality Analyses article, and eventually the Johns Hopkins site, and didn't find any mention of how they get the data. I think that this article should have used a reference which doesn't just put numbers on a page and imply "trust us, we're a Big Important Medical Organization." If somebody is not going to fix this (I think it should be whoever chose this reference) by contacting Johns Hopkins for the info or choosing a data source (in the sense of a place to get data for this article) that uses references, then I'll do it. I was here at WP to find information, not to fix things (I internet-searched "countries with the highest covid death rates" for a discussion and encountered this article.) OGBrian (talk) 06:41, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
 * It's none of our business where JHU gets its numbers from. The way Wikipedia works is that we look for sources that are trustworthy and summarise them. If multiple quality sources exist and agree, we use one of them; if they disagree, we report each opinion. So we actually do make use of the principal of "trust us, we're a Big Important Medical Organization."
 * I'm afraid that nobody is going to "fix" this. Either we find equally reliable sources that contradict JHU, or we accept their data as fact. The alternative would be that every nut-job with an axe to grind or a point-of-view to push could make their own analysis and reject or accept content based on their own perspective. Johns Hopkins University established the first school of public health in the US and has an international reputation for the quality of its research. I'm sorry, but if JHU isn't a good enough source for you, then Wikipedia isn't the place for you to get your health information. --RexxS (talk) 17:19, 4 December 2020 (UTC)
 * It's none of our business where JHU gets its numbers from. The way Wikipedia works is that we look for sources that are trustworthy and summarise them. If multiple quality sources exist and agree, we use one of them; if they disagree, we report each opinion. So we actually do make use of the principal of "trust us, we're a Big Important Medical Organization."
 * I'm afraid that nobody is going to "fix" this. Either we find equally reliable sources that contradict JHU, or we accept their data as fact. The alternative would be that every nut-job with an axe to grind or a point-of-view to push could make their own analysis and reject or accept content based on their own perspective. Johns Hopkins University established the first school of public health in the US and has an international reputation for the quality of its research. I'm sorry, but if JHU isn't a good enough source for you, then Wikipedia isn't the place for you to get your health information. --RexxS (talk) 17:19, 4 December 2020 (UTC)

Is this about confirmed COVID-19 disease cases, or does it include asymptomatic, nondiseased individuals who tested positive for SARS-CoV-2?
Sorry if this is a bad place to ask such questions, but if the former is the case, at least one country (Lithuania) on the list should be revised, because unfortunately the authorities have been conflating the two (COVID-19 and SARS-CoV-2) in their public announcements. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.29.26.98 (talk) 12:35, 13 December 2020 (UTC)


 * In real life, street-level testing it's impossible to separate COVID-19, SARS, SARS-2, MERS, and influenza because they all look the same to the tester. They're all corona-type viruses. Santamoly (talk) 09:16, 6 January 2021 (UTC)


 * In general, these numbers are deaths per SARS-CoV-2 cases. It'd be very well possible for the tester to report confirmed COVID-19 separately, but either they don't or Johns Hopkins doesn't aggregate that data. CasparV (talk) 09:10, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

Czech Republic missing and Mexican figures out of date.
The Czech Republic, which has one of the highest Covid death rates on the planet, appears to be missing from the table - who has removed it? And the Mexican figures are out of date - as the government of Mexico has now admitted that the Covid death rate in Mexico is much higher than was first reported.176.25.16.91 (talk) 08:01, 16 April 2021 (UTC)


 * Looking at the history for Template:COVID-19_pandemic_death_rates_by_country, the data for Czechia was there on the day this comment was posted (16 April 2021).
 * Regarding Mexico: this is another case of conflation between death of confirmed cases, and estimated deaths of excess mortality. It has nothing to do with admitting faults or revisions of earlier reports. After 176.25.16.91 posted this comment, I've added a section "Data Reliability" that briefly explains this topic. TLDR: this wiki page lists deaths among confirmed cases (absolute and per capita) which is not a very reliable metric as many cases are missed. This wiki page does not list excess mortality, which would be a more reliable metric during the pandemic, when most excess mortality can be assumed to be COVID-related).
 * I'd be all for comparing excess mortality per capita, though that'd require reliable sources to get the data from. I think https://ourworldindata.org/grapher/excess-mortality-raw-death-count?tab=table might be suitable, when combined with population numbers. I'm not sure if such a simple calculation would violate the "wikipedia is not primary research" principle though.
 * CasparV (talk) 09:26, 5 July 2021 (UTC)
 * CasparV (talk) 09:26, 5 July 2021 (UTC)

Differences between age groups
There was an example that claimed to show the difference in CFRs between age groups, but the numbers that were used were the estimated IFRs and not the CFRs. I fixed it for now by getting the proper data, but I had to bin them ('binning' as in merge, not trash) because it was split into 9 age groups which is just too much for a simple example.

If anything else thinks it's valuable; here's the full table:

Source: https://covid.cdc.gov/covid-data-tracker/#demographics, Cases by Age Group + Deaths by Age Group

CasparV (talk) 10:10, 28 April 2021 (UTC)

Can't sort table on mobile
The sort buttons in the table are missing on the mobile version. Jidanni (talk) 00:54, 25 June 2021 (UTC)

Please readd death rates
Where have the death rates gone? An article about death rates by country doesn't make sense without the death rates. Please readd them to the table. --212.25.6.254 (talk) 21:16, 28 September 2021 (UTC)
 * The introduction has been clarified. --Timeshifter (talk) 12:15, 29 September 2021 (UTC)

Deaths per country surface in square kilometers
I think those figures would be much more interesting than the amount of death per million — Preceding unsigned comment added by InvestInSuccess (talk • contribs) 10:23, 30 November 2021 (UTC)
 * I haven't seen a country list like that for Covid. --Timeshifter (talk) 00:07, 1 December 2021 (UTC)

Country rank column
Not sure if it's my imagination, but I'm pretty sure until recently "World" didn't have a number against it in the left-hand column (which I assume is a simple ranking). This would make sense, since "World" is always at the top. The rank is one of the most impactful and quotable columns (country **** is the ****th worse for xxx), but is now compromised (e.g. at the time of writing, it appears that Romania has the 10th worst rate of deaths, rather than the 9th). If this has been a glitch of some sort and someone is looking at changing it back, it would be useful to exclude the rank number for the European Union as well - it's interesting to see the grouping but (especially as it moves up the table) misleading. I understand this might be a different issue, since the EU number is sorted with the rest of the data rather than remaining distinct at the top. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A00:23C6:7787:7601:542A:D95F:E851:B897 (talk) 11:00, 10 December 2021 (UTC)
 * . Thought you might be interested in this. --Timeshifter (talk) 12:52, 10 December 2021 (UTC)
 * Thanks, @Timeshifter. It looks like this was a problem in Template:COVID-19 pandemic death rates by country. I've reverted the Module:COVID-19 data change that broke this. I don't think I can make the EU row not have a number. Tol  (talk &#124; contribs) @ 19:25, 10 December 2021 (UTC)

. Would putting the EU row at the top like this be possible in your system?: |- class="sorttop static-row-header" | style=text-align:left |European Union|| --Timeshifter (talk) 02:10, 11 December 2021 (UTC)


 * @Timeshifter: Not really — the whole thing is sorted by deaths per million. "World" has a special case carved out for it so that it's always on top, but adding that for the EU would require significant changes to either  Tol  (talk &#124; contribs) @ 03:52, 11 December 2021 (UTC)

The Country Rank number has disappeared completely. Any chance it could be restored, since it's really useful? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2A02:C7F:8D60:9000:54D3:21E2:8795:E996 (talk) 12:22, 16 January 2022 (UTC)


 * and . See above comment. I would like the row number column back too, if not too much trouble. static row numbers. --Timeshifter (talk) 19:57, 16 January 2022 (UTC)
 * This is an issue with Template:COVID-19 pandemic death rates by country. I am moving the discussion there. Tol  (talk &#124; contribs) @ 20:01, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Excess deaths
Now excess death data has been published, and objection from adding it to this page (excess deaths are often cited as most reliable comparison). https://www.thelancet.com/journals/lancet/article/PIIS0140-6736(21)02796-3/fulltext https://news.sky.com/story/covid-19-new-data-shows-fullest-picture-yet-of-deaths-during-the-pandemic-12572639 09:49, 23 March 2022 (UTC)

Excess deaths have also been claimed to have been caused by lock-downs and people not getting hospital care or exams for heart and cancer conditions. One source of such a claim is Scott Atlas, 2021, "Science, Politics, and COVID: Will Truth Prevail?" Imprimis 50(2):1-7; e.g., "A recent study confirms that up to 78 percent of cancers were never detected due to missed screening over a three-month period. If one extrapolates to the entire . . . [U.S.], 750,000 to over a million new cancer cases over a nine-month period will have gone undetected," p.2.), but Wikipedia considers him unreliable. Kdammers (talk) 23:23, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

North Korea
North Korea's data need to be updated. As of 2022.05.20, the official death toll is sixty-two and the reported cases over two million. https://www.cnn.com/2022/05/20/asia/north-korea-covid-outbreak-drive-kim-jong-un-nukes-intl-hnk/index.html Kdammers (talk) 23:29, 20 May 2022 (UTC)

USA Deaths/million
Is Deaths/million for USA stuck at 3331? 79.21.140.109 (talk) 08:13, 30 June 2023 (UTC)