Wikipedia talk:WikiProject COVID-19/Archive 6

Generic pre-2019 coronavirus-like pandemic predictions, aka "We told you so"
Do we have a section or article for generic pre-2019 coronavirus-like pandemic predictions? There are quite a few references to CIA and French security services warning Western governments that a pandemic more or less like the one happening now was reasonably likely on a decade-or-so time scale, especially post-SARS. E.g. in French this toot (archive) with a scan of a Canard enchaîné article: CIA Sep 2005 to Obama; July 2008 White paper on security and national defence in France - pandemic in the coming 15 years (quite accurate); 2013, equivalent French White paper; Dec 2017, Defence Ministry strategic review of defence and national security, France, risk of a new virus crossing the species boundary. (The toot itself is not a source - it's online social media, but there's enough info in there to trace the sources.) Boud (talk) 01:05, 9 April 2020 (UTC)


 * Just so long as we're not going all the way back to George R. Stewart's Earth Abides (but even War of the Worlds is something of a precursor). Institutionally the WHO would be a good place to start. kencf0618 (talk) 02:25, 9 April 2020 (UTC)


 * See also the literature on "the next pandemic" as per the Scholia profile. -- Daniel Mietchen (talk) 10:52, 9 April 2020 (UTC)


 * Thanks for the suggestions. If we don't have any existing material in the most obvious Wikipedia places to look, then I think just a short paragraph would be plenty to start with - mainly just for people who need some solid evidence to counteract the claim "nobody expected it". I agree that open-access research papers are an obvious high-quality type of source for this - along with the security services' reports (those that are public). In Scholia I found CIHR Research: SARS: Make No Mistake - There Will Be a Next Time (Healthcare Quarterly, |url-access=subscription, only the abstract is open-access) and The Next Epidemic — Lessons from Ebola (NEJM, open-access).  you're right that "next pandemic" is a good choice of keyword - these two refs are quite explicit in their titles. I'll insert this somewhere later if nobody else does it first. I think this overlaps a bit with the "Background" section above on this talk page... Boud (talk) 12:27, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
 * A related topic is Disease X. -- Daniel Mietchen (talk) 13:18, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
 * There is indeed an increasing litterature and need on the "they told us so" topic.
 * I started to wrote a short COVID19 shortages#Background which could kick start such article, but takes an POV more like "state of the defenses forces before battle".
 * I also gathered this so far:


 * https://www.nytimes.com/2020/04/08/nyregion/new-york-coronavirus-response-delays.html
 * https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/04/08/the-coronavirus-will-destroy-turkeys-economy/
 * 04-09: Coronavirus is the greatest global science policy failure in a generation https://theguardian.com/commentisfree/2020/apr/09/deadly-virus-britain-failed-prepare-mers-sars-ebola-coronavirus
 * Eric Feigl-Ding also has a such section.
 * It would be good to have kind of lead up, a Pandemic preparedness and awareness before COVID article for sure. Yug (talk)  17:31, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Pandemic predictions and preparations prior to COVID-19. A lot of the content so far, and I suspect the content that will be added, is about unpreparedness, but the generic title is sufficient. Unpreparedness is the zero or negative subclass of preparedness. ✅ Boud (talk) 23:20, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
 * , thank you ! I will be happy to use it via excerpt if it become suitable for that usage.
 * Please, all, this article is critical to held leaders and economic models accountable to tinker them.
 * If you can, contribute. If you have limited time but bump into "Preparedness failures" sources, please at share them into Talk:Pandemic predictions and preparations prior to COVID-19. So someone can pick up and integrate it. Yug  (talk)  10:58, 10 April 2020 (UTC)


 * I think Pandemic predictions and preparations prior to COVID-19 is a good start but currently a bit orphaned on the preparedness side, where preparedness is thin, pandemic prevention has lots of gaps and pandemic preparedness is missing, while various US-centric articles exist (mostly on legislation), along with a broader cluster around emergency management, where planning is again not very detailed. -- Daniel Mietchen (talk) 04:43, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Possible source
I found an article by The Guardian discussing the coronavirus's impact on animals especially zoos. I wasn't sure if it would be useful as a source and if so where to put it. Any thoughts on this? Sak ura Cart elet Talk 00:48, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Discusses the effects of the lockdown, not the virus itself. Fits in the area code of Socio-economic impact of the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic and Effect of the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic on the arts and cultural heritage. However these media pieces of "shutdown affecting something" are very common.--Pestilence Unchained (talk) 06:41, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Interesting stat about editing
The number of edits on enwiki rose 9.27% from February to March. Darylgolden(talk) Ping when replying 09:28, 8 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Woah, that's quite substantial! In light of comments below. &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb }&#125;   talk 18:35, 10 April 2020 (UTC) &#123;{u&#124;  Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 07:38, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
 * These numbers are not normalized by the number of days per month (March had 6.9% more days than February this year).
 * Here is an attempt to quantify COVID-19-related edits: https://covid-data.wmflabs.org/ (click "... per project" to get enwiki-specific numbers).
 * Regards, HaeB (talk) 07:50, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
 * In 2019 the increase from February to March was 9.0%. Per day we saw a 1.6% drop last year and a 2.2% increase this year. Nothing too dramatic. --mfb (talk) 07:58, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
 * more people at home. I guess more people spending more time online. --  Ohc  ¡digame! 09:03, 9 April 2020 (UTC)
 * But also facing degraded internet performance due to COVID:, .--Pestilence Unchained (talk) 06:43, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Creation of the article Face masks during the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic
I thought that members of this WikiProject would like to be notified about the recently created article Face masks during the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic. It could use some other editors giving it a look. MarkZusab (talk) 00:35, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

NY Times and the Red Dawn emails
Are we covering this bit of scandal? Jim.henderson (talk) 17:19, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
 * , do you have another link that is not the NYT, which has a significant paywall and blockage of browsing for normal Wikipedians doing verification? Elizium23 (talk) 17:25, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Please consider WP:PAYWALL, which allows paywall-protected articles even though they might not be necessarily available. I was able to access the article at the link provided as well as its own at this page. A snapshot of the article has been archived here. -- Tenryuu 🐲  ( 💬 • 📝)  19:00, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Reporting on emails is weird. It's even weirder than reporting on Twitter or Instagram posts, because on walled-garden social media, people and their posts are authenticated. Email like this has no cryptographic authentication or integrity. This is essentially Wikileaks, and you know we don't trust Wikileaks as a reliable source. This is not "journalism": this is lazy, irresponsible clickbait. Elizium23 (talk) 19:05, 12 April 2020 (UTC)


 * Another, shorter report, two weeks older, from a more specialized publication.  Jim.henderson (talk) 20:53, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

How to handle North Korea in maps?
So North Korea is still claiming, implausibly, that they have no cases. As there become fewer and fewer countries without cases, they stick out more and more in a misleading way. Our world map of cases per capita (our most important map, since it appears at the top of the main pandemic article infobox) currently has a "no cases or no data" color which merges the two distinct categories together. I recently proposed that we add a "suspected cases" color, as is done at File:COVID-19 Outbreak Cases in Asia.svg, but the map's creator,, brought up very valid concerns that this could open up a can of worms if we don't agree on what precisely is needed for there to be a "suspected case". How should we handle this? &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 18:40, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
 * How about just making the entire country black or a dark grey for "information blackout" and caption it as "COVID-19 conditions: Unknown". Shearonink (talk) 18:42, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Definitely not in black. I would mark it just the same way other countries without officially confirmed cases have been marked in the past. There is no information blackout. There are plenty of official updates. However, some media outlets dispute these updates and claim that the government of DPRK is lying. --MarioGom (talk) 18:48, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Perhaps not black but something needs to indicate that the official stats are being called into question by multiple reliable sources...the statistical odds that NK is being truthful about their COVID-19? - are about nil. Shearonink (talk) 19:02, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Multiple reliable sources are perplexed about official data, but as far as I know, the only sources that present actual disputes, are really dubious (e.g. Daily NK rumors). In any case, the whole thing is probably best handled in a footnote? --MarioGom (talk) 19:08, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

re about DPRK data being implausible, I definitely do not agree with that. Whether it is true or not, it seems plausible: the most hermetic country in the world, which closed the country to foreign tourists and started quarantine measures as early as January... well, if it is plausible to prevent importing cases in any country, that's probably North Korea (or some remote island in the Pacific). --MarioGom (talk) 19:11, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Ok. Lots of different opinions, no consensus etc. The actual truth may never be known. Shearonink (talk) 19:14, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I guess one day we will know. But in the meantime, I don't think we should say that the DPRK has no data, or that it is lying (in Wikipedia voice), etc. In the end, it is a similar case with other countries where confirmed cases is high because of mass testing, or low because of lack of testing, or deaths are underreported, etc. But we represent official data for all of them. We have footnotes and all kinds of clarifications to help interpreting data, but I'm not aware of any case where we are just overriding data. --MarioGom (talk) 19:32, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree. The problem is not limited to North Korea. If we have a strong source for cases in North Korea we could think about an exception (make it shaded with a new footnote or so). --mfb (talk) 03:43, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

Discussion at Template talk:2019–20 coronavirus pandemic sidebar
You are invited to join the discussion at Template talk:2019–20 coronavirus pandemic sidebar. &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 21:46, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I would remove the entire "institutions" section. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 18:25, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Impact of the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic on public transport
I invite project members to help expand Impact of the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic on public transport.

Stay safe, --- Another Believer ( Talk ) 20:23, 14 April 2020 (UTC)

Graphs for 2019-20 coronavirus pandemic
If anyone's interested, there's a current discussion over animated graphs at Talk:2019-20 coronavirus pandemic. — Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 )  06:55, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Smartphone/bluetooth COVID-19 projects
There are at least four parallel software projects for smartphone/bluetooth/tracing software that aims to protect privacy: and there is a bunch of declarations of how the software should protect privacy, and how government agencies should be constrained in their practical and legal management in relation to the software:
 * https://github.com/ProteGO-app (Poland)
 * https://github.com/DP-3T/documents (Europe, started in Switzerland)
 * https://github.com/TCNCoalition/TCN (no obvious national links)
 * https://bluetrace.io/ (Singapore)
 * https://www.amnesty.org/download/Documents/POL3020812020ENGLISH.pdf
 * https://www.ccc.de/en/updates/2020/contact-tracing-requirements
 * https://github.com/TCNCoalition/TCN/blob/main/ContactTracingBillOfRights.md
 * https://law.mit.edu/pub/covid19contacttracingprivacyprinciples

The Singapore software is already implemented en masse, it seems to me (I haven't checked this), so this is not crystalballing in terms of being already on people's phones, even though most of the projects are still in the development phase, it seems to me. The above projects/protocols all claim to be free-licensed and aim at privacy protection, so they are likely to develop rapidly (though hosting at github blocks/bans readers in Crimea, Cuba, Iran, North Korea, Sudan, Syria). Tech media reports on these projects should provide material for an article such as Pandemic phone-tracing software. Right now this would be COVID-19 related, but in the long term, would be valid for other pandemics.

The privacy issue would also be a core issue of the article, since Google/Apple, well-known for their massive privacy violations and totalitarian tracking of the world's population, are getting involved, and governments around the world would very likely be happy to have detailed tracking of the movements of 7 billion people for controlling dissidence, street demonstrations and other forms of spatial-location-linked political opposition.

Any better proposals for a name? The hyphen in Pandemic phone-tracing software is to distinguish Pandemic-phone tracing software (whatever that might mean) from Pandemic phone-tracing software. Boud (talk) 14:54, 12 April 2020 (UTC)


 * Once someone (me or someone else :)) starts the article, this (in French) is a very nice 4-part broad overview, with brief background from previous centuries' pandemic controls, of the privacy issues and governments tracking COVID-19 data in general - including data like all of our case counts and deaths data and getting on to the phone-tracing software topic. Boud (talk) 15:54, 12 April 2020 (UTC)


 * UK: NHSX smartphone app with no easy-to-find evidence of free-licensing and code review: https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2020/apr/12/uk-app-to-track-coronavirus-spread-to-be-launched + https://digital.nhs.uk/services/nhs-app
 * Boud (talk) 23:43, 12 April 2020 (UTC)


 * Such an article already exists, currently under Coronavirus app. There are many such projects, the most comprehensive overview is probably this Google Doc (not a citable source itself, but contains links to many suitable references). Note that Friday's announcement by Google and Apple has changed this space considerably. Regards, HaeB (talk) 05:27, 13 April 2020 (UTC)


 * Thanks! The article is now called COVID-19 apps and I think it has got off to a reasonable start, though copyediting is needed. Boud (talk) 16:42, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Cardiovascular Effects of COVID-19
Looks like the systemic impact of COVID-19 has been greatly underestimated.

I have many anecdotal reports (from Italy) of serious cardiovascular effects but very little has been published so far (see ). Some studies are about to come out and I will share them as soon as they do (based on autopsies and angiographies). There are reports of a lot of amputations of extremities, severe vasculitis and thrombosis, especially in fatal cases. They are trying heparin on patients now.

Will share if anything published comes up. Should be soon. Has anybody read anything on this that we can use to update the various articles? The nature review above is already included in COVID-19 but only marginally.

-- Gtoffoletto (talk) 15:11, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
 * More details on heparin study in Italy . This is the Italian Pharma Agency with a review on the rationale for using heparin. AIFA has documents like this one for several of the most promising experimental treatments to COVID such as hydroxychloroquine Lopinavir/ritonavir Azitromycin etc.: https://www.aifa.gov.it/aggiornamento-sui-farmaci-utilizzabili-per-il-trattamento-della-malattia-covid19 This is a treasure trove for those articles. I can assist in translation if necessary but Google Translate does a good job. -- Gtoffoletto  (talk) 15:27, 14 April 2020 (UTC)


 * Looks like many docs in Italy have identified Disseminated intravascular coagulation as the main culprit behind COVID. Studies coming. -- Gtoffoletto (talk) 20:08, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Community spread
I am requesting someone to either improve Community spread / Community transmission section or start an article on the topic. Thanks.Epiphyllumlover (talk) 01:19, 13 April 2020 (UTC)
 * A definition of "imported cases" should be added there, with a reference to any of the WHO situation reports, though the recent ones might not have many countries left where the classification is still "Imported"; in that case go to one of the earlier situation reports, from e.g. February. Boud (talk) 01:42, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Boud, the Spillover infection article is about animals, but then someone put coronavirus into the see also section. It is maybe the same thing as imported cases, or maybe just close.--Epiphyllumlover (talk) 21:11, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

COVID-19 stub types
Howdy all, and thanks for getting this project together! As a member of WikiProject Stub sorting, I'm concerned about the creation of a stub template and stub category (COVID-19-stub / ) for articles related to the coronavirus. It was not discussed at the WPSS proposals page, and in many cases it seems to be applied to articles about subjects which are not specifically about the virus. I would like to respectfully suggest that the COVID-19 project use the "stub-class" method to tag the talk pages of relevant articles. Please come discuss this at the WPSS talk page if you are interested. Her Pegship (I'm listening) 02:25, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Covid-19 and Related news in Myanmar
Aprl 2, Myanmar Army showed and announce their camps to facility quarantine 15000 persons in Naypidaw and 2000 persons in Yangon comeback from other country. https://news-eleven.com/article/167447-နေပြည်တော် စစ်ကြောရေးနှင့် တည်းခိုရေးစခန်းတွင် COVID-19 စောင့်ကြည့်လူနာ တစ်သောင်းခွဲ ထားနိုင်ရန် စီစဉ်ထားပြီး လက်ရှိတွင် လူတစ်ထောင်ကျော် လက်ခံနိုင်ရန်အတွက် အဆင်သင့်ပြင်ဆင်ထား

In April 6, The Committee for Corona Virus Disease 19 (COVID-19)of Myanmar announce to supply foods - rice and 5 items to all irregular income family and reduce 150 electrical units-charge supplying to all households. Myanmar Army announce to donate their one month salary including General Min Aung Hlaing salary to use for Covid-19 Prevent,Control and Curing https://news-eleven.com/article/168259-တပ်မတော်ကာကွယ်ရေးဦးစီးချုပ် အပါအဝင် တပ်မတော်အရာရှိ၊ စစ်သည်များနှင့် အရပ်သား အစားခန့် ဝန်ထမ်းများ၏ လုပ်ခလစာမှ COVID-19 ရောဂါ ကာကွယ်၊ ထိန်းချုပ်၊ ကုသရေးအတွက် ငွေကျပ် ၂ ဒသမ ၂၄၅ ဘီလျံကျာ် လှူဒါန်း

In April 6,Mandalay Mayor restrict Transportation Express car not to enter to Mandaylay - which is to reduce Coronavirus spreading. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Saitunzaw (talk • contribs) 11:55, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

2019–20 coronavirus pandemic on social media
2019–20 coronavirus pandemic on social media is being edited as part of an educational assignment. Improvements and talk page feedback are welcome. --- Another Believer ( Talk ) 14:25, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

WikiProject COVID-19: One Month Anniversary
Thanks to the many editors who have contributed to this project. One month since its inception, WikiProject COVID-19 is approaching 150 participants.

Keep starting discussions, asking questions, and identifying concerns. Most importantly, stay safe, --- Another Believer ( Talk ) 21:46, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Structured data on Covid images hosted on Commons
Hello. I created a campaign to improve description of images related to Covid on c:Commons:ISA Tool. Please jump in and help in adding captions and depicts. This is here : https://tools.wmflabs.org/isa/campaigns/61

Thanks Anthere (talk)
 * --- Another Believer ( Talk ) 22:57, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Help setting up archive
Help! Help! My Wiki Foo is not strong enough to finish a archive bot! I setup Miszabot to archive the brazil's pandemic talk page after 7d of inactivity on a thread, and set it up to archive on monthly articles. The template should've listed the archives on it, or do i need to configure something else ? Can someone from the project more experienced setting this up help me, thanks ? --Hagnat (talk) 09:44, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Mdaniels5757 (talk) 23:58, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * ✅ (kinda). The header at the very top doesn't play nice with year/month archives, but I've added a box next to the table of contents. --Mdaniels5757 (talk) 00:21, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Thank you :D --Hagnat (talk) 12:25, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Coronavirus pandemic templates and notable deaths
This comment addresses two related issues: 1) the inclusion of "notable deaths" in navigational templates such as 2020 coronavirus pandemic in the United Kingdom and 2020 coronavirus pandemic in France, and 2) the inclusion of said templates on the biographies of those individuals. I realize the pandemic is hot on everyone's mind, but I propose that both practices should be abandoned, per issues of disproportionate emphasis, relevance, taste, and minimizing recentism. I have previously raised this at Template talk:2020 coronavirus pandemic in the United States, but will summarize my arguments here, in hopes of generating broader consensus and precedence. WP:NAVBOX states (emphasis added): Navigation templates are particularly useful for a small, well-defined group of articles... All articles within a template relate to a single, coherent subject... The articles should refer to each other, to a reasonable extent. I maintain that notable deaths follow none of the WP:NAVBOX guidelines. Navigation boxes should not be collections of loosely related trivia, nor serve only to satisfy morbid curiosity. We don't list every notable person who has died from AIDS at HIV and AIDS, nor do we plaster the template on every biography who has contracted or died from the disease.

While articles directly about the pandemic in their respective countries make sense to include, as they tightly and logically relate to each other, I think it is bad taste, undue weight, and misguided to slap this template on assorted biographies that have absolutely nothing in common besides how they spent the last days of their life. It makes little sense to draw readers from these biographies into dozens of articles that are otherwise exclusively about pandemics. What logical set includes Peter J. N. Sinclair, Eddie Large, and Alexander Thynn, 7th Marquess of Bath? What logical, non-trivial thread would compel us to direct readers, after reading one biography, towards any other in the template, let alone Clap for our Carers, NHS Louisa Jordan Hospital or legislation regarding the pandemic? Notable deaths from the pandemic are already compiled at List of deaths due to coronavirus disease 2019.

The specific templates under the scope of this discussion (i.e. those that currently include or previously included notable deaths) are:
 * 2020 coronavirus pandemic in Canada
 * 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic in mainland China
 * 2020 coronavirus pandemic in France
 * 2020 coronavirus pandemic in the Philippines
 * 2020 coronavirus pandemic in the United Kingdom
 * 2020 coronavirus pandemic in the United States (notable deaths recently removed, but this may change at any moment)

To summarize my arguments:
 * 1) Notable deaths should not be in coronavirus navigation boxes, as the biographies do not form a coherent, logically-connected set
 * 2) The templates should not be placed on biographies of victims, as the majority of articles in the templates are largely or entirely unrelated to the biography. --Animalparty! (talk) 21:56, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
 * , I could not agree more. Elizium23 (talk) 22:24, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree too. —Granger (talk · contribs) 22:00, 15 April 2020 (UTC)


 * Absolutely—take these out. Bio page is the right place to discuss cause of death. buidhe 18:22, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Template help
Hi all, is someone able to help with the Template:2019–20 coronavirus pandemic data/Venezuela medical cases chart? Unlike a lot of the other country case charts, it doesn't have any collapse options (e.g. by month, death, last X days, or to collapse entirely). At first this was fine, there weren't many cases and it was small. Now it displays as shown here, and disrupts the article it's on. I was also wanting to add it to some of the related Venezuela crisis and medical articles, but if it's so big it just won't be suitable. I'm not sure where in the template code to add collapse options, but I'm sure someone here will have worked on e.g. the Spain one, which has them - any help or suggestions appreciated. Kingsif (talk) 17:34, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
 * done. played around a bit. hopefully it is right. robertsky (talk) 19:23, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Great - thanks! Kingsif (talk) 20:41, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Essential businesses / Essential government functions / Essential activities articles
I looked for relevant articles and only found
 * 10 Essential Public Health Services
 * Essential services

but both are irrelevant. So is non-essentialism. Could someone start articles on one or more of these topics, or add new sections to the Essential services article?

Unrelated to these is that there is no article on close contact, but it seems to me this could be a useful article. The term is used on the contract tracing article with no clarification as to what it means, (and possibly one could get the impression that it implies sexual contact).

Also, there are no articles in general about underlying medical conditions, although there is an article on intercurrent disease in pregnancy.

There are no articles about nonmedical masks or non-surgical masks, although there is an article on cloth face masks.

The phrase presumptive cases is in many articles, but there is no article on the topic.--Epiphyllumlover (talk) 03:53, 18 April 2020 (UTC)


 * Some of these are not encyclopedic concepts; people just need to understand the definition of words. "Presumptive cases" are cases that are presumed. It could possibly be a redirect somewhere, but there's no need for an article that just says that a person is presumed to have an illness when they are showing symptoms but have not tested positive for the disease. Maybe add a few words of context to the sentence it's used in? "Underlying medical conditions" is in the same boat. It's a medical condition that is underlying. A "nonmedical mask" would be literally any mask that is not a medical mask. "Close contact"... I don't really know how to explain this. It is contact that is close. Close contact. Natureium (talk) 04:33, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Thank you for looking at them. Yes, some may be better as subsections with a redirect. As for "underlying medical conditions," a search on Google scholar for "intercurrent illness" gives 64,200 results. Presumptive cases gives 186,000 results on Google scholar, but really only makes sense in terms of the distinction between presumptive vs. confirmed cases. An article detailing the difference might explain, for example, the vast disparity between the number of presumed cases of H1N1 vs. the number of confirmed cases, and how this seriously affected estimates of how severe it was, or what mortality was. Or instead of an article, maybe a section on COVID-19 testing is more appropriate. Current standards used by different countries for determining what constitutes a presumed Covid-19 case could be useful. Nonmedical mask is not the same thing as a non-surgical mask, (I think), but I can't explain the difference. I should go look this up more. An article on Close contact might list which diseases are considered close-contact infections (or maybe which infectious agents are close-contact infectious agents), and which aren't. Another dynamic would be for medical workers: I understand some are considered to be in close contact with infected patients, and some aren't. It seems that some hospitals have different PPE standards for different types of workers depending on whether they are in close contact with patients or not. There is also the concept of "non-close contact" which gives 124 results in Google scholar. Where do people draw the line between what is close-contact and a non-close contact? There are descriptions in articles about people together in bars or airplanes who are considered non-close-contact. What is the standard for this? Six feet? Instead of an article, would this better fit into the Contact tracing article, or better fit into social distancing?


 * It seems to me that these are mostly the harder sort of articles to write about because they require either more extensive reading (to get a background), a medical background, or access to textbooks. I can't say I am eager to start one myself.--Epiphyllumlover (talk) 05:04, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Seeking input on AfC article, particularly for scientific accuracy.
We have a draft article Draft:2020 coronavirus pandemic super-spreaders that looks ready for mainspace. However, I wanted to check with this project first for two reasons:

1) Given the millions of people turning to Wikipedia, we want to ensure all new articles about COVID-19 are airtight in terms of accuracy.

2) We also want to make sure that this isn't already fully covered somewhere else and indeed does need its own article.

Feel free to reply here or on the drafts talk page, I'll try to monitor both. I really appreciate all y'all are doing with this project and helping to prove just how valuable what we are building is. Sulfurboy (talk) 23:57, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
 * , would you like me to give it a copyedit first or wait for others to double-check how reliable it is? There are many syntactical issues with it which may be obfuscating what it is trying to convey. — Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 )  00:14, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
 * , Oh feel free to edit as you see fit. Even though I was an English major, copyediting is embarrassingly not one of my strengths. Sulfurboy (talk) 00:24, 18 April 2020 (UTC)


 * Let someone check the English, especially the capitalization. There are some broken sentences and other issues, too.
 * The general writing style needs some work.
 * The lead introduces the concept of superspreaders instead of focusing on the article it's supposed to summarize. The section "Who is a Super-Spreader" introduces R0 instead of describing who is a superspreader.
 * The claim that asymptomatic people are untraceable is wrong, they can show up positive in tests.
 * "It is a well-known fact that, most of the current infections of the CoVid-19 are travel-related" - no. Give a reference, don't call it "well-known fact". I question that statement as community transmission is happening in so many places.
 * "Information on the CoVid-19 and its impact are reviewed and updated regularly [...]" - trivial and doesn't belong here.
 * The link in reference 13 is broken. I don't see how reference 14 backs the statement where it can be found.
 * Bad style/not encyclopedic: "as we write", "Even though these cases are presented with tragic one-off cases. Yet their statistical impact on the spread of the viruses is enormous." (also bold for no reason), "and ignorantly spread the virus"
 * Italy": "but ignored to get admitted to the hospital" - that's not what the source says. At the time he went to the hospital he didn't get admitted directly, but then returned just a few hours later. Most of the virus spreading happened before he went to the hospital. "and had an active month ahead" - that was not ahead.
 * Germany's superspreader (Heinsberg) is missing. With the cut-off at 10 the list is missing many people, many of them will never be found because most countries gave up detailed contact tracing. Instead of focusing on the number of infected people the article could focus on superspreaders that started larger outbreaks. These are easier to find and more likely to be reported, too.
 * The article needs major work. Grammar and spelling are an obvious point, the style needs to be improved, but also the content needs to be revisited. The references should be checked, I looked at three, one was broken and one didn't back the statement where it was, that's a bad ratio. I listed some specific points that need to be fixed but that's not an exhaustive list.
 * --mfb (talk) 00:33, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
 * , Yikes, that's quite a lot. So this shouldn't go anywhere anytime soon. Typically for articles we have a wide leniency of WP:AGF as long as notability is demonstrated (our only standard for AfC is "likely to pass an AfD"), however for obvious reason this was given no leash at all. I'll figure out a way to make sure this doesn't move back out of draft space again until we get the all clear from y'all. Sulfurboy (talk) 00:47, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Just finished a preliminary copyedit and wanted to give my take on it. A lot of sentences don't parse well, which obfuscates whatever the primary editor is trying to convey and the draft as a whole would not be suitable for the Wikipedia project; some issues I had have been left as hidden comments on the draft. As Mfb pointed out, there is a lot of non-neutral language being used and citations missing where there should be some ("It is a well known fact"). I also question the necessity of this article. I checked the excerpts on some of the countries mentioned on this article and some of the "first cases" don't coincide with those mentioned on the draft, and once some of the cruft is removed, there is very little content remaining that I question it getting its own sections. The scope is pretty narrow; why not expand on it and talk about epidemiology instead? If one searches Epidemiology of COVID-19 they get redirected to 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic by country and territory. There's a lot of content over many pages that talk about the virus' epidemiology that could be consolidated on there. — Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 )  01:40, 18 April 2020 (UTC)


 * Just FYI, I've requested and had accepted indefinte page create protection for the article to prevent it from being added to mainspace again, so this is something y'all can take your time with. I have zero knowledge about the subject, so just ping me if you think it's ready or feel free to move it in (if at all) into mainspace at y'alls own discretion. Cheers Sulfurboy (talk) 06:54, 18 April 2020 (UTC)


 * I had no time to look in-depth at the draft yet. But note that the draft has instances of "first cases", which is distinct from "super-spreaders." Also note that this topic is highly WP:BLP-sensitive given social stigma associated with COVID-19. --MarioGom (talk) 09:21, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I have posted further feedback to . --MarioGom (talk) 11:27, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Articles in scope?
Question: is the plan to tag the talkpage of every article of a person who dies from this disease with the WikiProject COVID-19 banner? I would strongly recommend against doing so, as it will blow up the article alerts for our project and is likely to interfere with our ability to ensure quality content in articles directly related to the project. I would note that most of the articles of people who died from HIV/AIDS do not have the WikiProject AIDS talkpage banner; it is only added if the person (such as Keith Haring) had a connection to the disease besides the cause of death, and I would recommend we follow the same practice here. UnitedStatesian (talk) 16:29, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
 * , I agree, and was planing to pose this very question to project members soon as well. I'm not sure tagging every person who contracts or dies from the disease is necessary. --- Another Believer ( Talk ) 16:44, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I brought this up awhile ago: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_COVID-19/Archive_4 there wasn't much discussion or resolution for it. At the time, I was concerned that everyone who was infected would be, ah, infected with the template... Elizium23 (talk) 16:49, 12 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I agree. I would ask when tagging: does this article need more than a couple of sentences about COVID-19? If the answer is no, it is unlikely that it is worth the attention at WikiProject level. --MarioGom (talk) 18:17, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Agreed. WikiProjects are nothing more than collections of editors with similar knowledge bases and interests to discuss and improve articles. An article about an American baseball player who studied psychology in college and died in France makes sense to include in WikiProject Baseball but not WikiProject Psychology or WikiProject France. Articles explicitly about about COVID-19, the virus, and the societal effects make sense to include in this project, but biographies of people who merely catch it, or even who die from it make little sense to include unless the user-base of WikiProject COVID-19 can offer a substantially different set of resources or perspectives than those who would normally edit/curate the biographies. And when this disease (hopefully) recedes in prominence in the coming months and years, and WikiProject COVID-19 users become largely inactive (which often happens with flash-in-the-pan projects, no matter how well-intended), having fewer tangential, miscellaneous, irrelevant articles means there will be less overhead maintenance required, and resources best focused on the most relevant articles. --Animalparty! (talk) 20:34, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
 * ,, I am pinging you all to call your attention to this discussion and hope you will remove the project templates you have added that seem contrary to this consensus. UnitedStatesian (talk) 06:55, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Ok, I'll start removing them now --Nintendofan885T&amp;Cs apply 08:08, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks so much! Best, UnitedStatesian (talk) 19:13, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

The Boat Race 2020
Right now The Boat Race 2020 is part of this project. Should it be? --- Another Believer ( Talk ) 20:27, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I don't think so. There are gazillions of cancelled events worldwide. Maybe thousands would pass WP:GNG. I don't think all of them should be included in the WikiProject. Articles with strong ties to COVID-19 should: List of events affected by the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic, Category:Events cancelled due to the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic... --MarioGom (talk) 21:40, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * , Agreed. Another editor has already removed the project tag, so we're all good here! --- Another Believer ( Talk ) 21:43, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I have removed the banner from a few other cancelled events, but further assistance would be of course appreciated. UnitedStatesian (talk) 23:02, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

Removal of current disaster templates
has recently been removing Template:Current disaster from dozens of coronavirus related articles on the basis of insufficient recent activity. I disagreed and posted a message on their talk page here. When should the current disaster template be used and is mass removal appropriate? Darylgolden(talk) Ping when replying 03:08, 17 April 2020 (UTC)


 * I have removed current from corona virus articles, which almost all had fewer than 10 editors participating a day. I have also removed current disaster from about 30 or so articles on this date, and these also have few editors participating. You can see as much in my edit history.     The guides for both of these templates are quite clear. They are intended for those rare occasions in which an article has many many editors participating, and the rationale is to keep high traffic by editors edits from stepping on each other and interfering with each other for a rapidly progressing event, which occurs rather rarely, in which an article has as many as several hundred edits a day.  The foundational event for the current was the 2004 Madrid train bombings which had some 800 edits in about three days.       The templates would benefit from being converted to a edit notice, which is their primary function.  The current disaster template is a copy, dedicated to high-editing traffic for natural disasters, such as floods earthquakes, wildfires and the like, as the guide indicates.   I  have undertaken end-of-life removals of current and current disaster for quite some time, as a review of my edit history for the last decade will indicate.    I have ceased removing the current disaster template at this time.  Yellowdesk (talk) 04:39, 17 April 2020 (UTC)


 * Support mass removal. current is to be used when many editors are rapidly editing an article. Given the fractured and varied nature of the COVID-19 articles, there is no focus of activity great enough to warrant the current templates. Elizium23 (talk) 04:41, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Template:Current disaster doesn't say anything about editing activity. It says the situation can change quickly and information might be outdated. That's true in many pandemic articles independent of their current activity. Articles with few editors working on them are even more likely to be outdated. --mfb (talk) 05:03, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
 * , we take cues from Help:Maintenance template removal and the current template, which among other things says The template should generally be removed when the event described is no longer receiving massive editing attention. It is not meant to be a general disclaimer indicating that an article's contents may not be accurate, or to mark an article that merely has recent news articles about the topic (if it were, hundreds of thousands of articles would have the Current template, with no informational consequence). If the article continues to have sourcing or cleanup issues, a more appropriate maintenance template should be used instead. Elizium23 (talk) 05:07, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Current disaster says: This template was created for those occasions that many editors (perhaps a hundred or more) edit an article on the same day, as an advisory to editors. which of our articles meet that standard? Elizium23 (talk) 05:13, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
 * It was created for that purpose. No one had a pandemic in mind when writing these texts: Health disasters were localized, limited to a few articles that were edited frequently. This is not the current situation. The whole world is in a health disaster where things can change on short notice, and due to the scope of the pandemic we have many articles instead of just a few. Sure, all articles can be outdated, but pandemic-related articles are disproportionate at risk. --mfb (talk) 05:36, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
 * , templates are ugly and cumbersome for readers to encounter. They are for transitory maintenance issues that must be attended to by editors. They are not a badge for informing editors that stuff may be out-of-date: editors know that already. There are categories and templates for tagging dated statements. If these categories and templates are properly used, then dated statements can be tracked and addressed. A big half-page template does nothing to help that. It is all noise and no signal. Elizium23 (talk) 05:39, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
 * We are not writing Wikipedia for editors. Most users are readers who are not familiar with the editing process. The template takes up a very small fraction of the page on the desktop version. I didn't check the mobile version. --mfb (talk) 06:09, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
 * There is already a disclaimer warning readers that every article is unreliable and subject to change, at the foot of each article. The templates are  superfluous for that purpose, and redundant. That is why it is necessary to have a clear end point to their use: when there is no editor interference, and there is no massive editing occurring, the purpose as described in the guides, and the purpose for their creation. It is time for these templates to come down, as none of these articles are subject to massive editing, and this event will be running for months. Yellowdesk (talk) 06:31, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Would anyone expect readers to scroll all the way down to the foot of the articles, especially long ones, just to notice the warning/disclaimer? robertsky (talk) 07:12, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
 * And I don't see that disclaimer warning readers that every article is unreliable and subject to change, at the foot of each article on desktop, logged in or otherwise. robertsky (talk) 07:16, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
 * General_disclaimer Yellowdesk (talk) 16:07, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Thanks. robertsky (talk) 16:50, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Current disaster also says: It is intended for use on articles for large natural disasters, such as severe weather, where official information should be consulted instead of Wikipedia exclusively. This template reminds readers that Wikipedia information may not be up-to-date and to consult secondary and primary sources instead. The situation on the ground for pandemics, even for localised areas, is everchanging, even after two months. For Singapore, its page lags behind the announcements and news reports hours at the least. With 8,000+ average daily pageviews, there will be some readers pursuing outdated information. robertsky (talk) 07:25, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

If anyone supports it, I'll mass remove them. Starzoner (talk) 16:37, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Support removal—If anyone assumes that Wikipedia is always accurate + up to date, that's on them, not us. Templates are unnecessary for most COVID-related articles. b<b style="color: White">uidh</b><b style="color: White">e</b> 09:41, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Hmm... If the argument was on the basis the that main pandemic article has already dropped the current template, I would have supported it from the get go. I just realised that it has been dropped there for a while already? A case of head buried in the sand for a bit too long here, and not checking in on the main article often enough. robertsky (talk) 16:50, 17 April 2020 (UTC)


 * Previous discussion: Folks, please check the archives/current consensus list a little more before discussion gets this far. This has already been discussed at some length at Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_COVID-19/Archive_4. Further discussion is certainly warranted, but it should start with the prior discussion as a jumping off point so that we're not just talking in circles repeating ourselves. &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 21:09, 17 April 2020 (UTC)


 * Support mass removal. For clarity, I will  state that use of the templates current and current disaster fail to follow the foundational creation intent of the templates,  and further fails to follow the longstanding guide to use, indicating that the templates are both intended to be used for those rare occasions that articles receiving with heavy editing traffic and not to denote the existence of the article as a category of a topic. The method to categorize events is via categories, as well as article lists, and the like. Yellowdesk (talk) 23:44, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Support removal. We are going to be dealing with this for a good year. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 01:24, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Not using Worldometer as a source in all COVID-19 related pages
In an informal discussion started by over at Template talk:2019-20 coronavirus pandemic data we have 3 editors (Doc James,, and ) unanimously agree on not using Worldometer as a source. Some admins/sysops also supported [] not us[ing] WorldOMeter as a source to report any figures. Should we add this to the current consensus, and if so, should we propagate this point over to all consensus posts over at each COVID-19-related article talk page? It doesn't seem many countries use Worldometer as a source anymore and are relying on their domestic sources for daily updates. -- Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 )  16:57, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
 * This might be surprising for those who have not followed discussions at Template talk:2019–20 coronavirus pandemic data and related pages during recent weeks. The reason for moving away from Worldometer is that several updates lack a source, do not match their cited source or contain errors. Here's a summary of common errors that are found in some aggregate sources: . Some errors are small and temporary, but some are relatively big and never corrected. IMHO the most frustrating part as an editor is answering to several users every day why this or that figure is incorrect and contradictory with reliable sources... --MarioGom (talk) 17:06, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
 * We generally have better sources. The problem will be getting other sources to stick. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 18:27, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
 * If there are errors and we have better alternatives let's put it in the consensus banner. -- Gtoffoletto (talk) 20:36, 14 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I haven't been following this, but I defer to those who have been involved. From this thread, it seems like something that should go on the current consensus list. &#123;{u&#124; Sdkb  }&#125;  talk 02:58, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
 * And to clarify I am happy with this going in "current consensus". Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 03:19, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Alright, so now that we've established consensus for adding this to the current consensus, how does everyone think the text should read? Right now I've got:

— Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 )  03:58, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
 * ,, , your thoughts? — Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 )  20:16, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Perfect for me. Only thing is: more sources are mentioned with common errors. Should we single WorldOMeters out? JHU is also mentioned. -- Gtoffoletto (talk) 20:24, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
 * is only part of the story (the most significant IMHO). I think Worldometer has been the subject of more discussions at 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic data. Also, current consensus at Cases in 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic is using JHU pages in o pagesur scope figures for latest worldwide totals. In any case, I agree with the consensus addition. --MarioGom (talk) 20:37, 15 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Sounds good. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 21:10, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Update: The item has been added to current consensus. Should we start adding this to the other COVID-19 article/template talk pages then? — Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 )  00:56, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Update: I've transcluded the current consensus to the main project page for visibility. If anyone can help get rid of the white box (which is most likely from the current consensus page) that'd be much appreciated. — Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 )  02:23, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Is there a way to place this together with the page specific consensus in all pages under the project? -- Gtoffoletto (talk) 09:28, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * , one method I can think of is substituting the template wherever it appears now and then renaming the subpage from "Current consensus" to "Current general consensus". — Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 )  14:57, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Update: Consensus has been removed from the main project page by Moxy. — Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 )  15:20, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Yup..best keep talks on talk pages associated with them... its why we have them. Main project page not the place to list every talk outcome for the projects 900 pages. We have RfC all over the place that can be linked in tlak pages were need be. No need to have the same banner as first thing people see on the project page as they do on tlak pages. -- Moxy 🍁 15:40, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * While that may be standard practice, an exception should be made as it is a general consensus and more people will see it as opposed to the comparative few who decide to continue on to the talk page. While I see your point about potential lengthiness how it is right now (I'd say up to a maximum of 5 or 6 points) appears to be fine. — Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 )  15:58, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * The list has been pretty short so far. Just a couple of points. It's important that some decisions are made in a coordinated and centralised way e.g. naming conventions otherwise it will be chaos. Not sure on the best way to place them in other pages but they definitely should be there. User:Moxy the consensus shouldn't include ALL decisions from each page. Each page should have it's own consensus and the general consensus items. Like a federal system with federal (project) laws and state (page) laws. -- Gtoffoletto (talk) 20:49, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Not sure if it was useful to have it on the project page. I agree with User:Moxy consensus should stay on the talk pages. -- Gtoffoletto (talk) 20:59, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * When consensus applies to a lot of pages though, may be useful here. But no strong feelings. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 21:16, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
 * agree we need to spread the consensus to all pages. See proposal below with you experience maybe you know of a better way. -- Gtoffoletto (talk) 23:13, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

"recovery phase"
Over the next weeks the topic of the "recovery phase" will emerge in many countries. it's also called "phase 2". This includes topics such as: which activities are opened first? which new measures are enacted? What are politicians saying? It does not mean it will be over of course, it's just the phase that comes after the (first) critical lockdown.

I took a look in the articles of mainland China and Austria, two countries which reduced the measures, for example but it looks like there is no standard yet about that.

Do you think that there will some standard title for such section? I would like to draft it in my sandbox about Italy in few weeks and it would help to get a general idea.--Alexmar983 (talk) 21:28, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Reassessment of importance
The article COVID-19 in pregnancy is currently rated as low importance to Wikiproject COVID-19, meaning that it has been assessed as being very specific or only affects a small group - given how many people around the world are pregnant (or be caring for people who are) at any given time, this surely cannot be the case? It would be useful to have the article importance reassessed to ensure that it receives editors' attention as it had been untouched for about a week until recently and had become out of date... Zeromonk (talk) 14:39, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

For reference, here's the current assessment criteria below, though by no means is it set in stone. — Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 )  15:05, 16 April 2020 (UTC)


 * Thanks for adding this - my reading would be that it's a general topic so I'm still not clear on why it was assessed as low importance? Zeromonk (talk) 15:17, 16 April 2020 (UTC)


 * As the person who made that chart as a draft, I can say that the criteria for the importance levels are too vague for some topics and I think the table should be redone. I would probably rate it as mid at this point. Username6892 22:36, 16 April 2020 (UTC)


 * thanks for responding! I'll change the level. I've not been involved in establishing these sort of criteria before but would be happy to help you need some assistance with a redraft. Zeromonk (talk) 07:23, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Yes, the assessment page discussion stumbles, but I might draft tables for separate topics later today and ask for feedback. I'll probably ping you both when I post Kingsif (talk) 17:36, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I've amended and expanded the importance scheme at WikiProject_COVID-19/Assessment - requesting input, if you wanted to discuss over at the Assessment talk page. Kingsif (talk) 19:45, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
 * What's the first table for? Username6892 19:52, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
 * 50,000 is too high for mid. As of now, I'd say 5000. Username6892 19:55, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
 * , given the different reporting criteria, testing capacity, etc, maybe we should consider deaths too. For example: High (+100,000 cases or +5,000 deaths) and Mid (+10,000 cases or +500 deaths). China, as the first country, would be the obvious exception. --MarioGom (talk) 23:35, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I wasn't sure whether to draw the importance line at 5,000 or 10,000, but yes, deaths should be counted as part of the criteria. Username6892 23:54, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Template:Education statistics on the 2019-20 coronavirus pandemic
Hello! Someone has contacted me about the education statistic calculated in the template Template:Education statistics on the 2019-20 coronavirus pandemic. When it is transcluded into 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic, it is accompanied by a hidden passage reading "This information seems wrong compared to the source, but it is actually not. The UNESCO source states the amount of learners affected by nationwide closures, not the amount affected by both nationwide and local. Hover over the graph and you can see the number of total closures. By using cross multiplication, the correct answer is achieved. (1.576/91.3 is equal to 1.716/x)--> per cent of the world's student population."

If we're using different calculation methods than UNESCO, why are we citing them? Is there not another source that would present this statistic? -- Zanimum (talk) 01:27, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Spanish translation
Hi all. I noticed this project has only been translated into a few languages, most notably not into Spanish. I wonder if a translation is already going on and if so, how could I join the team. If there is no translation project, I would like to know if you think I could start doing so. I am a researcher in the field of protein science and also a school teacher. Santituarte (talk) 10:47, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
 * , there is a Translation Task Force within this project. For questions specific to Spanish Wikipedia, it is better to ask at es:Wikipedia:Café. --MarioGom (talk) 18:12, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

template help on marathi wikipedia
Hello. An editor has made a request on some talkpage, I forgot; about help with mr:साचा:Medical cases chart mr:साचा:२०२० मधील महाराष्ट्रातील कोरोना विषाणू उद्रेक/चार्ट. Would someone please take a look at it? The template is in english. —usernamekiran (talk) 23:56, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
 * , There's nothing on the talk page of the page you've linked to, though I see there was a discussion on your talk page. Do you know what the Phabricator ticket number is? I believe either you or the person asking your for help should go to WP:VPT for a more technical answer. — Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 )  04:02, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Hi. Yes, the first discussion took place on an article talkpage; either of "...pandemic in India", or of "...pandemic in Maharashtra" state. I responded them there, and they responded on my talkpage. I will post the issue on VPT after I get the phab ticket or some other details from OP. Also, I corrected the template that needs the attention. Thanks Tenryuu. See you around :) —usernamekiran (talk) 09:27, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

RfC at the misinformation article
Interested users are invited to participate in the RfC at Talk:Misinformation related to the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic. Adoring nanny (talk) 22:49, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

Eurasianet
Hello all. I have been working on the content on the 2020 coronavirus pandemic in Tajikistan page since before the page was separated off and made into a separate page. Can Eurasianet articles be used on that page? Is that source considered reliable? How can I determine reliability for a source like that? Tajikistan is a neglected topic on Wikipedia- for example, just a few months ago, I had to upload the new map from the CIA Factbook in the wake of the China-Tajikistan border adjustment from 2011. Thanks for any help. Geographyinitiative (talk) 03:08, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
 * , you can ask about its reliability over at WP:RSN. Digging through the archives, I found only one passing mention of it near the bottom of this discussion. — Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 )  03:20, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
 * No need to post at a third loacation....but not to familiar with this Source so I will let someone else handle this question. Perhaps or   could help.-- Moxy 🍁 03:22, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Look reasonable IMO but I am no expert. Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 03:37, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Okay, I'm going to start including Eurasianet more. In this edit, I added information that was apparently confirmed by the Russian language Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty Geographyinitiative (talk) 05:07, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
 * , it looks usable. I would be cautious with any statement that may be contentious though. At least if it resembles RFE/RL in any way. RFE/RL-related media often publishes stories based on undisclosed anonymous sources, sometimes of dubious origin. If you see anything like that in the text, use in-text attribution with something like According to [website name here], anonymous sources said that [...]. --MarioGom (talk) 08:04, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Sounds like a good idea- I added one of those qualifiers: Geographyinitiative (talk) 09:21, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Pulse oximeters
Op ed by a New York physician: "The Infection That’s Silently Killing Coronavirus Patients", on the use of pulse oximeters for early detection. Andy Mabbett ( Pigsonthewing ); Talk to Andy; Andy's edits 12:05, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Helping expert contribution from UN agencies and other organisations
Hi all

I'm currently working as Wikipedian in Residence at UNESCO (funded by different Wikimedia orgs) where I've been for 5 years helping UN organisations share their knowledge on Wikipedia, I also write a lot of documentation for Wikipedia and Wikidata (which you can see on my user page).

Like with many organisations most of the UN system is now focused on COVID-19 response in their area of work. The UN is producing very high quality overviews of how COVID-19 is impacting different aspects of life, not just health but also education, agriculture, gender, domestic violence etc. I have contact with several senior people and experts in UN organisations who are really interested in sharing their knowledge on Wikipedia and I think their knowledge could really help. I've been thinking about how I could help them do this.

The UN staff have limited time to share their knowledge because of the pandemic so currently its not realistic to give them training to edit Wikipedia directly, I am working with some of them on open licensing the content, which will happen but not in the short term. I can act as an intermediary, working with them to collate information which I can share and I've been thinking about how best to do this, after talking to them and looking at their resources it seems like the best way to do it is to create areas on this Wikiproject to share information from them, specifically these pages which I've created drafts of. Whilst I'd be making them for UN sources they could easily be used by any other organisation producing reliable sources.


 * Missing topics: Which topics related to COVID-19 should Wikipedia cover? (working with experts to identify topic which aren't yet included in Wikipedia)
 * Main messages: What are the main messages organisations have on COVID related topics? (these messages would come from the UN agencies' websites and also from the staff directly)
 * Reference sources: What references sources are available on COVID-19 related topics? (UN agency reference sources which include references from their sources)

A couple of questions:


 * Are there any other other kinds of information we could ask for from UN orgs and other orgs?


 * Where would these resources best fit? I can see a couple of options:
 * Missing topics could have their own new tab, similar to how Women in Red does it. This could be really useful for collating missing topics from external sources.
 * The messages and individual sources could either be integrated into the sources tab, or could be split into their own tab (the current sources tab could be renamed researching sources or finding sources)

Thanks very much

John Cummings (talk) 13:00, 20 April 2020 (UTC)


 * Hi John, this could be very useful. In terms of adding information on the wider, less obvious impact of the pandemic in a useful, structured way, but also generally galvanising these orgs to share medical information in general. Is there any existing effort within Wikiproject Medicine on this? I think these are probably more than enough resources for now, but openly licensed images are obviously good, if they can get past the derivatives issue. Battleofalma (talk) 14:58, 20 April 2020 (UTC)


 * I follow a practice of only asking for one miracle at a time. I see two miracles here - one is asking for experts to provide original content, and the other is asking for experts to present their original content through a Wikimedia interface. I recommend only asking experts for expertise, perhaps by email or by sharing an official publication, then having a Wikimedian stage it on one of those message pages. The labor to edit the wiki is less scarce than the labor and getting the brand association of having expert suggestions recorded.
 * Consider the example model of information sharing in this medical campaign
 * American Society for Reproductive Medicine
 * Here we have a professional organization which published a one-sentence key message, and a one-paragraph more detailed explanation, and gave citations to academic sources backing this claim. I think that this model of asking for expert message suggestions is worth repeating. Your tables are very similar to this and I think you have a working model for communicating between wiki and external orgs.  Blue Rasberry   (talk)  20:40, 20 April 2020 (UTC)


 * thanks very much, I'm sorry I didn't make it clear before, I'm only asking for the miracle of content :) They would provide the content in whatever form they wanted to and then I would add it to the wikiproject myself, unless they were keen to learn. I want to make sure they spend the maximum amount of time compiling the content. Are there any changes that you would make to the tables I've suggested based on your experience? John Cummings (talk) 20:29, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

Criticism article
I just came across this article: Criticism of response to the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic. Is this an article we should have? Shouldn't criticism be included as relevant in articles about the pandemic in individual countries instead, as suggested at WP:CSECTION? —Granger (talk · contribs) 12:33, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
 * In case you or anyone else nominated it for deletion then I would support deletion per WP:INDISCRIMINATE. Orientls (talk) 12:42, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Maybe separate it into different articles, and then (eventually) replace with a list of all criticism articles. Tentative suggestions for criticism related article topics, whether they are developed anew or split:
 * 1. Censorship of outbreaks
 * 2. Deliberate under-testing
 * 3. Psychological perspectives (e.g. that quarantine is negatively impacting mental health, or that particular quarantine measures are to help pacify an unsettled populace rather than solve the problem, or that Sweden was prepared for hard times by Greta and that is why they are not as stringent)
 * 4. Criticism of border and transit related restrictions, (possibly with this (or maybe separate?) goes tourist industry related criticism, e.g. Indonesia, Door County)
 * 5. Supply related criticism (such as government actions related to PPE and testing)
 * 6. Profiteering related accusations, like product re-sellers, pharmaceutical interests
 * 7. Criticism of the WHO
 * 8. Election related criticisms, although aren't there already separate article(s) for this? There is already a separate racism/xenophobia article, too.


 * Some of the more minor sections could definitely be merged into other articles. That would not preclude the sections being included in a list article. I imagine the criticism aspect will continue long after the disease is more or less over. Disorderliness in the meantime is a symptom of the "too soon" dynamic at work here.--Epiphyllumlover (talk) 19:49, 18 April 2020 (UTC)


 * Part of the problem is that in most cases, "Criticism" articles aren't a good idea, as they are a magnet for NPOV problems. Most of the topics you listed should be incorporated into other articles—for example, criticism of transport restrictions should be covered in articles like this one and this one. Criticism of individual countries' responses should be covered in the articles about the pandemic in those countries. —Granger (talk · contribs) 20:12, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I will support your comment above if you are willing to support a "List of Criticism of response to the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic" article in return.--Epiphyllumlover (talk) 21:38, 18 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Do we have any other "lists of criticism" on Wikipedia? I'm honestly having trouble envisioning what that would look like. —Granger (talk · contribs) 01:57, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
 * No, there isn't. Last year, I improved the Criticism of the Catholic Church article with a great deal of hatnotes to articles that had criticism sections. This triggered anger, and I was advised to make a proper list article. I instead asked others for support and made multiple criticism pages organized among major topics-- especially using transcription of leads from existing articles. (,, , , ; as some of the transcription tags in the host articles have been removed right now, what you see in the links is not necessarily what it originally was) Each of these new articles was deleted and the previous supporters of the separate articles avoided commenting for the most part. I think I could do a good job of a list article for this, but it could take awhile. I don't want to do the work just to have it opposed, so I am floating the idea to you. If you consider my past work as linked to above too disorderly feel free to criticize it. I want to hear all the bad news before potentially doing the work.--Epiphyllumlover (talk) 04:52, 19 April 2020 (UTC)


 * I would support deletion or merger too because framing the topic as criticism is inherently contrary to WP:NPOV. Where's the equivalent article about praise?  The detailed issues tend to be contrary to WP:SOAP as opposition parties will naturally critcise the incumbents but that's mostly being wise after the event.  All such material should be presented in a balanced way within articles with neutral titles such as National responses to the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic. Andrew🐉(talk) 15:15, 20 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Couldn't you include criticism from both sides? How some say it is too much, and others too little?--Epiphyllumlover (talk) 20:08, 20 April 2020 (UTC)

I have nominated the article for deletion. Pinging all participants in this discussion: —Granger (talk · contribs) 23:26, 21 April 2020 (UTC)

IFR
Discussion is here Talk:2019–20_coronavirus_pandemic among other places. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 01:30, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia's response to the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic
In case others are not following the Disney discussion above, I've created a stub for Wikipedia's response to the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic. --- Another Believer ( Talk ) 15:09, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Does a German speaker have time to help at Talk:Wikipedia%27s_response_to_the_2019–20_coronavirus_pandemic? --- Another Believer ( Talk ) 19:48, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Similarly, can a Spanish speaker help at Talk:Wikipedia%27s_response_to_the_2019–20_coronavirus_pandemic? --- Another Believer ( Talk ) 19:49, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

The real number of cases
On the front page of The Charlotte Observer is an article that says "officials said" April 20 that the number of confirmed cases may be 5 to 10 percent of the total. I'm guessing even in the article about North Carolina, this isn't something worth mentioning. But is there anything about estimates like this in any of the articles? I can't provide an online source. I went to the web site and the article in my actual newspaper that I'm looking at right now doesn't seem to be there.— Vchimpanzee  •  talk  •  contributions  •  18:21, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
 * User:Vchimpanzee The answer is we currently do not know. There is a lot of popular press that is getting way over excited and not doing their due diligence. We have some discussion and details here Talk:Coronavirus_disease_2019 Doc James  (talk · contribs · email) 22:57, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
 * 5 to 10 is guaranteed yes. You can tell by the test numbers on younger age group that young people don't seek treatment as often, you can easily infer 3x more cases this way. At the bare minimum. Also there are plenty of asymptomatic or mildly symptomatic people. At the very least 3x more infections. So we are up to 9x more infection then confirmed case MINIMUM. Then scientists start to wonder how much more. If the virus didn't mutate to be a complete failure, we could be looking at up to 100x more infections. Iluvalar (talk) 20:19, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

DRAFT categories
Shouldn't be replaced by  which automatically is tagged onto talk pages by the  setup? -- 65.94.170.207 (talk) 00:47, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Thank you for bringing this up. I have redirected to . Now I am working on removing the first category and adding the WikiProject template if it is needed. MarkZusab (talk) 01:11, 23 April 2020 (UTC) --- I have now removed all instances of the first category. MarkZusab (talk) 01:19, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

World health organisation
There is a discussion here about the reliability of the world health organisation. If anyone here wants to participate.-- SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 11:10, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Joe Diffie
Joe Diffie is currently a Good article associated with this project. Should it be? --- Another Believer ( Talk ) 15:43, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
 * He died of COVID-19, so yes, it passes relevance. Kingsif (talk) 16:54, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
 * , So we're placing all entries for people who died from COVID-19 under the umbrella of this project? I'm curious if WikiProject AIDS does the same for all entries of people who died from HIV/AIDS complications. --- Another Believer ( Talk ) 17:00, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
 * At least for now, notable deaths has been included. If the pandemic becomes a more long-term and varied epidemic like AIDS is, that might change. Kingsif (talk) 17:02, 22 April 2020 (UTC)
 * , Understood. Works for me, at least for now. Thank you. --- Another Believer ( Talk ) 17:05, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

As noted in a previous discussion, I still think that adding these articles to the WikiProject is not valuable for the articles or the project. There's not much more than a single sentence in the whole article where we can help as a project. There is also coordination resources like Article alerts that will not benefit from a flood of alerts that are completely unrelated to COVID-19. --MarioGom (talk) 20:21, 22 April 2020 (UTC)

User retagging articles out of scope
The user BabbaQ has been retagging the articles that were deemed out of scope in this discussion


 * please read the discussion linked above Nintendofan885T&amp;Cs apply 08:13, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
 * Oops, sorry. I am aware of it now. Thanks for the heads up.--BabbaQ (talk) 10:30, 23 April 2020 (UTC)
 * No problem Nintendofan885T&amp;Cs apply 12:53, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Chat channel?
Would people be interested in a chat channel for this project + the related ones in other languages / on WD? – SJ + 17:09, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
 * , where were you thinking of hosting a channel on? IRC? Discord? I think more people are using the latter now. — Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 )  19:23, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I would be quite interested in a Discord channel, count me in. (IRC is....not something I'm wanting to deal with these days) Keilana (talk) 20:17, 21 April 2020 (UTC)
 * I'm up for it. I'm ok with both IRC and Discord. Discord is probable better, and it is already used by a few Wikipedian/Wikimedian projects in a few languages. --MarioGom (talk) 13:09, 23 April 2020 (UTC)