Wikipedia:Reference desk/Archives/Miscellaneous/2021 July 1

= July 1 =

According to official statistics,
4 million people have perished due to COVID-19. However, not all Covid deaths are counted as such. Some suggest "excess deaths" is a better measure. So the question is what is the total number of excess deaths across all countries since the start of the pandemic? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 163.202.51.17 (talk) 11:41, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
 * This could be a very tricky question. Some people may have died of other causes because they were unable to receive proper treatment due to overburdened medical facilities. I have a friend who had a delayed cancer diagnosis and still more delayed treatment due to this. He is still alive, but other instances are virtually certain to have led to deaths. Do such deaths count as excess? We really have no way of knowing if the patients would have survived over this period even with proper treatment in normal circumstances.--Khajidha (talk) 11:53, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
 * And my friend has just been declared terminal. I can't say for certain that the outcome would have been different without a pandemic, but it deifinitely didn't help.--Khajidha (talk) 20:49, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

Understood. I am also interested in the overall impact of the pandemic on mortality. The type of death you are describing can be indirectly attributed to the pandemic. It can also go the other way, for example, in my country, accidental and violent deaths are reduced due to the impact of lockdowns. So excess deaths will still be useful to me. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 163.202.51.17 (talk) 12:08, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
 * COVID deniers have been saying the "official" numbers are exaggerated because some people die from other complications exacerbated by COVID, not from COVID alone. In any case, it can be tricky pinning down a single cause of death. ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 14:25, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
 * According to WHO, two to three times more than the official number: Rmhermen (talk) 02:24, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Interestingly, last year the usual seasonal flu outbreak, which normally results in several hundred thousand deaths, did not happen. This will have diminished excess mortality last year, but it may now return with a vengeance. --Lambiam 03:00, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Excess mortality during the Coronavirus pandemic (COVID-19) echoes Lambiam's point above and points out that many developing countries lack the infrastructure to compile mortality statistics. Alansplodge (talk) 15:16, 2 July 2021 (UTC)

United Kingdom portal not on any of the Scotland articles?
As Scotland is an important part of the United Kingdom why is the "United Kingdom" portal not on any Scotland pages?Greenfinchchick (talk) 20:47, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I feel there is a certain political bias on show here. Scotland is part of the United Kingdom.  I find it very strange that the "United Kingdom portal" is just not present on the vast majority of the articles on Scotland within Wikipedia?  I thought Wikipedia was an unbiased encyclopaedia?Greenfinchchick (talk) 20:57, 1 July 2021 (UTC)


 * It is IMO stranger that our article on Wales does not link to the UK portal. Whether the link is present or not on any given article depends mainly on whether some editor (such as you) thought the article would improve if they added it – and then took the effort of adding it. Their relative absence on Scotland pages is (I think) not due to editors actively removing them, which might point to a nationalist bias. (Such a link was removed from the Wales article, though.) I myself never click on portal links, and I find it hard to see why some editor felt that the presence of a link to the UK portal improves, e.g., our article on Harold Kroto. Most articles that are related to England also have no such link, though (e.g. Animal Farm, Bad Parliament, English national identity, Josiah Wedgwood, 1st Baron Wedgwood, and Liverpool). It is not simple to examine whether the relative absence on Scotland-related articles is more pronounced. --Lambiam 02:46, 2 July 2021 (UTC)


 * Thanks for your suggestion. When you believe an article needs improvement, please feel free to change it. We encourage you to be bold in updating pages, since wikis like ours develop faster when everybody edits. Don't worry too much about making honest mistakes—they're likely to be found and corrected quickly. You can always preview your edits before you publish them or test them out in the sandbox. If you need additional help, check out our getting started page or ask the friendly folks at the Teahouse.   DuncanHill (talk) 06:11, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Is the UK portal active and useful? Many portals are quite moribund and there have been drives to get rid of the entire portal system in the last few years.--Khajidha (talk) 11:44, 2 July 2021 (UTC)


 * I added the United Kingdom portal to a couple of pages this morning and they have been reverted. The only reason for this is political bias.  see the "Dunoon" and "Argyll and Bute". The person who reverted is implying that my edit was political rather than factual.  The fact they leave the Scotland portal on the pages shows it is not a dislike of portals. This admin/user is using a form of intimidation of the worst kind. This user should be censured.  If you look down the Dunoon page history this admin/user actually had someone else blocked from the site for doing the same edit topic, of Scotland in the United Kingdom! Greenfinchchick (talk) 13*:12, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
 * The user who reverted you is not an admin. Do you have a specific type of sensor in mind for him? Perhaps a sockpuppet detector that does not give false positives? --Lambiam 15:55, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Thank you for pointing out my spelling mistake.Greenfinchchick (talk) 16:02, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I think you mean censured, though. --Lambiam 16:57, 3 July 2021 (UTC)
 * My spelling has always been somewhat rubbish.Greenfinchchick (talk) 17:16, 3 July 2021 (UTC)


 * I do not think this sort of blatant intimidation and political bias should NOT go unpunished. Especially as they have people blocked from editing!Greenfinchchick (talk) 16:02, 2 July 2021 (UTC)


 * If you have not yet looked at what this user wrote on my talk page, I suggest you do. This is political posturing, camouflaged as neutral point of view.  How can stating actual fact that Scotland is in the UK be political, when it is fact, even though a vocal minority wish otherwise.Greenfinchchick (talk) 18:30, 2 July 2021 (UTC)


 * In addition I have nothing to do with or know the other user who this person had banned from the site!Greenfinchchick (talk) 18:33, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
 * This is a reference desk, not the place to discuss blatant intimidation and political bias going unpunished, nor political posturing or camouflage of NPOV. Nor is it the place to discuss with which other users you might have something to do. ---Sluzzelin talk  19:27, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I agree, but we might mention what is the right place to do that. --174.94.31.124 (talk) 23:45, 2 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I suggest that a discussion at Wikipedia talk:WikiProject United Kingdom might be the best way to reach a consensus, but do try not to use inflammatory language. Alansplodge (talk) 14:39, 3 July 2021 (UTC)
 * I left a pointer on the Wikipedia talk:WikiProject United Kingdom.Greenfinchchick (talk) 15:47, 3 July 2021 (UTC)

Question about disability benefit in Canada
I have a disability. I hear in America disabled people can get a free phone. Can the government of Canada give me a free phone? 2001:569:7D96:1E00:6886:71F5:80DF:B3E6 (talk) 23:26, 1 July 2021 (UTC)
 * Have you tried contacting anyone in the government? ←Baseball Bugs What's up, Doc? carrots→ 00:07, 2 July 2021 (UTC)


 * Don't worry about it. Someone off of Quora give me this answer:https://www.quora.com/I-have-a-disability-mental-illness-I-hear-in-America-disabled-people-can-get-a-free-phone-Can-the-government-of-Canada-give-me-a-free-phone/answer/Heather-Asa-Booker?__nsrc__=4&__snid3__=23190379199 2001:569:7D96:1E00:6886:71F5:80DF:B3E6 (talk) 01:26, 2 July 2021 (UTC)