Talk:COVID-19 pandemic

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01. Superseded by #9

The first few sentences of the lead's second paragraph should state The virus is typically spread during close contact and via respiratory droplets produced when people cough or sneeze. Respiratory droplets may be produced during breathing but the virus is not considered airborne. It may also spread when one touches a contaminated surface and then their face. It is most contagious when people are symptomatic, although spread may be possible before symptoms appear. (RfC March 2020)

02. Superseded by #7

The infobox should feature a per capita count map most prominently, and a total count by country map secondarily. (RfC March 2020)

03. Obsolete

The article should not use {{Current}} at the top. (March 2020)

04. Do not include a sentence in the lead section noting comparisons to World War II. (March 2020)

05. Cancelled

Include subsections covering the domestic responses of Italy, China, Iran, the United States, and South Korea. Do not include individual subsections for France, Germany, the Netherlands, Australia and Japan. (RfC March 2020) Include a short subsection on Sweden focusing on the policy controversy. (May 2020)

Subsequently overturned by editing and recognized as obsolete. (July 2024)

06. Obsolete

There is a 30 day moratorium on move requests until 26 April 2020. (March 2020)

07. There is no consensus that the infobox should feature a confirmed cases count map most prominently, and a deaths count map secondarily. (May 2020)

08. Superseded by #16

The clause on xenophobia in the lead section should read ...and there have been incidents of xenophobia and discrimination against Chinese people and against those perceived as being Chinese or as being from areas with high infection rates. (RfC April 2020)

09. Cancelled

Supersedes #1. The first several sentences of the lead section's second paragraph should state The virus is mainly spread during close contact and by small droplets produced when those infected cough, sneeze or talk. These droplets may also be produced during breathing; however, they rapidly fall to the ground or surfaces and are not generally spread through the air over large distances. People may also become infected by touching a contaminated surface and then their face. The virus can survive on surfaces for up to 72 hours. Coronavirus is most contagious during the first three days after onset of symptoms, although spread may be possible before symptoms appear and in later stages of the disease. (April 2020)

Notes

On 17:16, 6 April 2020, these first several sentences were replaced with an extracted fragment from the coronavirus disease 2019 article, which at the time was last edited at 17:11.

010. The article title is COVID-19 pandemic. The title of related pages should follow this scheme as well. (RM April 2020, RM August 2020)

011. The lead section should use Wuhan, China to describe the virus's origin, without mentioning Hubei or otherwise further describing Wuhan. (April 2020)

012. Superseded by #19

The lead section's second sentence should be phrased using the words first identified and December 2019. (May 2020)

013. Superseded by #15

File:President Donald Trump suggests measures to treat COVID-19 during Coronavirus Task Force press briefing.webm should be used as the visual element of the misinformation section, with the caption U.S. president Donald Trump suggested at a press briefing on 23 April that disinfectant injections or exposure to ultraviolet light might help treat COVID-19. There is no evidence that either could be a viable method. (1:05 min) (May 2020, June 2020)

014. Overturned

Do not mention the theory that the virus was accidentally leaked from a laboratory in the article. (RfC May 2020) This result was overturned at Wikipedia:Administrators' noticeboard, as there is consensus that there is no consensus to include or exclude the lab leak theory. (RfC May 2024)

015. Supersedes #13. File:President Donald Trump suggests measures to treat COVID-19 during Coronavirus Task Force press briefing.webm should not be used as the visual element of the misinformation section. (RfC November 2020)

016. Supersedes #8. Incidents of xenophobia and discrimination are considered WP:UNDUE for a full sentence in the lead. (RfC January 2021)

017. Only include one photograph in the infobox. There is no clear consensus that File:COVID-19 Nurse (cropped).jpg should be that one photograph. (May 2021)

018. Superseded by #19

The first sentence is The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as the coronavirus pandemic, is a global pandemic of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2). (August 2021, RfC October 2023)

019. Supersedes #12 and #18. The first sentence is The global COVID-19 pandemic (also known as the coronavirus pandemic), caused by severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), began with an outbreak in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. (June 2024)

Should we switch the lead infobox map from cases per capita to deaths per capita?

Per Metropolitan's arguments here, the death count is a better metric at this point of the severity of a pandemic in a given region than the case count, since the latter is highly dependent on the region's testing capacity. Accordingly, I propose that we switch to using the deaths per capita map as the top map in the infobox, with the others collapsed beneath. Sdkb (talk) 03:45, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

Oppose. For months, we have focused on case counts. I see no compelling argument to change this right now. I understand that testing is not being evenly applied across regions but the case count (and cases per million) is the best number we have right now to measure the extent to which the pandemic has impacted each region. And testing volumes are increasing dramatically everywhere. Death rates are greatly influenced by each region's healthcare system quality and capacity. I'd oppose changing for now. - Wikmoz (talk) 05:51, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

One way to look at it might be that we want the map to reflect the fact that some countries' weaker healthcare systems are leading to higher death counts there. Sdkb (talk) 03:34, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Support. The current stage of the crisis is of a different nature than what it was in january, requiring us to change our perception on this. Some countries such as South Korea or Germany have tested at a very large scale, even people with very mild symptoms or no at all [1]. However, in many other countries such as Italy, Spain, France or the UK, healthcare systems are totally overwhelmed and the testing capacity is saturated. Testing is limited only to the most serious cases and healthcare workers [2]. As a result, the number of confirmed cases reported daily remains steady, not because we're nearing its peak but simply because there's no testing capacity to report more. Using this metric as the main one can easily lead to very fallacious conclusions about the maturity and intensity of the epidemics from a country to another. Obviously deaths count has its own bias as well [3], yet, very sadly, the number of deaths will never reach any saturation point like testing does. As such, reported deaths remain, despite its flaws, a much better metric to get an idea about the intensity of the epidemic in each country. Therefore, it would seem wiser to use the deaths metric as the ranking by default on Template:2019–20 coronavirus pandemic data table. Metropolitan (talk) 11:02, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

I think these concerns can be fairly addressed with a footnote. We're already seeing death-to-case ratios vary by an order of magnitude from one country to the next so I really don't think counting deaths is a fair indicator of anything. Testing capacity limits are rapidly being resolved and cheaper and faster tests will come to market over the next few weeks. - Wikmoz (talk) 05:03, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose The first map is based off a recent consensus formed here. It's to early from that to change it in my opinion. — RealFakeKimT 14:17, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

  @RealFakeKim: When I formulated the question for that RfC, you'll notice that I referred only to "per capita" vs. "total", and left out the word "cases". That was a deliberate choice, since I anticipated we might at some point want to switch to using death counts instead. I'll leave it to others with more medical/statistical experience to decide what the best approach is at this point (I haven't been persuaded to wed myself to one or the other yet), but I don't think that that RfC should be used as an argument against switching. The other maps RfC might serve as a slightly better precedent, but it was a little muddled since it was asking about per capita vs. totals/cases vs. deaths/collapsed vs. uncollapsed all at the same time. Plus it was started over a week ago, which is meaningful given how rapidly the situation is evolving. Sdkb (talk) 19:40, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose: Death is not the only consequence of the disease, and the constant fixation on the fatality rate in the media can likely be of partial blame for the complacency seen among the general public (e.g. "It's no big deal, only 3.5% die!" or "Don't worry, only boomers and retirees die!"). There are plenty of infected patients that do not die, but end up in ICU and require emergency intervention, not to mention we don't fully understand the long-term chronic implications of the disease yet (e.g. lung tissue scarring, and whether or not patients are able to eventually regain most of their pre-infection lung capacity). The spotlight needs to be on infection, and not excessively on cases of death. --benlisquare_T•C•E 17:27, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

This is an incredibly important point. I'd also add that as treatment improves in coming weeks and months, the death rate will become a weaker and weaker indicator of the pandemic's reach. - Wikmoz (talk) 05:03, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

• Support Per capita confirmed cases were always dependant on testing capacity, and as the pandemic continues and countries like the US fail to increase testing capacity, the numbers quickly become misleading. Unfortunately, deaths are not subject to the same issues of testing capacity; we could test no one and the rate of reported deaths would remain the same. Given the known issues with testing capacity in many countries and the growing death toll, per capita deaths are a better representation of the extent of the pandemic. — Wug·a·po·des​ 19:10, 27 March 2020 (UTC)

• Wouldn't this depend on the country's (or local provincial) specific procedures? If there is little to no testing capability for cadavers, then if an untested patient dies, wouldn't the cause of death be recorded as unrelated pneumonia? If the local provincial/national policy was to cremate all pneumonia-case bodies, tested or untested, would they record all bodies as coronavirus cases? --benlisquare_T•C•E 02:30, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

• Not necessarily. The testing capacity required to have an accurate count of deaths is much lower than the testing capacity required to have an accurate count of infections. If we ballpark the death rate at 3%, you'd need 30 times more testing to identify 90% of confirmed case than you would need to identify every death (and that's assuming we never test someone without the disease). It also is more likely that in regions with limited testing capacity, tests will be limited to severe cases which are also the ones most likely to die, so cases that lead to death are more likely to be identified well before actual death. I find it unlikely that covid19 deaths will go misreported as pneumonia-related deaths since every doctor in the world is on the lookout for patients with pneumonia-like symptoms. Even if there are the occasional errors, the much greater error is using data we know represents testing capacity and not infection rates and then tell readers that it represents infection rates. — Wug·a·po·des​ 04:54, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

In some countries, the number of deaths counted depends on testing, so the whole point is moot. For example, in Iran, it is said that they classed the deaths as pneumonia or other causes if they had not been tested for the virus. Hzh (talk) 18:19, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

• Support As @Wugapodes: stated. The readers want to make sure these details are there for them to see. We cant have anymore misinfomation or missing detail on such heavily worked topic. Regice2020 (talk) 03:46, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose. Death is only one of the possible symptoms of COVID-19. People who spend days in ICU and place a significant stain on the healthcare system are also to be accounted for. The main map should reflect the spread of COVID-19, not the number of respirators available to save people. Moreover, countries that under-report the number of cases often also under-report the number of death. Of course if the global consensus goes towards death per capita map, then we should follow it!Raphaël Dunant (talk) 10:34, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
• Support Is the most object quantity (with least amount of uncertainty) Voorlandt (talk) 10:43, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
• oppose per Raphael Dunant--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:08, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
• Keep as is Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 18:24, 28 March 2020 (UTC)
• Support. Death numbers are much more comparable between countries. For example Iceland and Norway have tested a large portion of the population, so the map gives impression of high, but very few died, which is a more reliable number. Also: We should always prioritize numbers per capita over absolute numbers.Tomastvivlaren (talk) 08:59, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose No good reason to change it, especially as the death rates appear to vary considerably between countries, over ten times the difference in some cases (e.g. very low in Germany but very high in Italy). Hzh (talk) 18:13, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

  The above is likely explained by Germans testing much more than Italians by now. The above is a reason to prioritize the death map, not because deaths are the only important thing, but because deaths are probably a better basis for an estimate of the real cases than the confirmed cases are; both confirmed deaths and confirmed cases are subject to incomplete testing, but deaths would seem less so. Ideally, show both per capita maps and drop the map with absolute numbers, and then it will be no longer so important which of the two maps is prioritized. --Dan Polansky (talk) 19:48, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

No, since some countries don't count deaths they haven't tested, they simply attribute deaths to other causes like pneumonia, therefore death number would also be unreliable. Hzh (talk) 20:28, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose Too soon. There will come a time. But right now for a current event what is more of interest is the infections/infection rate. --Calthinus (talk) 22:16, 29 March 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose The per capita map just needs its ranges tweaked or added to. It's far too homogeneous in colour to be helpful at conveying the data. Worse, it might be misleading, implying some countries have similar rates when it's anything but. If you're going to lead with that map you at least need to include the specific numbers in the following chart because, as it stands, it requires users to look all of the information up themselves and do the math.135.23.106.211 (talk) 23:18, 30 March 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose The article should switch to using a harmonic mean of infection rates, hospitalization rates, intubation rates, and fatality rates. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.163.111.74 (talk) 16:01, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
• Support The deaths per capita, although comes with its own biases, is a better indicator of the effect on the region and is less affected by the saturated testing capacity in many regions.--17jiangz1 (talk) 20:23, 31 March 2020 (UTC)
• Support, as per 17jiangz1 and others. The cases figure is known to be all over the place because of different approaches to testing from country to country. It could be off by more than an order of magnitude. Deaths, while still having some differences in recording, are much more comparable. Bondegezou (talk) 10:45, 1 April 2020 (UTC)
• Support. The reasons given above are strong and convincing. Cases are nowhere near as reliable a statistic as deaths. The only valid argument I see in opposition is that a pandemic is not characterised by deaths but by cases. While this is true, one could argue that the impact of a pandemic is indeed better characterised by deaths. I feel that argument ends up being a 50/50 about what is considered important, with equal validity to those who say deaths are more important and those who say cases are more important. With equality on that argument, and the reliability argument favouring heavily the use of deaths as a metric, I definitely support this change.Wikiditm (talk) 08:35, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
• Support as per others' comments. I don't see how "for months, we have focused on case counts, why should we switch now" is a good argument. If you have focused on the wrong thing for months, shouldn't that be an incentive to focus on the better measure immediately? Once cases become the better measure again, you can always switch back. Only tangentially related: in the "Deaths" section, can someone explain to me the difference between "death-to-case ratio" and case fatality rate? The section makes it seem like those are two distinct measures, but (and I am not an expert), to me they seem to be the same thing...? Felix.winter2010 (talk) 8:40, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
• Support - The cases map is certainly misleading, as it makes the most efficient countries like Germany and South Korea look like problem cases. Quite the opposite. -- Kautilya3 (talk) 10:41, 3 April 2020 (UTC)
• Support. Case count is largely meaningless as a means of comparing the epidemic in two countries, due to the huge discrepancy in testing regimes. It's comparing apples to oranges. The death count, although not completely consistent (some countries may be less likely to test for COVID in a postmortem than others, for example), is certainly much better than case count, because most deaths will be recorded unlike many stay-at-home-and-isolate cases which are not.  — Amakuru (talk) 10:57, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

  The argument simply doesn't make sense. Countries that don't test much, whether on the living or the dead, won't register deaths as being due to Covid-19. I'm not sure why people would also assume that post-mortem test is something even done in most countries (I would think most countries don't do it when even rich countries like Germany don't). This is in addition to countries that have been accused of deliberately downplaying the number of deaths. Hzh (talk) 19:25, 3 April 2020 (UTC)

  The countries that test less focus their small number of tests, and they focus them on people who are more likely to carry the disease; that's the idea. In such countries, covid-infected people are more likely to escape testing than covid-infected dying people (dying of covid or with covid.) --Dan Polansky (talk) 12:29, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

It's still the same problem - those who don't test won't assign the deaths to Covid-19, I have no idea why people assume that those who died would be automatically attributed to Covid-19. For example, in China people who died from flu for many years were attributed to other reasons, giving China an unusually low death count compared to other countries - [4]. Hzh (talk) 15:01, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

My post does not suggest that "those who died would be automatically attributed to Covid-19", nor is it concerned with "those who don't test" but rather with those who focus their tests, and the only non-focused tests would be random-sampled tests from general population with no pre-selection bias. --Dan Polansky (talk) 12:07, 6 April 2020 (UTC)

• Both – because deaths lag cases by several weeks, but also they are arguably the more reliable statistic. Countries like S Korea and Germany have kept things under control by much more extensive testing which gives comparatively high case figures. I maintain the graphs of new cases and daily deaths on this page and lacking any better measure I use the weighted average of the two figures to pick the top 5 countries. If a statistician can suggest a better combination I'm open to it. Chris55 (talk) 07:36, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

Having thought about it for a few minutes, it's probably better to use the geometric mean. Chris55 (talk) 08:23, 4 April 2020 (UTC)

It doesn't make sense to take the mean of two statistics which aren't independent.Wikiditm (talk) 09:17, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

• Oppose The focus should be on infections/cases for now, since deaths lag the infection rates by weeks. There will be a time to include both deaths and cases, adjusted for population, but now is not the right time. Rwat128 (talk) 21:17, 11 April 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose Impact is better shown by case counts at the moment. We have deaths just below. --Gtoffoletto (talk) 09:41, 16 April 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose Death count is a lagging indicator. Moreover, death count has a very strong correlation with the age of those infected - South Korea and Germany both had to deal with younger patients than Italy or France. Yes, case count is a function of testing, but death count is a function of age and hospital capacity. Deaths can be under counted too - NYC and Wuhan have both revised death counts upwards weeks after deaths occur. Cases are a far better representation of outbreak severity. Nmurali02 (talk) 13:23, 17 April 2020 (UTC)
• Support Cases are too unreliable. Andrew🐉(talk) 11:47, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
• Oppose We currently show both cases per-capita (first) and then deaths per-capita. This has been quite stable for weeks. It is also the order it is generally reported (e.g. World Health Organization). Maybe this is breaking news to some people, but figures for death counts also suffer from a lot of distortions: different reporting criteria for different countries, test capacity, protocols for post-mortem testing, etc. --MarioGom (talk) 12:23, 19 April 2020 (UTC)
• Support New studies are showing the case numbers to be extremely unreliable. While some countries like the UK are under reporting their COVID-19 deaths, it's still far more reliable and important. -- Jeandré, 2020-04-19t16:15z
• Support Case counts are mostly a reflection of how many people have been tested. Death is easier to track and more reliable. There’s also the idea that the best tracker is excess deaths,, but we’d need WP:MEDRS to use them. Benica11 (talk) 13:32, 23 April 2020 (UTC)

Death counts are also a reflection of how many people get tested, they're not more reliable than case counts. Here for example the number of excess deaths in Ecuador suggests that the actual deaths from Covid-19 may be 15 times higher than the number of deaths reported in that country - [5]. Excess deaths would be more interesting, but there are not widely reported. Hzh (talk) 15:05, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

• Support While number of deaths and total cases both rely on testing to an extent, the former should remain a more reliable indicator (at least in developed nations), since more severe cases seem generally prioritized for testing. Pyrhan (talk) 16:51, 1 May 2020 (UTC)
• Comment this discussion seems to have run its course, but !vote totals are pretty split. Can we have someone close this? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 19:38, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Compromise: Default, show both maps and add a warning text

A suggestion for a compromize while waiting for people to agree here is to show both maps in the infobox - currently only the number of infected per capita is visible by default. The number of deaths per capita should also be visible immediately, as that is more reliable.

A second suggestion is to add a warning below maps of the number of infected people: "Numbers are not comparable as different countries have different testing strategies". 82.196.112.105 (talk) 09:20, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

I'd oppose showing both maps by default. The image panorama is quite good, and it shouldn't be pushed so far down that people need to scroll a bunch to see it. I'd support having some sort of caveat in the caption, as is done currently for the Europe map (we at least need to get consistent), although it might make more sense as an efn (footnote) than as direct text. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 04:16, 13 April 2020 (UTC)

I think that maybe putting the deaths chart in a collapsible may be the better way to do this for now. Swordman97 ^{talk to me}

• Me Too -- Move this article and do we have to delete this article? Abdullah Al Manjur (talk) 13:56, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

We should be trimming the maps......as 70 percent of our readers have all maps expanded causing a scrolling nightmare. Most see opening paragraph then a wall of maps.... most wont scroll beyond the infobox at this point. Want to keep readers give them prose text.--Moxy 🍁 14:35, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

@Moxy: the issue with sidebar collapsing not working on mobile is tracked at T247701. The maps are useful, though, so we can't just get rid of them. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 12:21, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Should be moved till solved Ratio of Android app views with a scroll action (Around 32% of pageviews do not involve scrolling down - i.e. reader look only at the top of the page with 60+% only scrolling down 2 times). This means on this article the majority only read first paragraph because of scrolling thur maps. Set the page up so 2 scrolls gets readers the full lead.....and to the TOC in 2 scrolls (Most readers look first at TOC - 45% of time is spent scanning a page looking at the TOC) Investigation of information behavior in Wikipedia articles. .--Moxy 🍁 13:08, 3 May 2020 (UTC)a

Requested move 26 April 2020

The following is a closed discussion of a requested move. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section on the talk page. Editors desiring to contest the closing decision should consider a move review after discussing it on the closer's talk page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

The result of the move request was: Move to COVID-19 pandemic. While there is, of course, some disagreement, the strength – to say nothing of the number (which by my count exceed those against it by 2:1) – of the arguments in favor of this name outdo those against it. Redirects from "coronavirus"-related titles will still exist. As agreed in the sidebar, other related titles using the "2019–20 coronavirus pandemic" nomenclature should be moved in due time, likely with the assistance of a bot. -- tariqabjotu 01:12, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

---

2019–20 coronavirus pandemic → COVID-19 pandemic – (The 30 day moratorium on page move discussion has now expired. It was well respected, but please do not use the notion that the name has been unchallenged for 30 days as justification for its retention.)

1. An epidemic should be named for the disease, not the virus, and even less so for the large group of which the responsible virus is but one member.
2. Using COVID-19 rather than coronavirus 2019 seems to be in keeping with item 2 of the COVID-19 project's consensuses, replicated at the top of this talk page. It has the additional benefit of not repeating so obviously the 2019 if the years are to be included as a prefix.
3. I propose dropping the years prefix:

(a) because there will be disagreement as to whether it is accurate to talk of pandemic situation in 2019;

(b) because it is not absolutely clear that the pandemic will finish before 2020 does; and

(c) in the hope that whatever may happen with this virus in the future, it does not bring about a second full blown pandemic, and that such disambiguation would be redundant.

I would actually prefer to see three separate votes on these three issues (name for virus or disease/full or abbreviated name/with or without year(s) prefix), but RM just doesn't work that way, and parallel RfCs do not seem to be a good way to resolve issues in Wikipedia, but if there is a clear preference for that course of action, I would happily withdraw my RM. Kevin McE (talk) 12:35, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Survey

Survey (Requested move 26 April 2020) Move to Coronavirus pandemic per the nom but this title avoids the abbreviation which the full "coronavirus" is used in my experience more often than the abbriviated "COVID" so we can drop the date but not abbreviate. If there is another pandemic later we can move it back or to something like 2019–21 coronavirus pandemic if this one continues into 2021 and there is another one we need to disambiguate from later but thankfully it seems unlikely in the year future there will be another that is large enough to be a pandemic so we can probably use the more concise title. Crouch, Swale (talk) 12:52, 26 April 2020 (UTC) Coronaviruses are pandemic probably since dinosaurs, without date this article would have a whole different look. Iluvalar (talk) 17:51, 26 April 2020 (UTC) Unless it has a name specific to the current disease, rather than the family of viruses. Kevin McE (talk) 19:17, 26 April 2020 (UTC) You're confusing diseases and viruses. We could in theory move the article to "SARS-CoV-2 pandemic" if you wanted to name it after a more specific virus than "Coronavirus pandemic" (although in practice we shouldn't, as pandemics are named for diseases, not viruses, and COVID-19 is the disease name). --Ahecht (TALK PAGE) 19:37, 27 April 2020 (UTC) No he isn't confusing anything. "COVID-19" is more specific than "coronavirus." I can't fathom any argument to the contrary. Global Cerebral Ischemia (talk) 14:02, 2 May 2020 (UTC) Oppose The date is correct now, no reason to question when it will end (if it ends later, then the date can be changed, but not now), and no reason to think that this will be the one and only Covid-19 pandemic (some scientists in fact think that it will recur). We don't involve ourselves in crystal gazing. Undecided on changing to Covid-19, but leaning keep on coronavirus on grounds of common usage. Hzh (talk) 13:42, 26 April 2020 (UTC) You are right, we should not involve ourselves in crystal ball gazing. In which case why are we currently claiming that there will be a finish to the event this year, and assuming that a disambiguation by year will be necessary? No-one can guarantee that a title will remain indefinitely, but one year that might be wrong is not less wrong than no year when one might subsequently be needed. Kevin McE (talk) 14:06, 26 April 2020 (UTC) No one is claiming that it will end this year, only that the time period is correct as of now, a simple statement of fact. No assumption, no prediction, including any assumption that this will be the one and only Covid-19 pandemic. If the time period changes in the future, then it can be changed. There is also no point in keep changing the title, it is fine as it is. Hzh (talk) 14:27, 26 April 2020 (UTC) When you say that the title is "fine as it is", is it your contention that it is correct and proper to name a pandemic after a loose group of viruses, rather than a disease? Kevin McE (talk) 14:51, 26 April 2020 (UTC) I have already said that I'm undecided on Covid-19, but leaning keep. See above. Hzh (talk) 16:01, 26 April 2020 (UTC) But if you are "leaning keep", you are stating that it is acceptable to name an epidemic after a group of viruses. I am not meaning to pursue you, but I really don't see what grounds anyone has for that. Are you willing to share yours? Kevin McE (talk) 16:38, 26 April 2020 (UTC) The explanation is already given (on grounds of common usage), read it before badgering others for a difference of opinion. Hzh (talk) 17:02, 26 April 2020 (UTC) Do you accept that this common usage is a common error, or at least a common lack of precision? An encyclopaedia should not be content to fall in with popular misconceptions, or widespread failings to distinguish between concepts. (As I have already said, I'm not trying to harangue you, Hzh, but I do want to present the counterargument to what you have been the first one to say.) Kevin McE (talk) 17:34, 26 April 2020 (UTC) I would not complained if you had shown that you actually read what I wrote (even after I ask you to read it) before you kept asking. You can say that the common usage is inaccurate, but using the virus to refer to the disease is so common that it can justifiably be used per WP:COMMONNAME. See for example the BBC coverage - their news items are listed under coronavirus pandemic, and coronavirus is similarly used worldwide in many other major news outlets to describe the pandemic or outbreak - [6][7][8][9][10][11] so I don't think its use would be in any way controversial. Note also that COVID-19 is an acronym, and Wikipedia prefers full name instead of acronym for title. Hzh (talk) 18:03, 26 April 2020 (UTC) Thank you for engaging. I really don't think that WP:COMMONNAME helps us, because there is no clear consensus in the media, and examples of 'COVID-19 pandemic' can be found in all of the sites you have referenced. But if we look to more informed sources, bmj.com has 'COVID-19 pandemic' in a 40:1 majority (and many of the exceptions are part of the phrase 'novel coronavirus'), 72:1 in the Irish Journal of Medical Science site, 24:1 in thelancet.com: there seems to be a clear preference among those that can be considered reliable in their medical expertise rather than those that are 'merely' reliable reporters of incident. As to the acronym, I refer you to the consensus decision of the WikiProject that I mentioned in the opening post. Kevin McE (talk) 19:05, 26 April 2020 (UTC) For what it's worth, I don't think leaving out the "2019-2020" is in any way predicting or assuming that there will be only one, just that there currently is only one. Generally, we don't disambiguate until after there's been more than one of something. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 14:53, 26 April 2020 (UTC) Support - I agree with all 3 points raised and the conclusion. I disagree with the suggestion that "Coronavirus pandemic" is acceptable or meets the arguments set out by Kevin McE as it refers to a family of viruses, not the disease, even though it may represent common terminology. |→ Spaully ~talk~  13:47, 26 April 2020 (UTC) Support: The WP:NAMINGCRITERIA strongly favor the shorter, more natural, common and concise wording—wording that we will not have to revisit if the pandemic extends into 2021. I also agree with Kevin McE's and Spaully's reasons. —RCraig09 (talk) 15:57, 26 April 2020 (UTC) — See the details of WP:NAMINGCRITERIA by Benica11, below. —RCraig09 (talk) 21:51, 28 April 2020 (UTC) Rename to COVID-19 pandemic per nom. --Soumyabrata stay at home 🏠 wash your hands to protect from COVID-19 😷 17:34, 26 April 2020 (UTC) Support per Spaully. "Coronavirus" alone is a vague term, as it also includes SARS, MERS, and several strains of the common cold. CJK09 (talk) 20:07, 26 April 2020 (UTC) Neutral for now, leaning oppose. CJK09 (talk) 21:52, 27 April 2020 (UTC) Support (strongly) per nom and Spaully. More natural, more common, more specific, more concise, and more accurate. And if the pandemic extends past 2020, we won't need to keep changing the title every year (we wouldn't have to change the title ever again!). It'll also help the search box function, since most people aren't typing "2019–20" into their searches. (Secondly, on the topic of the abbreviation, "COVID-19" is more used and more recognizable than the long form of "Coronavirus disease 2019"). Neutral For the first two conclusion, I Support per nom. But I disagree to move to Coronavirus pandemic because it will better become a disambiguation page. 114.125.232.1 (talk) 21:28, 26 April 2020 (UTC) Oppose as disruptive with little benefit. Enthusiasts unnecessarily even change the name of images after the previous rename. Graeme Bartlett (talk) 21:28, 26 April 2020 (UTC) I don't know what you mean by that, nor what it has to do with the merits or demerits of the current proposal. Kevin McE (talk) 21:55, 26 April 2020 (UTC) Oppose per other editors. It comes as more disruptive. 36.77.134.116 (talk) 21:47, 26 April 2020 (UTC) Support The nomination and supporters are more convincing than the opposition to this point. "COVID-19 pandemic" is more concise and precise than "2019-20 coronavirus pandemic". As for "disruption", both titles will lead to the same location and we can update internal links easily. That's not a good reason to not move the page and its associated pages. – Muboshgu (talk)` Support COVID by far the most searched term now.... well besides 3 misspelling of Coronavirus....lol.--Moxy 🍁 22:24, 26 April 2020 (UTC) Support Neutral - The proposed new title is indeed in some respects "more natural, more common, more specific, more concise, and more accurate." However, I am persuaded by other editors that the move (renaming) will open a hornet's nest of necessary (for consistency) moves/renaming requests, discussions, and attempts to reach consensus for each article with "2019–2020 coronavirus pandemic" in its title. Edit on 27 Apr 2020 @ 22:25 (UTC)   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) (I'm a man—traditional male pronouns are fine.) 23:08, 26 April 2020 (UTC) Actually, there's already a strong consensus building (based on your very astute comment in the section below) that if this page moves, all of the pages with it in the title will also be moved. There won't need to be a billion move requests or individual discussions. Also, pretty sure the batch of pages could easily be moved by bot. Paintspot Infez (talk) 13:20, 27 April 2020 (UTC) @Paintspot: Ah, I did not know that could be done. I thought each article would have to undergo the renaming and moving process individually. Along those lines, I bet that a lot of editors are like me, i.e., they don't know about the possibility of a 'mass move (renaming)' [my term]. I'm thinking that a separate RM, which proposes "moving" (renaming) all the articles with "2019–2020 coronavirus pandemic" in the title—at the same time, en mass—is needed. But I defer to more knowledgeable editors on that point. ¶ Thank you for your kind words! :0) All the best   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) (I'm a man—traditional male pronouns are fine.) 13:14, 29 April 2020 (UTC) Support per nom.--Ortizesp (talk) 23:25, 26 April 2020 (UTC) Support, the name is clear and unambiguous for now, WP:CRYSTAL. sam1370 (talk) 04:55, 27 April 2020 (UTC) Oppose I support your first two points, but not your third. I think we should change "Coronavirus" to "COVID-19" as it is more precise, and my ideal title would be "2019-20 COVID-19 pandemic". Other articles such as 2009 swine flu pandemic include the date, so if we rename this article "COVID-19 pandemic" we might as well rename that one "Swine flu pandemic". The date is an important characteristic of a pandemic, so I think we should keep that in. Counterarguments: "because there will be disagreement as to whether it is accurate to talk of pandemic situation in 2019" Wikipedia is all about disagreement, we should be bold and not mind if there is any argument; I think that in another rename discussion it was agreed that the pandemic classification classified the entire thing as a pandemic, not that it was a pandemic from March 2020 onwards. "because it is not absolutely clear that the pandemic will finish before 2020 does" We can always rename the title. "in the hope that whatever may happen with this virus in the future, it does not bring about a second full blown epidemic, and that such disambiguation would be redundant" If there is a second epidemic, having "COVID-19 pandemic" will cause a problem, as it will be unclear which pandemic it is referring to. Whereas if we keep the dates, we could, for example, have two separate articles for "2019-20 COVID-19 pandemic" and, for example, "2021-22 COVID-19 pandemic". sam1370 (talk) 00:10, 27 April 2020 (UTC)}} Support. Let’s look at WP:CRITERIA Recognizability - works with either title Naturalness - works with either title Precision - COVID-19 is more precise, but I doubt anyone is going to mix up the two Conciseness - This is why we don’t need a year. How many times have you heard of a coronavirus/COVID-19 outbreak before last December? I’d think about zero. Consistency - As OP pointed out, the WikiProject seems to prefer COVID-19. Benica11 (talk) 03:16, 27 April 2020 (UTC) @Beniica11: I agree with most of these things, however I think we should leave the date in. It gives the pandemic context within history -- in the future it will probably become less well-known so we'll want to have the date it happened in. See 2009 swine flu pandemic which I used for my example earlier, should we rename that "Swine flu pandemic"? sam1370 (talk) 03:54, 27 April 2020 (UTC) @Sam1370: I guess the issue is that some similar articles don’t have a year like Spanish flu, and the -19 in COVID-19 is the year anyways. But we might want to add a full year eventually to give historical context if future generations begin to forget about this pandemic. Benica11 (talk) 04:50, 27 April 2020 (UTC) @Beniica11: True, and after all WP:CRYSTAL applies, the name COVID-19 pandemic is clear and unambiguous for now. I'll change my stance. sam1370 (talk) 04:55, 27 April 2020 (UTC) Support per WP:CONCISE and WP:COMMONNAME. The current title is unwieldy and low on information. Also, if we want to get extremely pedantic, the pandemic is that of a disease, not a virus. Elizium23 (talk) 04:57, 27 April 2020 (UTC) Oppose Name is concise and makes sense were it is now. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 08:19, 27 April 2020 (UTC) I am intrigued that as a doctor of medicine you consider it to "make sense" that a pandemic carry the name of a group of viruses, rather than the name of the disease. Are there precedents or reasons for this in the medical literature> Would this be normal practice in medical nomenclature? Kevin McE (talk) 08:54, 27 April 2020 (UTC) I'm also a doctor of medicine (working in critical care), and incidentally, I've also worked on mathematical models of infectious disease. FWIW, I agree with you, it does not "make sense." It is not regular practice in the medical literature I've seen where the virus per se is alternatively referred to as SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19 (despite the latter being technically incorrect). Here, the guidelines are clear and unambiguous per WP:COMMONNAME. Global Cerebral Ischemia (talk) 12:34, 29 April 2020 (UTC) The full name of the disease is "Coronavirus disease 2019" We added the "2019-20" to the front and we added pandemic after. We than dropped "disease" and "2019" as "2019-20 coronavirus disease 2019 pandemic" was too long. WHO uses "Coronavirus disease pandemic"[12] Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 09:57, 28 April 2020 (UTC) But do you accept that in changing from "coronavirus disease 2019" to "coronavirus", albeit for admirable motives of brevity and avoidance of duplication, you have changed what identifies this pandemic from the name of a disease (the principle applied by WHO) to that of a group of viruses? That is what is semantically untenable, although it is a mistake that Wikipedia has been far from alone in making. Do you also accept that the principles of brevity and avoidance of duplication are also met by the current proposal? And if you do, what is your objection to the current proposal? Kevin McE (talk) 14:15, 28 April 2020 (UTC) Not sure we should use the abbreviation rather than at least part of the full name. There are trade offs between the two. My position in one direction over the other however is not that strong. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 13:38, 29 April 2020 (UTC) Oppose, as many articles use "2019–20 coronavirus pandemic" in their title, and then we'll have to change those too. No way. >>BEANS X2t 09:05, 27 April 2020 (UTC) If your only reason for opposing is the number of pages that would also need to be moved, they could very easily be done by bot. Paintspot Infez (talk) 13:20, 27 April 2020 (UTC) This move request and discussion implicitly includes changing all relevant articles' titles. You haven't actually provided a reason for opposing. Brightgalrs (/braɪtˈɡæl.ərˌɛs/)[ᴛ] 22:39, 27 April 2020 (UTC) Support. COVID-19 has solidified as the common name. As for the need to update other articles, the retort would be that besides them being better off, we'll probably have to update them to 2019-2021 pandemic come next January, as it is likely there will be at least some spillover to 2021.--Eostrix (talk) 09:10, 27 April 2020 (UTC) Oppose There would be too many pages to rename, and links could possibly be broken. Rarely do we allow abbreviations to be included in page titles. Also, the current name has been adopted to such an extent that it would be more difficult to adjust to a new naming convention. LSGH (talk) (contributions) 10:47, 27 April 2020 (UTC) The pages that would need to be moved could very easily be done by bot. And if we keep the current title, we'd have to move them all again to "2019–2021..." if this continues into next year. This also solves the problem of putting "2019" in the title since it wasn't a pandemic in 2019. Paintspot Infez (talk) 13:20, 27 April 2020 (UTC) Not sure what 'adjust'ment on the part of editors would be required: there will be residual redirect links for your watched/contributions pages. Kevin McE (talk) 15:08, 27 April 2020 (UTC) There would be broken links here and there, and there is a chance that templates would not transclude properly. LSGH (talk) (contributions) 03:15, 29 April 2020 (UTC) Let's not assume that this will be the only outbreak or pandemic that SARS-CoV-2 will be involved in. There would still be a need to disambiguate by placing 2020 or 2019–20 in page titles, but it would be quite unpleasant to the eye if the page titles began with 2020 COVID-19 or 2019–20 COVID-19, which, in the first place, results from how the WHO wanted to name the disease. LSGH (talk) (contributions) 03:15, 29 April 2020 (UTC) Oppose Per WP:NOTCRYSTALBALL, stating the year is important in case of future pandemics, upon which time it would have to be moved again back to the current title. "Coronavirus" is more descriptive than "COVID-19".ZXCVBNM (TALK) 13:45, 27 April 2020 (UTC) As stated, it is no less crystal balling to assume that it will end this year than to assume that year disambiguation will be needed. And it is Crystal balling to assume that year disambiguation is needed. Kevin McE (talk) 15:08, 27 April 2020 (UTC) "Coronavirus" is less descriptive than "COVID-19" - the majority of us have suffered colds caused by coronaviruses, but most of us have not had COVID-19. Magic9mushroom (talk) 19:48, 27 April 2020 (UTC) It is crystal balling to want to keep the newer name "in case of future pandemics". Let's use COVID-19 pandemic for now as it is concise. We can rename the page if there is another pandemic. sam1370 (talk) 02:09, 28 April 2020 (UTC) Support, The Spanish flu page is called Spanish flu, not 1918-19 flu pandemic. Nojus R (talk) 18:29, 27 April 2020 (UTC) Support: Nearly every business' website has a link to a "COVID-19 Update" or "COVID-19 Response" message, nearly every commercial email I get these days refers to "COVID-19", every local and national government website that I've used as a source when updating various chart templates on Wikipedia calls it "COVID-19". Calling it "coronavirus" is too casual and imprecise for an encyclopedia. Per WP:CRITERIA, "COVID-19" beats "2019–20 coronavirus" on precision" and "conciseness", is a tie on "recognizability" and "naturalness", and "consistency" is easy to fix. We can always rename it again in the future if there is a second COVID-19 pandemic (and the virus is similar enough that it's not called COVID-24 or whatever). Besides, it's difficult to get people to type "(2019–20)" instead of "(2019-20)". --Ahecht (TALK PAGE) 19:32, 27 April 2020 (UTC) Strong Support - Google results for "covid-19 pandemic" show 149,000,000 results to sites such as FAO.org, Unicef.org, Eui.eu, Unv.org, Time.com, MIT.edu, WHO.int, theGuardian.com. Conversely, "2019–20 coronavirus pandemic" has a mere 259,000 results from largely wiki based sites. Veritycheck✔️ (talk) 22:44, 27 April 2020 (UTC) Just a couple more Google search results - for me "covid-19 pandemic" (with quotes) gets 139,000,000 results, and "coronavirus pandemic" (again with quotes) gets 124,000,000 results. Boing! said Zebedee (talk) 10:23, 28 April 2020 (UTC) Support. Per Veritycheck, it's more common and concise. Bluesatellite (talk) 07:22, 28 April 2020 (UTC) Support. "COVID-19 pandemic" is technically the correct name, and also in widespread usage already (although "coronavirus pandemic" is somewhat more common, but lacking the necessary precision). We don't actually need to specify the year because it is already implied by "COVID-19", so this is just adding unnecessary clutter to the title. If there will be another coronavirus disease in the future (unfortunately quite likely), it won't be named "COVID-19", so there is no problem with ambiguation. Also, changing the title to get rid of the abbreviated year range "2019–20" would improve compliance with our naming conventions per MOS, according to which "2019–2020" would be the preferred form - but this would likely end up as "2019–2021", anyway. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 11:43, 28 April 2020 (UTC) Oppose coronavirus is more widely used than than COVID. Vpab15 (talk) 14:11, 28 April 2020 (UTC) You are comparing apples with banans (incompletely spelled bananas) (group of viruses with incomplete name of one disease). The relevant comparison is "coronavirus pandemic" vs "COVID-19 pandemic". The error of naming the pandemic for the virus group is undoubtedly widespread, but that does not mean that we should fall prey to it: we should apply sound semantic principles in keeping with accurate professional (professional epidemiologists, not professional journalists)practice. WP:COMMONNAME does not give a clear answer, but when we are faced with a choice between correct and incorrect usage, Commonname is not the policy we should be looking to. Kevin McE (talk) 14:41, 28 April 2020 (UTC) "Fruit" is more widely used than "Banana". Should we move that article to "Long yellow fruit"? --Ahecht (TALK PAGE) 15:01, 28 April 2020 (UTC) WP:COMMONNAME says we should "prefers the name that is most commonly used ". Right now coronavirus is more widely used than COVID-19 and is used to refer to the current pandemic and its effects, not to the family of viruses. Vpab15 (talk) 17:56, 28 April 2020 (UTC) That is some rather selective quoting. It also says, "When there is no single, obvious name that is demonstrably the most frequently used for the topic by these sources, editors should reach a consensus as to which title is best by considering these criteria directly," and "Editors should also consider all five of the criteria for article titles outlined above," the five criteria referenced in each case being those with which Benica11 has dealt with very efficiently above. WP:COMMONNAME also says, "inaccurate names for the article subject, as determined in reliable sources, are often avoided even though they may be more frequently used by reliable source," which is the case here. Kevin McE (talk) 18:11, 28 April 2020 (UTC) What data supports "coronavirus is more widely used than than COVID"? Is that based perhaps on your feeling or where you live? Google shows the following results: - "Coronavirus" about 2,380,000,000 results, while "covid-19" about 3,000,000,000. Veritycheck✔️ (talk) 19:48, 28 April 2020 (UTC) You are right about google search results, which I found surprising. However, checking various news sites, it seems coronavirus is much preferred to COVID-19. Checking main page of various sites, no mention of COVID in [13]. For [14][15][16][17][18] use is mixed, but coronavirus is more common by a factor of 4 or more. I'd say the pandemic has affected many aspects of life and "coronavirus" is now used in a much wider sense than a virus or group of viruses. Vpab15 (talk) 20:46, 28 April 2020 (UTC) Oppose. FFS, the fact that the moratorium has expired does not mean we immediately start an RM. Generally when there's a moratorium of any length, we only consider subsequent changes if something major has cheaanged in real life. Anyway, if you really need a reason not to move this, then pick any of those above - (1) although "COVID-19" has come into the lexicon, the common name for the pandemic in the public consciousness and in reliable sources is still "coronavirus", and that word needs to be in the title; (2) even if the proposed name or others were marginally better, the time we've spent so far arguing over this is excessive. We picked a name in Feb after painstaking argument, and it's not productive to revisit that, that's why the moratorium was imposed.; (3) having the dates is useful.  — Amakuru (talk) 14:18, 28 April 2020 (UTC) You got the moratorium you asked for, it was respected. Please respect the right to do now what there is no longer a moratorium against. 1) Common usage, as has been demonstrated in this discussion, is clearly split, but there is an inportant semantic principle at stake which you have presented no argument against. To include the phrase 'coronavirus pandemic' in the title is contrary to the consensus statement presented at the top of this page. 2) To persist with semantic error because we have been making that error for a coupe of months already is entirely contradictory to encyclopaedic purpose. We are talking about page titles that should be in place for many years to come, so let's not look uninformed forever for the sake of what has been the case for a couple of months. 3) What anyone considers 'useful' is an entirely objective opinion, others are at least equally entitled to consider it redundant. However, the dates are as yet unknown, the year of emergence of the disease is implied in the proposed title and I think we can be confident that most informed readers seeing the name COVID-19 will know what the 19 refers to, and there is no naming policy that requires dating of events in their page title (should Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand be at 1914 Assassination of Archduke Franz Ferdinand?). Kevin McE (talk) 14:41, 28 April 2020 (UTC) I'd like to add on to your third point: should Spanish flu be renamed to 1918 flu pandemic simply because having the date is useful? WP:COMMONNAME applies here, as "COVID-19 pandemic" is both common, accurate, and precise. sam1370 (talk) 18:43, 28 April 2020 (UTC) This is an interesting point. It made me question what was the exact name of the 9/11 page. It is "September 11 attacks" (even if "9/11" also redirects to it). It would be accurate and even more precise (mainly because every year has an eleventh day in the month of September), but I don't think we should rename it to "2001 September 11 attacks", nor "11 September 2001 attacks", nor "September 11, 2001, attacks", nor "2001-September-11 attacks", nor "Terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001", nor other similar combinations. So, I agree with Kevin McE and sam1370's justifications. If it ever occurs another series of attacks on the 11th day of September of another year, I promise that I will reconsider it. ACLNM (talk) 22:03, 29 April 2020 (UTC) Support. Usage has already shifted from the generic to the specific term. Moving gives us now the advantage of getting rid of the prefix (and hope there will be no second pandemic of COVID-19) Agathoclea (talk) 14:54, 28 April 2020 (UTC) Support removing dates. They only cause confusion and make the article difficult to search for. As of now, this is the only COVID-19 pandemic in history. If there is a later pandemic of the same disease (as opposed to a second or third wave of this one), we can talk about dates then. Scolaire (talk) 15:04, 28 April 2020 (UTC) [Edit] Support "COVID-19 pandemic" rather than "Coronavirus 2019 pandemic". The disease is commonly known as "COVID-19" or "the coronavirus", not as "Coronavirus 2019". It is officially known as "Coronavirus Disease 2019", so "Coronavirus 2019" fails here as well. Scolaire (talk) 13:42, 30 April 2020 (UTC) Support, coronaviruses are a group of viruses, of which SARS-CoV-2 is one, which causes COVID-19. -- Jeandré, 2020-04-28t17:14z Oppose Everyone here speaks about corona, nobody does about some kind of covid with some kind of number (where some people even guessed it was the 19. kind of virus, instead of the year 2019). Please keep in mind that English is not only used in the US (where even "Wuhan flu" was suggested!?). Speaking for Europe, it's corona which is in the news. And nobody knows what COVID stands for (and that it must be upper case), while everyone knows the crown shape of the virus by now. --Traut (talk) 18:38, 28 April 2020 (UTC) Who is the everyone you are referring to? It’s certainly not me. Additionally, where is here? Wikipedia’s role isn’t to set standards, but rather to reflect what is in use elsewhere. Your nobody doesn’t include me or others who do know what COVID 19 stands for. Finally, not everyone knows that corona means crown. Sweeping generalisations don’t make for good arguments. Veritycheck✔️ (talk) 20:08, 28 April 2020 (UTC) You ACTUALLY do know what COVID stands for? But you do not know that it is COVID-19, not COVID 19? I must admit, I did not know what COVID stands for. I looked it up. But then, why isn't it CoViD-19? WHO themselves sometimes name it COVID 2019! And if you want to be precise, SARS-CoV-2 would be even more precise! --Traut (talk) 20:39, 28 April 2020 (UTC) I know about several European countries. You live in Italy? I checked some of the most important Italian newspapers. All name coronavirus on the main page, none COVID-19. Where is your here? --Traut (talk) 22:37, 28 April 2020 (UTC) Are these English newspapers? Anyhow if you look at English speaking countries will often use COVID. It sounds rather cool in an Australian accent. Agathoclea (talk) 13:00, 29 April 2020 (UTC) @Traut, I'm also included in your "nobody" and I'm also in Europe, in a small country called Portugal. Here, within the limited range of possibilities, the media try to be as scientific as possible. Orally, they refer to the virus as "the/this coronavirus/virus", and call the disease by the correct term "COVID-19" or by "COVID" (incomplete, but easier to say 150 times in a 30-minute segment of news; when saying "19", they usually say it in the portuguese form "dezanove"); in titles and infographics, they usually use "COVID-19" and "coronavirus" (as in "Today's COVID-19 cases/numbers" and "Coronavirus Restrictions"). In the printing press, many articles try to introduce the different concepts in a way such as "This pandemic of the disease COVID-19, caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2, a virus from the same family of the virus SARS-CoV, the virus that was responsible for the SARS outbreak in 2002" (here's an example from an article written by the secretary-general of ANMSP, the portuguese association of public health medical doctors). Outside the media, in everyday speech, people refer to the virus and the disease interchangingly, in the forms "the virus/coronavirus" and "the COVID/COVID-19" (both frequent), "the corona" (more informal and less frequent), and "the SARS-CoV-2" (the correct name of the virus; rarer but more frequently used by more literate people, i.e., health professionals and scientists). ACLNM (talk) 23:27, 29 April 2020 (UTC) Thanks for the feedback. I checked headlines on cmjornal.pt (CORONA VIRUS), destak.pt (COVID-19, COVID 19), record.pt (Coronavírus) and publico.pt (Coronavírus, naming Covid-19 and covid-19). If you drop the "-19", COVID becomes exactly as inspecific as corona virus itself - and people start dropping the number. That's ok, but if anyone speaks about corona, it's just the virus that we have for the very moment. It's up to the specialists to refer exactly to SARS-CoV-2 in order not to confuse it with any other virus. My vote would be for the "2020 corona pandemic" (as 2009 swine flu pandemic, the 1918 Spanish flu 1918 flu pandemic etc. --Traut (talk) 12:03, 30 April 2020 (UTC) Calling this corona pandemic would be a terrible idea. Very few sources call it anything close. Heck for me, one of the top news stories at the moment seems to be about a new born baby called corona. Nil Einne (talk) 13:50, 2 May 2020 (UTC) Support per WP:COMMONNAME and WP:CONCISE. "COVID-19" seems to have taken hold as the more common name. Rreagan007 (talk) 19:56, 28 April 2020 (UTC) Support "COVID-19" and "Covid" seem to be more common now than coronavirus. Coronavirus is also a somewhat inaccurate name as this is one of a group of coronaviruses. COVID-19 is the more proper name so I think it is a good fit. Atlas50 (talk) 20:42, 28 April 2020 (UTC) oppose per Traut--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 21:14, 28 April 2020 (UTC) Support per reasons 1., 2., 3.(a), 3.(b) listed by Kevin McE. The possibility of another COVID-19 pandemic (3.(c)) is not a serious counterargument to the proposal. If SARS-CoV-2 evolves enough to be able to cause a new pandemic despite the immunity and vaccinations of the first pandemic, chances are the next pandemic would be given a new name, such as COVID-25, for example. It's more likely that the next pandemic will be from one of the other many suspected sources of Disease X (which might have to be renamed Disease Y if COVID-19 is officially defined as Disease X). Boud (talk) 21:24, 28 April 2020 (UTC) I feel it's unfortunate that so much different aspects are merged for this move. I do not like the 2019-20 prefix myself. But I do not understand why you vote for "2" since no one suggests to name this "coronavirus 19". For me it's either to use "corona" vs. COVID-19. Or to drop the 2019-2020 prefix (who knows whether it will remain the 2019-21 or more?). Bit it's not about coronavirus 2019. --Traut (talk) 22:04, 28 April 2020 (UTC) I offered in the OP to withdraw this if there were a preference for three RfCs, to discuss the three elements to the change, but in c50 replies you are the first to suggest any dissatisfaction with dealing with it all in one discussion. Kevin McE (talk) 08:06, 29 April 2020 (UTC) Support Per WP:COMMONNAME, WP:CONCISE, WP:NAMINGCRITERIA and WP:NOTCRYSTALBALL. Stavd3 (talk) 21:48, 28 April 2020 (UTC) Oppose and for the amount of articles that already reference this page, and also for ease of understanding (misinformation about this virus is rampant, and making this page as easy to understand as possible is important). An example of misinformation is there has been a misconception among some people that COVID-19 is so named because it is the "19th coronavirus" (when it is instead named for originating in 2019). I don't believe changing the name to COVID-19 is worth the hassle and worth potentially confusing misinformed people who come to this page. 2600:1700:8450:77F0:BD11:3A60:33C5:3793 (talk) 23:49, 28 April 2020 (UTC) And the article can explain clearly in its opening sentence where the name COVID-119 comes from so that there is no need for that error to persist. But explanation/education is dealt with in the articles, not in their titles. Kevin McE (talk) 08:06, 29 April 2020 (UTC) This is not really a problem because there are bots which can carry out most of the renaming, and, of course, there will be redirects to catch the old title(s) as well. So, nobody would miss the article. It is just that the article as is resides under its technical correct name, which I consider highly desirable for an encyclopedia. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 18:50, 1 May 2020 (UTC) Oppose for consistency and to avoid confusion. Additionally, I have seen some people claim that COVID-19 is a more common way to refer to the virus than coronavirus nowadays. This has not been my personal experience; in my social circles as well as on my local news it is still almost exclusively referred to as coronavirus. Teddybearearth (talk) 00:08, 29 April 2020 (UTC) But nobody should be referring to the virus as COVID-19: that is a name for the disease. And if in your community the virus is (not incorrectly, but rather imprecisely) referred to as coronavirus, that is no justification for naming the pandemic after a virus rather than a disease. Kevin McE (talk) 08:06, 29 April 2020 (UTC) Support per above. Coronavirus lacks specificity, there are other Coronaviruses. Liam Skoda (talk) 00:16, 29 April 2020 (UTC) Support As mentioned before per WP:COMMONNAME, WP:CONCISE, WP:NAMINGCRITERIA and WP:NOTCRYSTALBALL. I'm a doctor and officially we refer to the pandemic mostly by COVID-19 than simply coronavirus. WHO has a pattern to give names to new diseases and that is done so we can avoid xenophobia, discrimination and other problems related to a poor naming (like Chinese flu or something like it). That makes the name relevant enough to have such distinction. Gsfelipe94 (talk) 00:20, 29 April 2020 (UTC) Support per above. Nate 2169 Talk Contributions 00:44, 29 April 2020 (UTC) Support per nom. — 1857a (talk) 01:06, 29 April 2020 (UTC) Support per discussions above Triangleman3 (talk) —Preceding undated comment added 01:28, 29 April 2020 (UTC) Support, the proposed is slightly better, and slightly overcomes WP:TITLECHANGES. The proposed is more correct. 2019-2020 Coronavirus Pandemic is "correct" but less so. The pandemic is over not just any coronavirus, or coronaviruses in general, but specifically the SARS‑CoV‑2 virus. COVID-19 is the disease caused by SARS‑CoV‑2 virus. This disease is very unlikely to be confined to the 2019-2020 date space, and so it is appropriate to drop the date with the proposed new title "COVID-19 pandemic", which will be timeless. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:32, 29 April 2020 (UTC) Support: Per WP:COMMONNAME, WP:CONCISE. Chinese Wikipedia already has the article named after the disease, not the virus: zh:2019冠状病毒病疫情. —Wei4Green (talk, contributions) 02:13, 29 April 2020 (UTC) Oppose: The name COVID or COVID-19 is very technical, harder to utter, and most speeches mention the pandemic as the coronavirus. If it ain't broke, don't fix it. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 03:22, 29 April 2020 (UTC) To a similar extent that COVID-19 is technical, referring to this thing as "coronavirus" is incorrect, is broken. Coronavirus, the technical term, is very very broad, much more broad than the specific virus, and still much more broad than the virus class. The term dereives from the morphology, "virus with a crown", which is a common morphology. COVID-19 is "harder to utter" is nonsense, it is easier, less syllables, unambiguous emphasis pattern, and irrelevant really. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 03:31, 29 April 2020 (UTC) “ko-vid-nine-teen” vs “twen-tee-nine-teen-twen-tee ko-ron-uh-vie-rus pan-dem-ik” Look at this and decide for yourself which is harder to utter. sam1370 (talk) 11:34, 29 April 2020 (UTC) Calm down Joe. No need to shun someone for disagreeing with his opinion. Everybody here wrote his opinion, like others and me. Re-read what I wrote, and you'll see I meant in aloud spoken contexts, including in news reports, the word coronavirus is more common, easier, and friendlier to say, by native English language speakers or second language speakers. To another similar extent, calling a radio-wave receiver, just radio is also incorrect, but it just happened that the word refers to both, the receiver and the electromagnetic wave range, and even to internet audio streams! And, no Sam, no one talks about two thousand nineteen, twenty coronavirus, they just say coronavirus, which is easier and more recognizable, and not covid nineteen. --Mahmudmasri (talk) 21:04, 1 May 2020 (UTC) @Mahmudmasri: Oh yes, I misunderstood your comment. However, ko-vid-nine-teen is easier to utter than ko-ron-a-vi-rus, as it has less syllables. User:SmokeyJoe never shunned you, he just said that your claim that COVID-19 was harder to say than coronavirus was nonsense -- which it is, considering that COVID-19 has less syllables. sam1370 (talk, contribs) 21:18, 1 May 2020 (UTC) Comment. I consider myself an advocate for our readers and therefore I think that using the simplest/most widespread terms for this event (whether we choose "Coronavirus" or "COVID-19" pandemic) would be very helpful to our general audience in finding and remembering this very important article and its vital information, especially for the duration of this emergency. However, once the emergency ends, the name of this article should look more encyclopedic and in line with the other similar articles and include the *year/s* in the front, so it ultimately looks like: "2020-XX something something". We are witnessing an event of historic proportions, so please don't forget to add the date once it ends! Cordially, History DMZ (talk)+(ping) 03:52, 29 April 2020 (UTC) COVID-19 is permadated by the -19, which means 2019. Its start. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:12, 29 April 2020 (UTC) The COVID-19 *pandemic* was declared by the WHO in 2020, that's the start. If the article were simply titled "COVID-19" (thus covering the whole timeline) then the start would be 2019. Cordially, History DMZ (talk)+(ping) 06:52, 29 April 2020 (UTC) So even if you are not happy with the proposal, you believe that the current naming for the page is wrong, and therefore that it should be changed? Kevin McE (talk) 08:06, 29 April 2020 (UTC) Kevin McE, the proposal that you presented is not wrong but it is incomplete. It presents a dilemma: using COVID-19 in the title is correct, and so is including the year 2020. Problem becomes the flow/readability of "2020 COVID-19 pandemic". Then if we try abbreviating to "2020 COVID pandemic" that may cause confusion and give the impression there is a covid-19 and a covid-20. Finally, "2020 coronavirus pandemic" solves some issues but raises others that were already mentioned by fellow users here. What I support is an easy-to-find practical article name *for now*, and a more detailed encyclopedic article name after this global crisis ends. Cordially, History DMZ (talk)+(ping) 11:57, 29 April 2020 (UTC) There is no formulation that is totally future proof. Maybe (and let's all hope) there will be no further recurrence of a pandemic of this disease: in that case the current suggestion meets all requirements, and needs no year prefix to identify it. Maybe it will recur, but will have mutated to the extent that the disease is renamed (COVID-25 or whatever it may be): again, the proposed new name will be sufficient to identify it. Maybe there will be a second major outbreak, and we will need to specify, presumably with a year prefix, the extent of the incident we are living through with the benefit of hindsight to know whether it is generally accepted that what happened in December was the start of the pandemic, and knowledge of when it finished. Maybe opinion and/or expert advice will turn against the idea of 2019 as having seen anything of the pandemic, which would affect the present formulation (and many others) but not mine. And maybe it will drag on beyond the end of this year, in which case my proposal is unaffected, but the current name, crystal balling a conclusion in 2020, would need changing, as would all the related pages. Kevin McE (talk) 13:40, 29 April 2020 (UTC) Comment: This isn't Simple English Wikipedia. It would be better to put a redirect instead. However, we still need to know which term is more recognizable, COVID-19 or Coronavirus. My idea is that whichever term is more recognizable, we use that as the mainspace article name. RareButterflyDoors (talk) 05:34, 29 April 2020 (UTC) Support - moving it to "COVID-19 pandemic" is a much better title as mentioned by many people above. It's shorter, precise, concise, it is more accurate since it is using its established name "COVID-19", instead of "coronavirus" which refers to multiple other viruses, and by omitting the date range, we won't have to keep moving the article if the pandemic extends into another year. --TheSameGuy (talk) 06:19, 29 April 2020 (UTC) Support per nom. Having the year prefix is clumsy. Ljgua124 (talk) 07:08, 29 April 2020 (UTC) Support Coronavirus is too general; COVID-19 is more specific. Jam ai qe ju shikoni (talk) 09:48, 29 April 2020 (UTC) @Jam ai qe ju shikoni Don't forget that COVID-19 is a more common name for it. RareButterflyDoors (talk) 11:57, 29 April 2020 (UTC) @RareButterflyDoors I don't see how that puts my argument down. Did you perhaps mean "Coronavirus" and misspelled it as "COVID-19"? Jam ai qe ju shikoni (talk) 14:13, 29 April 2020 (UTC) No, I meant that COVID-19 is a more recognizable term to name the article. RareButterflyDoors (talk) 01:19, 30 April 2020 (UTC) @RareButterflyDoors Ah, gotcha. At first glance it seemed to like you were arguing against me; that's why I asked. Other than meeting the criteria for WP:COMMONNAME, it also seems to meet the criteria for WP:CONCISE and WP:PRECISE. Jam ai qe ju shikoni (talk) 11:52, 30 April 2020 (UTC) Support per common name. TheGreatSG'rean (talk) 12:05, 29 April 2020 (UTC) Support Should be as per the common name of the disease, not the year. Vikram Maingi (talk) 12:51, 29 April 2020 (UTC) Support for the many reasons given above. "COVID-19" is not only more concise, it's more accurate than "coronavirus" (which gives a false impression about coronaviruses in general; they're one of the viruses responsible for the common cold!)...however, I'd prefer keeping the date prefix. "2019-20 COVID-19 Pandemic" would be best IMO. Nevertheless, "COVID-19 Pandemic" is better than what we have now. Global Cerebral Ischemia (talk) 12:25, 29 April 2020 (UTC) Oppose Try again in a few months time if "COVID-19" is really the most common way of referring to the pandemic at that time. Round my neck of the woods, "coronavirus" is still what it's generally called. Both titles are probably acceptable, which means that whichever was originally used should remain for simplicity's sake. 31.53.12.152 (talk) 13:30, 29 April 2020 (UTC) Support as specificity (from other coronavirus disease i.e. the common cold) is required. Magic9mushroom (talk) 14:13, 29 April 2020 (UTC) Strongly support as I have done since january, as my first edits on the issue before becoming a prolific editor in Feb- early march. For the same reasoning, the current name is not WP:PRECISE and the WP:COMMONNAME as many including myself predicted, is COVID-19. I recognize that according to the WHO, that is technically an abbreviation. But they intended for it to become the common name, and it has, we must follow. --Almaty (talk) 14:22, 29 April 2020 (UTC) Support as per common name Geekgecko (talk) 15:52, 29 April 2020 (UTC) Oppose per WP:COMMONNAME. --Wolbo (talk) 16:41, 29 April 2020 (UTC) At this point in time, they're seemingly tied for which is the common name. (As said above, "..."covid-19 pandemic" (with quotes) shows 149,000,000 results to sites such as FAO.org, Unicef.org, Eui.eu, Unv.org, Time.com, MIT.edu, WHO.int, theGuardian.com. Conversely, "coronavirus pandemic" (again with quotes) gets 124,000,000 results and "2019–20 coronavirus pandemic" has a mere 259,000 results from largely wiki based sites.") Additionally, since they're generally tied for which is the common name, it would make more sense to use the more correct, more specific, more concise, more accurate, more natural name. Paintspot Infez (talk) 16:52, 29 April 2020 (UTC) Nonsense, a quick tour of leading English speaking news(paper) website shows coronavirus is used much more frequently, and much more prominently, than Covid-19. It is nowhere near equal.--Wolbo (talk) 17:27, 29 April 2020 (UTC) Covid stands for the disease, and is the most specific, WP:concise and WP:precise qualifier for the pandemic under WP:NAMINGCRITERIA. Search count for 'coronavirus' (alone) is irrelevant. —RCraig09 (talk) 17:45, 29 April 2020 (UTC) Support points 1 and 2 per nom and other editors. Oppose point 3. The resultant name would be: 2019–20 COVID-19 pandemic. There is no reason to believe this will be the sole COVID-19 pandemic in history. Indeed, several sources suggest subsequent waves are inevitable. Change to Full Support. Re-read above discussion in light of Global Cerebral Ischemia's comment below. I'm convinced that the year need be added only if and when another COVID-19 pandemic occurs. Was especially convinced by discussion re: Spanish flu and September 11 attacks above. Sahitana (talk) 17:19, 29 April 2020 (UTC) FWIW, subsequent waves (in the fall and winter) would be considered part of the same ongoing pandemic and be covered by this article. Presuming that this pandemic ends with an effective vaccine and/or herd immunity (in a year? a year and a half?), this would indeed be the sole COVID-19 pandemic in history. Global Cerebral Ischemia (talk) 19:11, 29 April 2020 (UTC) Support COVID-19 is now common and it is certainly more precise. Ribbet32 (talk) 18:13, 29 April 2020 (UTC) References Support Recognized name for this specific virus and pandemic. Coronavirus too generic and refers to all viruses of this type. Primecoordinator (talk) 18:45, 29 April 2020 (UTC) Support The title is too long and COVID-19 is the exact term while coronavirus is a more generic term relating to a family of viruses. Alexceltare2 (talk) 19:15, 29 April 2020 (UTC) Support COVID-19 is the disease. Furthermore, most of the pandemic (nearly all of it) has happened this year, only the very beggining was in 2019. Naming it "2019-2020...pandemic" would be confusing for future readers, this is more accurate. WesSirius (talk) 19:40, 29 April 2020 (UTC) Support The current title is a compromise from before any single name was common, now that COVID-19 has become the common name the article title should be changed to reflect this. Sonictrey (talk) 00:41, 30 April 2020 (UTC) Support I support COVID-19 as it simpler and its more widely recognize.In my country at least they call it covid or covid 19 in most news. Like a user above mention we dont call the spanish flu the 1918 pandemic etc, so this case should not be different. --Allancalderini12 (talk) 01:30, 30 April 2020 (UTC) For those new editors wanting to join the discussion, here's a list of arguments made by editors. This is very long lol Under Support: Concise name, per WP:CONCISE Recognizable term for it, per WP:COMMONNAME Eliminates the need for changing the article name every year Prevents nonsense terms like "Chinese Virus" or "Chinese Flu" More specific; coronavirus is a general term, per WP:PRECISION Under Oppose: Too technical Already easy to understand More descriptive Recognizable term for it, per WP:COMMONNAME I think that's all the arguments I can find. This is just to let new editors who want to take part of the discussion know how the discussion is ongoing, because this thread is REALLY long. You can change this if you want. Anyway stan Jimmy Wales RareButterflyDoors (talk) 02:45, 30 April 2020 (UTC) Biased list, some have used WP:COMMONNAME to argue against changing the name. It can be said that both terms (COVID-19 and coronavirus) are equally commonly used. Changing the article name every year is a very minor issue that we won't have to worry about for eight months. I don't see how changing the title to COVID-19 prevents nonsense terms. Another valid argument against changing the title is people don't realise the 19 in COVID-19 stands for 2019 and therefore it will sound like a general title if it doesn't have the year attached. 31.53.12.152 (talk) 03:13, 30 April 2020 (UTC) By the way, it might be worth checking Google Trends on this issue of which is more common. "Coronavirus" seems to be a far, far more popular search term than COVID-19, both in the US and globally. I have to say COVID-19 sounds elitist and technical. 31.53.12.152 (talk) 03:27, 30 April 2020 (UTC) I have mentioned that you can change the list. It was really hard to get a grasp of what arguments editors say since it was very long. RareButterflyDoors (talk) 03:58, 30 April 2020 (UTC) Comment If, God forbid, another outbreak or pandemic of COVID-19 will happen in the future, then we will have to rename articles such that we have to disambiguate using the year or years that it would occur. The name COVID-19 may sound common but it would confuse readers because there is no indication of when that outbreak or pandemic happened if there was no year in the title. The -19 refers to 2019, but the vast majority of countries are experiencing this pandemic in 2020. Also, the name coronavirus is generic but it is now used mostly as an alternative to saying COVID or COVID-19, so the other coronaviruses would stand less in name recall than this current one. Also, we have the article about the 2002–2004 SARS outbreak which, despite having happened only once, is still disambiguated using the years that it occured. LSGH (talk) (contributions) 05:58, 30 April 2020 (UTC) FWIW, that was an "outbreak," not a "pandemic." The latter is more unique and perhaps less likely to recur. Sahitana (talk) 19:48, 30 April 2020 (UTC) But what if another outbreak happens? The possibility of it happening again could not be left out. LSGH (talk) (contributions) 05:14, 1 May 2020 (UTC) Oppose As per the user above my statement, really ^^. There is a point there that we now deem this more as 'COVID-19' and it is a more reliable name than 'coronavirus'. However, as the user above me also stated, majority of the effects were being felt in 2020. Personally think that we should remain with the current name and after all of this is at least over, then we could perhaps have another discussion about naming, but adding the year(s) is better to signify which pandemic as this could happen again. Typhoon2013 (talk) 08:32, 30 April 2020 (UTC) Comment Just to add in, with me still opposing, as long as both titles are recognised in the opening statements too. As for instance with this, as long as in the opening line could have something as, "also known as the COVID-19 pandemic (or 2019-2X coronavirus pandemic". Typhoon2013 (talk) 08:45, 30 April 2020 (UTC) Comment I would certainly support changing the title to "2020 Coronavirus pandemic". After all, although the disease existed in 2019, it only became a pandemic in 2020. Similarly, if it is declared to no longer be a pandemic by the relevant authorities before the end of the year, I think people will still think of it as the "2020 pandemic" even if there are minor aftershocks in coming years, as there usually are for major pandemics. 31.53.12.152 (talk) 09:25, 30 April 2020 (UTC) Support per nom. Seems more specific and natural. I don't think that the concern of the "19" not reflecting the time period of the pandemic is a particular issue, as the 19 in COVID-19 is simply a component of the name of the disease, and shouldn't be taken to imply anything in particular about the time period of this pandemic as a whole (the original choice in relation to the year of emergence of the disease is a separate matter). BlackholeWA (talk) 12:24, 30 April 2020 (UTC) Edit to note - "2019-20 COVID-19 pandemic" also sounds okay to me if people really want the years. BlackholeWA (talk) 12:30, 30 April 2020 (UTC) Comment "COVID-19" is the official name of the disease and its pandemic should be named "COVID-19 pandemic". But in some ways "coronavirus pandemic" is more acceptable to the general public. Peter Wu (2019) 13:12, 30 April 2020 (UTC) Oppose Despite WHO acknowledged the pandemic as "COVID-19", most of the worst effects were witnessed in 2020 and it won't be accurate to rename it as COVID-19 pandemic. The current title 2019-20 coronavirus pandemicis very clear to the viewers and certain that the current pandemic originated in 2019 and the worst effects are witnessed in 2020. Abishe (talk) 13:23, 30 April 2020 (UTC) COVID-19 stands for "COronaVIrus Disease 2019". The disease emerged in 2019. If it were called COVIP-19 then you might have a point, but it's not. --Ahecht (TALK PAGE) 15:32, 30 April 2020 (UTC) Neutral per all reasons by users. Whether it will move the name of the article or not, I have to play safe to vote neutral and the majority votes will be the result. Movies Time (talk) 13:43, 30 April 2020 (UTC) Support, coronavirus is a type of virus where there are lots of different viruses making up this family typing. MERS, SARS and flu viruses being a handful of them. The particular virus in question is SARS-2 which causes the Covid-19 disease. It is this disease which the pandemic has been called for. The media latched on to the term coronavirus while the WHO came up with a name for this strand and the disease it causes. Furthermore, a pandemic was not really declared fully until 2020 so the the article's original title makes little sense. → Lil-℧niquԐ1 - (Talk) - 14:48, 30 April 2020 (UTC) Support in addition to being more concise and aligning with the COVID-19 WikiProject title, it's hard to say whether this will end in 2020, plus this pandemic refers to a specific type of coronavirus. SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 15:17, 30 April 2020 (UTC) Support As of now, I think it is quite clear that the term "COVID-19 pandemic" is 1) more accurate than the current title, and 2) at least as commonly used as the current title, if not even more common. A quick Google search I did for "COVID-19 pandemic" yields 522,000,000 results, while "coronavirus pandemic" yields 510,000,000 results, and "2019–2020 coronavirus pandemic" yields only 354,000,000 results. Note that I have added "-wikipedia" to these search terms to exclude results related to that keyword. Masjawad99💬 15:26, 30 April 2020 (UTC) Opoose. Would support move to "Coronavirus pandemic". It is the common name and alleviates the need for a future discussion if the pandemic extends beyond the end of 2020, which it quite likely may. Ergo Sum 20:14, 30 April 2020 (UTC) Support, indeed. Coltsfan (talk) 21:13, 30 April 2020 (UTC) Support, the last fortnight has finally bought it fairly clearly into the majority usage in media, and then common, usage. Nosebagbear (talk) 22:48, 30 April 2020 (UTC) Support Everyone just knows it as the Coronavirus, so i support the name Coronavirus pandemic. If another coronavirus pandemic occurs in the future, we can then just add a time period (2019-20, 2019-21, etc) to the title of this article. Pancho507 (talk) 04:42, 1 May 2020 (UTC) I would have to question wheth you have read the proposal. Kevin McE (talk) 08:00, 1 May 2020 (UTC) Support per nom, it's precise and concise. -Abhishikt (talk) 07:25, 1 May 2020 (UTC) Support per discussions above, it's more concise the year isn't needed as this is the only COVID-19 pandemic so far. Nooby person1 (talk) 13:17, 1 May 2020 (UTC) Oppose. My reflex reaction was to support, but it would be inconsistent with what the community has done in the past for SARS and MERS, both of which redirect to more specific titles. Obviously, "COVID-19" should absolutely redirect to the current article title, and IMO that's sufficient. PKT(alk) 15:15, 1 May 2020 (UTC) COVID-19 is an entirely separate article about the disease specifically, not the pandemic. It definitely shouldn't redirect here. Global Cerebral Ischemia (talk) 14:07, 2 May 2020 (UTC) Actually, "COVID-19" is more specific than just "coronavirus". "Coronavirus" is a broad type of viruses (one that actually includes SARS and MERS), while COVID-19 is this specific viral disease. So if your argument is that the disease name should be more specific, it would make sense to have it at COVID-19 (also, we typically name pandemics atfer the disease, not the type of virus). Paintspot Infez (talk) Understood, but the current title is not just "coronavirus", it is "2019–20 coronavirus pandemic", which is much more specific. Equally as specific as COVID-19, IMO. PKT(alk) 20:55, 1 May 2020 (UTC) Support As others mentoned earler: More natural, more common, more specific, more concise, and more accurate.Tomeasy T C 18:19, 1 May 2020 (UTC) Support More specific. PKdbz (talk) 19:11, 1 May 2020 (UTC) Support Yep, it's shorter and more specific. Dyaluk08 (talk) 19:16, 1 May 2020 (UTC) Strong oppose (both suggestions) Reputable new sources, such as The Guardian; the BBC; the New York Times; the Wall Street Journal; the Associated Press overwhelmingly use "coronavirus", not "COVID-19". I disagree with the points made removing dates since there are other epidemics (SARS, MERS) which were caused by coronaviruses (the difference between "epidemic" and "pandemic" being one of scale, and an average reader might be otherwise mislead) so we should seek to abide by both WP:COMMONNAME and the Precision criteria. 107.190.33.254 (talk) 20:46, 1 May 2020 (UTC) These headlines from The Guardian; the BBC; the New York Times; the Wall Street Journal; the Associated Press all use COVID-19. Veritycheck✔️ (talk) 21:40, 1 May 2020 (UTC) I'm not sure what the IP user means by 'both suggestions' as only one is under discussion here. SARS and MERS are appropriately used with epi/pandemic, as they are the names for the respective diseases: the issue is not the frequency with which the word "corovirus" is used, but the juxtaposition of 'coronavirus' with 'pandemic'. Kevin McE (talk) 23:18, 1 May 2020 (UTC) @Kevin Mce: There's your suggestion to rename this to "COVID-19" (or whatever is the exact variant); and then there's another suggestion at the very top of this survey to drop the year without renaming (see comment by User:Crouch, Swale). As for the headlines, the Guardian uses "coronavirus" in their rolling update feeds; and on the page you link, everything except for that one headline is "Coronavirus" (i.e. "Coronavirus"; "Coronavirus explained"; "... UK"; "... around the world" - you get the point). The BBC seems to be using COVID-19 to refer to the disease; but on their homepage (which I linked) it's very clearly "Coronavirus pandemic". NYT: "We are providing free access to the most important news and useful guidance on the coronavirus outbreak". I'll spare examples for the others since it is the same outcome. So essentially my point is that both variants might come up in different article headlines and such, but the term used for overall coverage is much more frequently "coronavirus" than "COVID-19". 107.190.33.254 (talk) 01:07, 2 May 2020 (UTC) The only suggestion being discussed in this thread is the headline one: if Crouch, Swale wishes to start another RM, that is up to him/her. Several people have presented google counts that are so close as to show that there is no overwhelming predominance of either, and so we should consider that WP:COMMONNAME is not a simple count, 52-48 is sufficient to mess everything up, referendum. I'll quote it again: "When there is no single, obvious name that is demonstrably the most frequently used for the topic by these sources, editors should reach a consensus as to which title is best by considering these criteria directly." So given the lack of a decisive count, or even of consistency in the publications you cite, do you have an argument based on the main principles of WP:TITLE, which recognisability, naturalness, precision, conciseness and consistency? Kevin McE (talk) 10:57, 2 May 2020 (UTC) FWIW, there are a few comments saying "support change to 'Coronavirus pandemic'" or something of a similar nature. Back to the main topic: a simple count of google search results is not a definitive criteria, see WP:GOOGLETEST. A search on google trends (comparison here) also shows that "coronavirus" is still the preferred term worldwide (by nearly a factor of 2 to 1) when compared with "covid". A search for the terms with "pandemic" appended is even more lopsided. In any case, even if we were to, for a moment, agree that these results might be inconclusive, my point that it's the term favoured by reliable sources, as shown above, stands. Is there any new sources which you have found which uses "COVID-19" for it's main page coverage in the fashion that I have shown above? Popularity is not just a simple headcount. The other criteria where "COVID-19" might otherwise outperform is precision (if you intend that articles about diseases be named after the disease), though then again that's not universal, for example Influenza pandemic which is named after the Influenza virus and not the common name for the condition (though whether that is the correct title or not is an open question), and in any case both options, (i.e. "2019-20 coronavirus pandemic" being the other one) are unambiguous so I don't see a clear winner. The difference in conciseness between "COVID-19" and "Coronavirus" is 3 characters, not a very major difference, unlike say if the title under discussion was "Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 pandemic". I don't think there's any difference for the other criteria, consistency of course being the minor exception that if we change to "COVID-19" we have to rename every article, but that can be done non-controversially by a bot. So, if we disregard popularity (which is still for coronavirus instead of covid), both alternatives are effectively tied; so there is no reason to change yet (i.e. if anything, WP should follow, not anticipate, a - possibly WP:CRYSTAL? - change in the status quo). 107.190.33.254 (talk) 16:21, 2 May 2020 (UTC) Support I put the most weight on WP:COMMONNAME unless the most common name is factually wrong or ambiguous. I suspect "COVID-19" has become more common than "coronavirus" based on what I've seen. And since there has only been one COVID-19 pandemic, the years are not needed. —Arctic Gnome (talk • contribs) 20:59, 1 May 2020 (UTC) Oppose The title is the least important part of this article. The naming is accurate - it is a pandemic spreading from 2019 into 2020. If, God forbid, we have to consider the pandemic in 2021, then an article name change could be required. For now, and for the last time, the current title is fine. Please think about the article, not the set dressing. doktorb wordsdeeds 23:47, 1 May 2020 (UTC) "And for the last time"...Since when has one editor had final say on article names? And totally missing the main point, which is not primarily the year but the misnaming of the pandemic after a loose group of viruses, rather than the disease. Kevin McE (talk) 00:47, 2 May 2020 (UTC) Support Current title doesn't specify the virus strain, making it ambiguous if future coronavirus-related outbreaks were to occur. Also, getting rid of the years from the title would be beneficial for two reasons: 1) The WHO officially recognized this as a pandemic in 2020, and having 2019 in the title would confuse readers; 2) There is a possibility that this pandemic might last beyond 2020, which would warrant the current title to be repeatedly changed. Tomatoexpress (talk) 00:25, 2 May 2020 (UTC) Support per above. Sawol (talk) 03:46, 2 May 2020 (UTC) Strongly Oppose, as I consider it disruptive. WP:COMMONNAME doesn't really help us here either, this seems to be an exception. Non-Wikipedians wanting information about the pandemic are comparatively more likely to type "Coronavirus pandemic" into Wikipedia's search bar, (redirecting them to this article), than they are to type "COVID-19 Pandemic" into the search bar. Referring to the disease as "Coronavirus" has become the norm for general citizens, whilst scientists and the media tend to refer to it as "COVID-19". Not sure how well my opinions will be received by everyone (this seems to be a contentious issue) but here goes nothing. Sean Stephens (talk) 06:06, 2 May 2020 (UTC) You say that COMMONNAME doesn't help us here (I agree, counts that are not filtered to specialist sites seem very close, and WP:COMMONNAME defers to the 5 other principles anyway) and then base your argument entirely on COMMONNAME. Kevin McE (talk) 10:57, 2 May 2020 (UTC) Appreciate your perspective, but I have to point out that your claim about what wikipedians are likely to type in the search bar is offered without evidence and completely contradicted by google search results; "COVID-19 pandemic" gives me >20 million more results than "coronavirus pandemic." This is not a trivial discrepancy. Global Cerebral Ischemia (talk) 14:00, 2 May 2020 (UTC) Support per above. James (T • C) • 07:39, 2 May 2020 (UTC) Support This move should of been done awhile ago. This obviously the name to stay and it should be the final name. This is first step on addressing Wikipedia misinformation on the COVID-19 Pandemic on Wikipedia. Regice2020 (talk) 08:03, 2 May 2020 (UTC) Support There is no need to specify the years as this is the only existent COVID-19 pandemic, plus the proposed title allows for the possibility for the situation to last beyond 2020 and the related articles should follow suit. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 9March2019 (talk • contribs) 12:58, 2 May 2020 (UTC) Support COVID-19 is the most accurate and precise description of the virus, as Regice2020 noted. Plumber (talk) 09:23, 2 May 2020 (UTC) Comment I have read from those supporting the move that COVID-19 is more common. However, as several people have shown here with links, almost all media favour coronavirus over COVID-19, even if usage is mixed. Can someone please present some evidence that COVID-19 is preferred by any media or news site? Otherwise I think it is wrong to use Wikipedia:COMMONNAME as an argument for the move. Vpab15 (talk) 11:38, 2 May 2020 (UTC) Not correct. As has been stated multiple times, "COVID-19 pandemic" turns up more search results than "coronavirus pandemic" (> 20 million more for me). Global Cerebral Ischemia (talk) 13:56, 2 May 2020 (UTC) Neutral I am only concerned about that visitors will find the information. Since both names are roughly equally common, it should be fine as long as redirect links are used. David A (talk) 12:52, 2 May 2020 (UTC) Comment to the opposers – I think this article should be renamed COVID-19 pandemic (or coronavirus pandemic) without the mention of the year until there will be another COVID-19 (or any kind of corona disease) pandemic. --Soumyabrata talk contribs subpages 15:02, 2 May 2020 (UTC) Support COVID-19 (or Covid-19) has become the common name, and it is technically more correct here since this article is about the disease, not the virus. -- MelanieN (talk) 15:19, 2 May 2020 (UTC) Unfortunately, you are perfectly right: It's not only COVID-19, which should be common nowawdays, but also "Covid-19", "covid-19", "COVID 19", "COVID 2019" etc. dropping the "19" more and more. Only few people mind that "COVID" names the disease, but not the virus. No one ever explained to me why it is not CoViD. But all this misspelling makes me doubt that COVID-19 is used more precisely than coronavirus. --Traut (talk) 17:53, 2 May 2020 (UTC) Given that there is no term "corona" separate from "coronavirus" in this field, there is absolutely no reason why there would be a lower case 'o' followed by a capital 'v'. As to the derivation of the name, it has been given several times already in this thread. Kevin McE (talk) 18:58, 2 May 2020 (UTC) So I'm biased by a mother language which does use upper case characters not only for headlines, but for Nouns (z.B. StVZO, GmbH) - see SoHo, WiFi, PoE, LiDAR, It's the Corona Virus Disease, but it's not abbreviated CVD-19. --Traut (talk) 20:45, 2 May 2020 (UTC) Strong oppose per WP:COMMONNAME. Coronavirus is the name that is used by the media and the common populace, COVID is relatively uncommon. This will just be moved back in a few weeks because the current title is already something that is in mass usage. Swordman97 talk to me 17:01, 2 May 2020 (UTC) Comment Also, this RM is seriously disruptive. Please at least try to get some form of mass support and remember that this article has had more than 10 RM already, there is no need for this. Swordman97 talk to me 17:10, 2 May 2020 (UTC) One RM in 36 days is not disruptive. Please suggest how one gets support if not by proposing change? And by what criteria do you consider a c3:1 majority in a large RM discussion not to be mass support. COMMONNAME states that Wikipedia "generally prefers the name that is most commonly used ... as such names will usually best fit the five criteria listed above." In other words, COMMONNAME is useful in so far as, and only in so far as, it ensures compliance with the five WP:NAMINGCRITERIA, not in and of itself. It is clear that there are two terms which vie closely with each other in terms of recognisability, but when precision, conciseness, and consistency with the decision of the WikiProject, there can only be one outcome that fulfills our naming criteria. Kevin McE (talk) 18:58, 2 May 2020 (UTC) Supports currently outnumber opposes 68 to 24. How much more mass support do you want? --Ahecht (TALK PAGE) 20:50, 2 May 2020 (UTC) Weak Support Personally, I think 2019-2020 Coronavirus Pandemic is a preferable title, but the dispute should no doubt be centered entirely on WP:COMMONNAME. However, when looking at search terms, there are some initially confounding results. On one hand, COVID-19 Pandemic receives 600 million results while Coronavirus pandemic recieves 400 million. However, as per Google Trends, Coronavirus pandemic is searched much more often than COVID-19 pandemic. I presume that this means that the public name for most of the population, who look up the term, is Coronavirus pandemic, while news media and other authoritative sources, whose results populate the google search, prefer the more scientific name of COVID-19 pandemic. So essentially, this seems to be a conflict between RS and public opinion. To resolve this, WP:COMMONNAME says it "generally prefers the name that is most commonly used (as determined by its prevalence in a significant majority of independent, reliable English-language sources)". Therefore, I would have to support changing the name as per Wikipedia policy. Zoozaz1 (talk) 20:39, 2 May 2020 (UTC) Support as Common name does not apply here as the general term Coronavirus is a group of viruses and should not be used for the disease. COVID-19 is the proper name for this disease. Lochglasgowstrathyre (talk) 21:55, 2 May 2020 (UTC) This article is about the pandemic, not the disease. The "coronavirus" group of viruses is what caused the pandemic, and "coronavirus" is what the pandemic is generally known as. By the way for disclosure I previously vote!d oppose under a different IP address, which is why I have not voted with this IP address. 109.158.239.84 (talk) 00:08, 3 May 2020 (UTC) I meant that the name of the illness is COVID-19 and that was why the illness name should be used for the pandemic rather than the name of the group of which Sars-Cov-2 is part of. Lochglasgowstrathyre (talk) 02:15, 3 May 2020 (UTC) Comment A non-admin user attempted to close this discussion (in favour of "move") at 23:17, 2 May 2020. I undid the closing of the discussion, as I believe it is too close to be called by a non-admin, and the minimum period of seven days has not yet passed. 109.158.239.84 (talk) 23:30, 2 May 2020 (UTC) Oppose. The current title is simple and easy to understand. COVID-19 is jargon. Note that, for example, the following all use "coronavirus": Coronavirus Preparedness and Response Supplemental Appropriations Act, 2020 Coronavirus Aid, Relief, and Economic Security Act Families First Coronavirus Response Act White House Coronavirus Task Force Coronavirus Act 2020 And, as we've seen in the news, many people don't even know the "19" stands for 2019. — the Man in Question (in question) 23:51, 2 May 2020 (UTC) The second of those legal documents pairs 'pandemic' with the name of the disease fifteen times,and the name of the virus once. Uses of the word 'coronavirus' that are not explicity linked to the naming of the pandemic are a red herring as far as this discussion is concerned. And if people don't know something (whether it is the derivation of the name COVID-19 or the naming conventions for pandemics, then what better place to inform them than in an encyclopaedia? Kevin McE (talk) 11:27, 3 May 2020 (UTC) Comment COVID-19 Pandemic should the final name and "some" oppose who keep deleting the "Support" votes are causing RM to be disruptive just like the previous ones need to stop or ANI is needed. Regice2020 (talk) 00:42, 3 May 2020 (UTC) Support: WP:COMMONNAME has been abandoned on many articles for the sake of compromises and being inoffensive (and I don't mean inoffensive towards people, but rather inoffensive towards tastes). The 2019-2020 is awkward, it wasn't a pandemic until 2020. "Coronavirus" is rarely used, while "COVID-19" is about as common now as simply "corona" while still being precise and medically correct. This move should be made. Prinsgezinde (talk) 01:43, 3 May 2020 (UTC) Support: Even songs have already been made about COVID-19. It's as much a common name now as "the coronavirus". --Amakuha (talk) 03:17, 3 May 2020 (UTC) Funny you mention that video, because in the description it says "coronavirus pandemic", not COVID-19 pandemic. Vpab15 (talk) 09:28, 3 May 2020 (UTC) No it does not. Kevin McE (talk) 11:43, 3 May 2020 (UTC) First, quoting from the video description: "American televangelist Kenneth Copeland, who recently claimed that the coronavirus pandemic will be “over much sooner you think”, [...]" Second, one song being titled like this is not a particularly convincing source (a quick google search reveals plenty of results for songs including "coronavirus" in their title). 107.190.33.254 (talk) 18:36, 3 May 2020 (UTC) Support nom on all 3 points. Both "Coronavirus" and "COVID-19" seem common at this point, and thus I tend to default to point 1 about naming it after the specific disease. I tend to agree with Global Cerebral Ischemia's point from April 29 about additional waves and use of the year. ECTran71 (talk) 08:02, 3 May 2020 (UTC) Support The pandemic has been the result of the disease - COVID-19 and not the virus - coronavirus which causes it. It is apt to rename the article. We can also look at the past outbreaks, years are rarely mentioned in the titles, the name of the disease suffices. Shawnqual (talk) 10:13, 3 May 2020 (UTC) Oppose for now. They may be a second outbreak. Ythlev (talk) 13:52, 3 May 2020 (UTC) As mentioned above, any subsequent waves of infection would be considered part of the same ongoing pandemic (which could last for over a year or more), and thus be included in the same article. The pandemic will not end until either an effective vaccine is developed or herd immunity is reached. Global Cerebral Ischemia (talk) 14:20, 3 May 2020 (UTC) Oppose in order to better inform the public. Google Search Trends indicate that "Coronavirus" is searched for more than "COVID-19" by a factor of 10 . Yes, COVID-19 is the scientific name, but our job, fundamentally, is to ensure that the average person who wants to get information can easily access it on a free encyclopedia. The google data indicates that we will connect a factor of 10x more people to quality information if we use "coronavirus" rather than "COVID-19". Nmurali02 (talk) 14:15, 3 May 2020 (UTC) You're comparing apples to oranges. The issue is the search results for "coronavirus pandemic" vs "COVID-19 pandemic." The latter shows over 20 million more results for me on google search. And obviously, the former comparison is invalid because the word "coronavirus" encompasses all coronaviruses (including SARS, MERS, and those that cause the common cold) and has existed longer than the word "COVID-19." Global Cerebral Ischemia (talk) 14:20, 3 May 2020 (UTC) If we're comparing "coronavirus pandemic" to "COVID-19 pandemic", the former still wins on Google Trends by a factor of at least 4:1. 109.158.239.84 (talk) 16:04, 3 May 2020 (UTC) Our naming policy is based on what appears in reliable sources, not people's search box entries. Kevin McE (talk) 16:17, 3 May 2020 (UTC) Don't worry, this isn't a problem. Nobody (not even uninformed people not knowing the term COVID-19) will miss the article, as we will, of course, leave redirects in place catching all possible title variants and leading to the technically correct title. It is, however, highly desirable for an encyclopedia to use proper nomenclature in its headline. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 14:30, 3 May 2020 (UTC) Support Coronavirus covers a large range of diseases. Eladar (chat with me) 14:35, 3 May 2020 (UTC) Oppose COVID-19 doesn't sound as good as coronavirus, we have already changed the name of this article two times, first 2019-20 Wuhan coronavirus outbreak, then to 2019-20 coronavirus pandemic and now 2019-20 coronavirus pandemic so why do we need to change it again? Couldn't we spend our time improving exiting and creating new articles rather than spending our time discussing a name change? Frontier Place (talk) 16:19, 3 May 2020 (UTC) "It just doesn't sound as good" is hardly an argument, nor is "we've already moved it". The only reason we moved it IS TO BE MORE ACCURATE: the first time was because it was no longer just in Wuhan, and the second was because it was no longer just an outbreak but a pandemic. The current title was the result of an awkward consensus only formed because there wasn't a real official name yet. If we keep it at the current title but the pandemic continues, we'd have to move the page every single year. The proposed title is a good stable title we could land on so we can stop the seemingly-constant move requests (which aren't that constant). If you don't care about "spending our time discussing a name change", then you don't have to participate. And, improving existing articles and deciding on the best title for people to find them don't have to be mutually exclusive. Paintspot Infez (talk) 00:10, 4 May 2020 (UTC) Oppose I'm married to a doctor. "COVID-19" is the diagnose of her patients, but "corona" is what's hit our city. I don't buy any reasoning deeming this natural, pragmatic and context-sensitive use of language "incorrect". To those saying that it's illogical to name a pandemic after a group of viruses, well, the disease is itself named from the group of viruses, so we will have that anyway. We can choose between having "coronavirus" in a technical, abstruse acronym or spelling it out. Is "coronavirus" too unspecific? Sometimes, but definitely not in the context of "2019-20 coronavirus pandemic". Thats quite enough of specificity, if you ask me. – St.nerol (talk) 16:59, 3 May 2020 (UTC) Strong oppose - having the years is useful, and a potential future mass-rename to 2019-21 can easily be done by bot if necessary. Furthermore, coronavirus is a simpler and less jargony term than COVID-19, and let's be honest, no one is going to think the 2019-20 article is referring to SARS, MERS, animal viruses, or the common cold. Additionally, coronavirus is still the dominant term in common use. According to that data, coronavirus + corona is much more searched than covid + covid 19 + covid-19. CJK09 (talk) 17:29, 3 May 2020 (UTC) Comment Just as @Ergo Sum: and @Pancho507: above I would support a move to "Coronavirus pandemic". – St.nerol (talk) 18:01, 3 May 2020 (UTC) Weak oppose as proposed (but still support Coronavirus pandemic per my comment above) since "COVID-19" is an abbreviation for Coronavirus disease 2019. Given "coronavirus" is used a lot and most readers know it (and if anything might not know "COVID-19 or at least how to type it) I don't think WP:NCA is satisfied. Most sources that I'm aware of use "Coronavirus" but put "COVID-19" in brackets or use it after introducing with "coronavirus"[19][20][21][22]. When I Google "Covid-19" most of the results include "Coronavirus" in the title. That said 9/11 conspiracy theories does use the more concise, abbreviated title but I don't see sufficient evidence that the abbreviated name is used overwhelmingly to make it appropriate. Since there has only been 1 pandemic so far commonly known as "Coronavirus" I don't think we need the year. The 2002–2004 SARS outbreak wasn't classified as a pandemic and doesn't appear to be commonly described as "Coronavirus" anyway. Also I'd note that for that one "SARS" is probably used (rather than 2002–2004 severe acute respiratory syndrome outbreak because that one was a 3 word name while this one is only a 1 word term (since 2019 isn't that commonly used for the disease its self). Crouch, Swale (talk) 18:10, 3 May 2020 (UTC) Support WP:COMMONNAME Clearly states that "Ambiguous or inaccurate names for the article subject, as determined in reliable sources, are often avoided even though they may be more frequently used by reliable sources". That's why we have cardiac arrest and myocardial infarction instead of "heart attack". Hddty (talk) 00:08, 4 May 2020 (UTC) Oppose COVID-19 may be a "common name", but "Coronavirus pandemic" is not a *uncommon* name. It is also the proper name. Also, this article is about the pandemic, not the disease itself, so the name would need to be "COVID-19 pandemic". There's no reason to change the name away from the proper name, when the proper name is no more difficult to use than a shortened version. Natureium (talk) 00:25, 4 May 2020 (UTC) Support Much more concise. Hkbusfan (talk) 00:55, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

RM sidebar (comments, extended discussion)

We will need to move (rename) other articles for consistency

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

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If we decide to make the move (rename the article), we should do the same for all the other articles that have "2019–20 coronavirus pandemic" in their titles.   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) (I'm a man—traditional male pronouns are fine.) 23:18, 26 April 2020 (UTC)

Survey

Support uniform rename per WP:CONSISTENT Elizium23 (talk) 04:56, 27 April 2020 (UTC) Support per above. --Soumyabrata stay at home 🏠 wash your hands 👋 to protect from COVID-19 😷 05:06, 27 April 2020 (UTC) Support per above. Paintspot Infez (talk) 13:20, 27 April 2020 (UTC) Support per above. Benica11 (talk) 14:45, 27 April 2020 (UTC) Support, and this is already mandated by the WikiProject COVID-19 consensus. Relieved to hear that it can be done by bot. Kevin McE (talk) 15:01, 27 April 2020 (UTC) Support per above. --Ahecht (TALK PAGE) 19:32, 27 April 2020 (UTC) Support per above. Veritycheck✔️ (talk) 22:47, 27 April 2020 (UTC) Support per above. --Matthiaspaul (talk) 11:43, 28 April 2020 (UTC) Support per above. Scolaire (talk) 15:44, 28 April 2020 (UTC) Support per above. § Agathoclea (talk) 16:56, 28 April 2020 (UTC) Support per nom. -- Jeandré, 2020-04-28t17:12z Support per above. Rreagan007 (talk) 19:58, 28 April 2020 (UTC) Support per above, however both commonly used names should be addressed in opening paragraph. --Mtaylor848 (talk) 21:22, 28 April 2020 (UTC) Support for consistency. Boud (talk) 21:24, 28 April 2020 (UTC) Support per above. 39cookies (talk) 22:02, 28 April 2020 (UTC) Support if this page is remained, consistency with the rest of Wikipedia will be of the utmost importance. Teddybearearth (talk) 00:08, 29 April 2020 (UTC) Support per above. Nate 2169 Talk Contributions 00:44, 29 April 2020 (UTC) Support --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:41, 29 April 2020 (UTC) Support: Shouldn't even be discussed. We did the same when we renamed the article from 2019–20 coronavirus outbreak to 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic. The consistency of Wikipedia article titles helps readers and Wikipedians navigate more easily. —Wei4Green (talk, contributions) 02:13, 29 April 2020 (UTC) Support. -sche (talk) 05:20, 29 April 2020 (UTC) Support per above. Jam ai qe ju shikoni (talk) 09:28, 29 April 2020 (UTC) Support for consistency. Bluesatellite (talk) 11:03, 29 April 2020 (UTC) Above per Support. sam1370 (talk) 11:35, 29 April 2020 (UTC)-- Support per above. Make article titles consistently follow WP:NAMINGCRITERIA.—RCraig09 (talk) 17:40, 29 April 2020 (UTC) Support WP:CONSISTENCY. Ribbet32 (talk) 18:13, 29 April 2020 (UTC) *oppose this name works fine the way it is. Starzoner (talk) 21:25, 29 April 2020 (UTC) @Starzoner: We are speaking of a possibility where we do accept the name. Reread Markworthen’s comment. sam1370 (talk) 23:14, 29 April 2020 (UTC) @Sam1370:, wow, i wrote that in the wrong place. Starzoner (talk) 23:50, 29 April 2020 (UTC) @Starzoner: Haha, it's fine. sam1370 (talk) 00:04, 30 April 2020 (UTC) Support for consistency, if this happens. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 01:26, 30 April 2020 (UTC) Support In discussing epidemics in general, it seems we usually refer to them by the name of the disease rather than the pathogen. TornadoLGS (talk) 04:17, 30 April 2020 (UTC) Neutral per all reasons by users. Whether it will move the name of the article or not, I have to play safe to vote neutral and the majority votes will be the result. Movies Time (talk) 13:45, 30 April 2020 (UTC) Support this would keep the articles consistent (if this gets renamed) and more concise. SNUGGUMS (talk / edits) 19:41, 30 April 2020 (UTC) Support per consistency on the articles. QueerFilmNerdtalk 22:47, 30 April 2020 (UTC) Oppose current title is more specific and conciseYeungkahchun (talk) 23:37, 30 April 2020 (UTC) I would have to question what you understand by the words "specific" and "concise". The proposal is shorter, and identifies a particular disease rather than a group of viruses. You also appear to have put your comment in the wrong section. Kevin McE (talk) 08:00, 1 May 2020 (UTC) Strong support - for consistency's sake. MiasmaEternalTALK 23:00, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Extended content (some discussion and a bunch of misplaced !votes)

@Yeungkahchun: you may want to move your !vote to the section above if you were !voting on the RM itself. {{u|Sdkb}} talk 23:14, 1 May 2020 (UTC) Oppose simple enough name. Starzoner (talk) 22:19, 2 May 2020 (UTC) Have these other pages been tagged? Was a notification of this sub thread discussion placed on their talk pages? If not, this is a process failure. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:03, 2 May 2020 (UTC) A link to this move request was shared to the WikiProject COVID-19 talk page. It's true that this is a change that'll affect many (and in some cases quite high-profile) articles, but the result was also pretty overwhelming, and I don't imagine the people who are watching Impact of the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic on Disney would have wildly different views than everyone here (and if they did they'd be a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS). {{u|Sdkb}} talk 02:34, 2 May 2020 (UTC) Just for the record, my intention was to highlight one of the likely implications of the RM, if moving was the ultimate decision. I put it in a "sidebar" because I did not want to muddy the waters with extended commentary within the section devoted to "voting" on the requested move. I had no idea editors would treat my comment as a (secondary?) RM!   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) (I'm a man—traditional male pronouns are fine.) 14:34, 2 May 2020 (UTC) Support for consistency between the articles. Tomatoexpress (talk) 00:28, 2 May 2020 (UTC) Support per nom. Flix11 (talk) 07:03, 3 May 2020 (UTC) @Flix11: Wait, was this Support vote meant for the original Requested move on whether to move the main page, or the finished near-unanimous discussion on whether we'd move the subpages as well? If it's the first one, you might want to move your vote to the subsection above so your vote is in the correct place. Paintspot Infez (talk) 20:04, 3 May 2020 (UTC) @Flix11: I was just asking because it was unclear which section you meant to put this in. If it's the former, you might want to fix this / move this to the correct section so your vote is accounted for. Paintspot Infez (talk) 00:13, 4 May 2020 (UTC) Pandemics are named after the disease, not the virus Someone else (I can't remember who at the moment), educated me when he/she/they wrote, "Pandemics are named after the disease, not the virus." So, for example, if we followed the tradition of the present article, naming the pandemic after the virus, we would have an article titled something like, "2019 United States outbreak of measles morbillivirus wild-type D8 and B3", instead of the current title, "Measles resurgence in the United States". Some references Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. "Measles (Rubeola) > Measles Cases and Outbreaks > Measles Cases in 2019." ("All measles cases were caused by measles wild-type D8 or B3.") Organisation Mondiale de la Santé. "Mise à jour de la nomenclature relative à la description des caractéristiques génétiques des virus rougeoleux sauvages: nouveaux génotypes et souches de référence." Relevé épidémiologique hebdomadaire 78, non. 1 (2003): 229–240. Paules, Catharine I., Hilary D. Marston, and Anthony S. Fauci. “Measles in 2019 — Going Backward.” New England Journal of Medicine 380 (6 June 2019): 2185–2187. doi:10.1056/NEJMp1905099 World Health Organization (WHO). "Update of the nomenclature for describing the genetic characteristics of wild-type measles viruses: new genotypes and reference strains." Weekly epidemiological record 78, no. 29 (2003): 229–240. https://www.who.int/wer/2003/en/wer7827.pdf   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) (I'm a man—traditional male pronouns are fine.) 00:43, 27 April 2020 (UTC) See WP:COMMONNAME. Unlike the measles example above, this disease has a short and snappy name that’s getting widespread usage. Therefore, I don’t think the virus is the one common name that we can use, and we have to base the title off other areas of the article naming policy. Benica11 (talk) 03:22, 27 April 2020 (UTC) Thank you Benica11, that is a reasonable argument. :0)   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) (I'm a man—traditional male pronouns are fine.) 11:08, 27 April 2020 (UTC) Nvm my mistake I assumed that the cases included suspected ones Username900122 (talk) 16:20, 27 April 2020 (UTC) @Username900122:, would you like to move this comment to wherever it was meant to be: it clearly does not belong here. And although it is not normally good form to remove another editor's talk page comments, I would suggest you delete this comment of mine when yo do so. Kevin McE (talk) 15:15, 28 April 2020 (UTC) Agree. Viruses tend to have technical names, and the disease is what non virologists usually talk about. Smallpox is eradicated. Smallpox is the disease. The virus, "Variola virus", still exists, in secure labs. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:45, 29 April 2020 (UTC) Are we have to do an another RM yet over again? How many of RMs is required to satisfy the requirement for an name? --91.207.170.201 (talk) 08:21, 29 April 2020 (UTC) one Kevin McE (talk) 13:42, 29 April 2020 (UTC) Would be see that one as final. --91.207.170.201 (talk) 19:07, 30 April 2020 (UTC) Yes. Instead, I think it should be moved to 2019-2020 coronavirus/COVID-19 pandemic because i either of them are used.

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The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

• I've started a thread about the implementation of all the other moves at the COVID-19 WikiProject talk page. Feel free to contribute there. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 04:41, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

The Question of Origin

Given the volume of damning, albeit circumstantial evidence , a sentence or two about the possibility that the virus was accidentally leaked from a lab should be added to the origin section. Note that this is not a suggestion that the case be made for a bio-engingeering or bio-weapons origin. That seems highly implausible and is well suited for the misinformation page. Rather, an accidental leak from the Wuhan Institute of Virology is in perfect concordance with the present scientific consensus of a natural origin for the virus. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2604:2000:1540:4BD9:404C:895E:F375:6408 (talk) 00:12, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

• Note: the same discussion is happening over at SARS-COV-2 Hemiauchenia (talk) 16:38, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Absolutely no conspiracy theories will be added to this article as though they are plausible. – Muboshgu (talk) 00:22, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Me and Lenny ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°) agree with Muboshgu:  No conspiracy theories allowed.   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) (I'm a man—traditional male pronouns are fine.) 00:51, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Apologies if the talk page isn't appropriate for this discussion (I'm new to the Wikipedia talk pages - happy to exchange emails and have the discussion elsewhere), but how is this origin more implausible/more of a conspiracy theory than the origin related to the wet market that is implied in the current iteration of the article? I see how any number of other conspiracy theories should be banned, including intentional leakage and bio weapons, but the amount of circumstantial evidence related to the Wuhan Institute of Virology certainly warrants a second look. If this is an issue of the reach of my conjecture exceeding the grasp of the available evidence, I totally understand. There have to be standards. But to simply dismiss this as a conspiracy theory like all of the other garbage out there strikes me as a bit hasty. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.15.121.202 (talk) 00:57, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Welcome to Wikipedia 98.15.121.202. I agree that we (me, you, and those other editors too) can dismiss arguments hastily without fully considering a claim's merits. At the same time, understanding the context is important. Wikipedians very frequently encounter spam, vandalism, hacking, lying, paid editing to boost a company's web presence, and a slew of conspiracy theories yearning for the legitimacy a Wikipedia article bestows on the movement. ¶ Given that reality, and because it is standard practice, the burden of persuasion falls on the editor(s) who want to add new information. If you wish to take on the challenge, I suspect many editors will seriously consider your argument, since you write well, display courtesy and tact, and come across as sincere. ¶ In terms of classical rhetorical strategies, you can enhance your ethos by learning Wikipedia's ways and wherefores. ¶ So ... Why not create an account and stay awhile? Wikipedia can use as many quality members as possible! Here are some pages that you might find helpful: *The five pillars of Wikipedia, *How to edit a page, *Help pages, *Tutorial, *How to write a great article, *Manual of Style. BONUS TIP! → sign your name on talk pages using four tildes (~~~~ ); this will automatically produce your name and the date. If you need help, check out Wikipedia:Questions. All the best   - Mark D Worthen PsyD (talk) (I'm a man—traditional male pronouns are fine.) 11:41, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Thanks! I've made an account now and I'll look at the sources you provided. --Azahariev (talk) 20:37, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Additionally, let's note the section about accidental virus leakage on the COVID Misinformation page . Note specifically the final sentence: "Days later, multiple media outlets confirmed that U.S. intelligence officials were investigating the possibility that the virus started in the WIV" as of this writing (April 26, 9:22PM Eastern Standard Time). NBC, CNN, CBS, and the WSJ are all reporting this. I don't think it's reasonable to treat this merely as a conspiracy theory at this point. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.15.121.202 (talk) 01:23, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Agree conspiracy theories belong on that other page. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 08:18, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

References

I'm not especially educated on the precise details, but I think that when a hypothesis is being taken seriously by at least one major national government it is somewhat ridiculous to categorically call it "misinformation". Claims of it being intentionally released as a bioweapon are obviously flawed and can safely be filed under the heading of "conspiracy theory", but when nobody's willing to rule out an accidental leak it frankly seems premature to dismiss it. I personally don't think it's likely, but I don't see the conclusive weight of evidence that would be needed to categorically mark it false - even the section on it in the "misinformation" article is really short on anyone categorically ruling it out, which would seem to be an RS issue in itself (i.e. we have no RS cited that it is misinformation). Magic9mushroom (talk) 19:33, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

And I don't know what kind of Wikipedia policies and policy exceptions could apply here, but it seems to me that the fact that the theory has been taken seriously enough to enter various media outlets is indicative of its worth being mentioned, if only to be subsequently dismissed as poorly founded and unconfirmed in the sentence directly following it. To some extent, we have a duty to our readers to show them what they may have heard about elsewhere from what seems like legitimate sources, even if that information is erroneous, so that they understand that yes, we are aware of this, and no, it probably isn't true, and here's why, so long as we provide links to those sources. Otherwise readers will be left wondering, "I guess none of the editors of Wikipedia has heard about this thing yet," which wouldn't be at all true. We and the reading public are better off and better informed if we say we know about it and it is bunk. But that attitude should probably only apply if the conspiracy theory has already had a significant independent public airing first (which this one seems to have had). A loose necktie (talk) 20:29, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

Very well put, A loose necktie. I support inclusion in a single sentence, followed inmediately by a caveat of its speculative nature at this point.--Forich (talk) 23:14, 27 April 2020 (UTC)

It's a new strain of coronavirus, that's it. I really don't see why we'd need to involve a science lab. If it was super deadly or super infectious at least, we'd have somewhat of a base for a conspiracy. Iluvalar (talk) 02:25, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

As I said, I agree that hypotheses of deliberate release (i.e. conspiracy) are obviously flawed and definitely belong under the heading of "conspiracy theory". Accidental release is what's being taken relatively seriously as a possibility, and what I think WP is dismissing more categorically than is warranted (saying that it's speculative is entirely warranted, but outright dumping it under "misinformation" - i.e., confirmed wrong/implausible - is not). I support Forich's suggestion. Magic9mushroom (talk) 07:55, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

What source is being proposed to be used? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 09:51, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

As the accidental leakage theory is proposed by a serious source, i.e. the Washington Post's columnist Josh Rogin on April the 14th, and is followed up by multiple confirmations that U.S. intelligence officials are investigating the possibility, I think it would be appropriate to include one or two sentences here. If we would stamp it as misinformation beforehand, our neutrality would be at stake.Otto S. Knottnerus (talk) 21:15, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

I suggest we try these, in order of most reputable to less: 1) Nature; 2) The Lancet; 3) BBC News, Reuters, Interfax, Agence France-Presse, United Press International or the Associated Press; 3) Peer-reviewed journals; 4) Al Jazeera, The Atlantic, CNN, The Daily Telegraph, The Economist, Forbes, Fox News, The Guardian, The New York Times, Newsweek, Snopes, Time, Vox, The Washington Post and Wired. --Forich (talk) 21:21, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Nature, Lancet, Reuters, Interfax, AFP, UPI, and AP have not covered the story yet (as ar as I know). That leaves us with BBC News, as the most reputable source for this.--Forich (talk) 21:42, 28 April 2020 (UTC)

Here's Reuters covering the story as well. Certainly nothing conclusive, but it seems fair to include the fact that the Wuhan Institute of Virology is being investigated as a possible source. Azahariev (talk) 01:47, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

It's a conspiracy theory refuted by multiple authoritative sources in the cited Vox article. There's no "there" there. Global Cerebral Ischemia (talk) 12:47, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

From your citation: "The scientists I did speak to all acknowledge it’s not possible to definitively rule out the lab-escape theory." That a plausible explanation is not the most probable one is no basis for calling it "refuted" or "misinformation". I'm not asking for us to say outright that it came via WIV - that would be even more inappropriate than the current state of affairs. I'm asking for it to not be literally labelled false while it's still under serious consideration.

I'll say what we're all thinking: the accusation is political dynamite related to one of the world's great powers, and some of the people making it are more interested in that dynamite than in the truth. That doesn't mean it's wrong. I think it probably is, but we don't have (and may never have) solid evidence one way or the other and until we do it shouldn't be in the category of "misinformation" - that's specifically outright lies. Magic9mushroom (talk) 14:40, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Of course scientists will "acknowledge it’s not possible to definitively rule out the lab-escape theory:" they're scientists and thinking in terms of probabilities. Scientists' love of hedging and cautious language has been used by others, notably climate science deniers, to produce controversy where there is none. Many scientists calling the lab escape theory "highly unlikely" means "BS" in plain English. -Darouet (talk) 16:07, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

The point about not being able to "definitively rule out" the conspiracy theory is meaningless. This is specifically addressed in the article I linked to: “The trouble with hypotheses is that they are not disprovable. You cannot prove a negative,” said Peter Daszak, president of EcoHealth Alliance and a disease ecologist who has studied emerging infectious diseases with colleagues in China. Yet he also sees the lab-escape theory as “ironic and preposterous.” The issue isn't whether it can be "definitively" rule out, the issue is whether there is any good reason whatsoever to believe it. The answer is definitively "no." Global Cerebral Ischemia (talk) 19:20, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

@Global Cerebral Ischemia: agreed. -Darouet (talk) 21:21, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

From the Vox Article: "Newsweek reported April 27 that in March the US Defense Intelligence Agency issued a report that “reveals that U.S. intelligence revised its January assessment in which it ‘judged that the outbreak probably occurred naturally’ to now include the possibility that the new coronavirus emerged ‘accidentally’ due to ‘unsafe laboratory practices’ in the central Chinese city of Wuhan.”" and "I asked Jim LeDuc, head of the Galveston National Laboratory, a level-4 biosafety lab in Texas, for his thoughts on Yuan’s statement. “I like to think that we can take Zhiming Yuan at his word, but he works in a very different culture with pressures we may not fully appreciate,” he said. In other words, we don’t know what kind of pressures he might be under from his government to make such a statement." ... These are the kind of issues that folks who want this to be merely mentioned are concerned about. Is this not enough evidence to include two sentences? Something like "Western intelligence agencies are looking at the WIV as a potential origin of the virus, as rumors and concerns about lab safety surface, indicating a possibility that the naturally occurring virus accidentally originated there before spreading to other areas in Wuhan including the wet market. At this time, this origin source is viewed as unlikely by most in the scientific community." Azahariev (talk) 15:51, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Scientific consensus strongly favors natural, zoonotic origin. In the mean time, as during the 1918 flu pandemic, countries all over the world are blaming their enemies for creating the virus or spreading panic. We should keep politicization out of this section. I have done so with this edit [23], restoring longstanding text and consensus for the opening epidemiology paragraph. -Darouet (talk) 15:40, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Darouet, you are not understanding: the regular procedure after a once-in-a-millenium-pandemic like this is for the world to conduct an independent investigation on key details: its origin, who was patient-zero, and what possible measures we can do to prevent new outbreaks. As far as I know, the WHO has not done that research, and instead they have fully endorsed China's version as the only truth. Think about it, if this had happened in North Korea, and the regimen's scientists were diverting an accidental leak, the rest of the world would be asking to take a look into it with our own specialists. Or, on the other hand, if this had happened in a free country like the United States or Denmark, the official story would be trusted by the international community and the case could be closed, with all speculation being dismissed.I am sure we can agree that China lies in a middle point between those tow extremes--Forich (talk) 18:47, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

"once-in-a-millenium-pandemic" ? Are you saying that during the medieval period people over 80yo were surviving easily to a new strain of coronavirus ? Iluvalar (talk) 20:00, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

I understand perfectly well, and I'm not going to get involved in political speculation. The scientific evidence has thus far been unambiguous, e.g.

Nature: Our analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus.

Cell Press: ...SARS-CoV-2 undoubtedly has a zoonotic origin...

National Science Review: ...Our results suggest that the development of new variations in functional sites in the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of the spike seen in SARS-CoV-2 and viruses from pangolin SARSr-CoVs are likely caused by mutations and natural selection...

CSIRO: ...SARS-CoV-2 is the seventh coronavirus known to infect humans, and the third zoonotic virus after SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV...

IJBS: The emergence of SARS-CoV-2 follows the general theme by which SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV arose. Whereas a bat beta-CoV sharing 95% nucleotide homology with SARS-CoV has been found, there also exists a bat-CoV sharing 96% nucleotide homology with SARS-CoV-2. Whereas civets and other animals in the markets have been found to harbour viruses identical to SARS-CoV, immediate intermediate hosts for SARS-CoV-2 have not been identified. Pangolin beta-CoVs strikingly homologous to SARS-CoV-2 have been found, indicating that pangolins might serve as one of intermediate hosts or pangolin betaCoVs could contribute gene fragments to the final version of SARS-CoV-2. Although questions remain, there is no evidence that SARS-CoV-2 is man-made either deliberately or accidentally.

Zoological Research: ...there are several speculations or conspiracy theories that HCoV-19 was artificially generated in the laboratory (Andersen et al., 2020; Liu et al., 2020)... Based on the information and knowledge gained from past SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV epidemics, combined with the successful detection and isolation of SARS-like coronaviruses (Bat-CoVRaTG13) in bats (R. affinis) with over 95% similarity to HCoV-19, it can be postulated with a degree of confidence that this novel coronavirus likely also originated from bats (Zhou et al., 2020a).

From a scientific perspective this is described as a conspiracy theory and should have no place in this article. -Darouet (talk) 21:21, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Iluvalar, the comparison with the black plague is irrelevant. My point holds even if we diminish Covid's severity to a "once-in-a-decade" pandemic. I hope that we agree that, given China's Comunist Party censuring behavior, it is our duty as wikipedians to discuss whether to move them down in our WP:RS scale of reliability.--Forich (talk) 21:47, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Darouet, this is a productive discussion, I like that you have moved over the terrain of providing sources. You seem open to discussing different views if backed by solid evidence stated in reliable sources. I am willing to engage and see whether we can reach a middle ground. Please provide a quote from any reliable source labeling the accidental leakage hypothesis as "conspiracy" or "fringe" or "out of the realms of possibility" that does not rely on any "Occam razor" sophisms.--Forich (talk) 22:09, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Did you read the sources I quoted above? -Darouet (talk) 23:16, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Darouet, I looked at the sources you quoted. I don't see why the "bio-engineered and weaponized" conspiracy theory has to be conflated with questioning whether a naturally occurring virus that mutated due to natural selection may have been studied in a lab and was accidentally released. The former theory is ruled out by your sources and seems prima facie highly implausible. The latter theory is not addressed by your sources and seems plausible. Azahariev (talk) 15:05, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

You did not read the sources: they specifically state that it is natural, and was not artificially created.

In other news, it's been reported today that Trump has asked his intelligence agencies to find some way of showing that China created the virus. This request finds no support in scientific literature but I assume the pressure being placed by his administration will have some impact non-MEDRS, and on what people begin arguing here. -Darouet (talk) 15:46, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Darouet, Accusing me of not reading the sources when I'm attempting to address them directly doesn't seem like you are assuming good faith on my part. Please be a little more charitable, in keeping with Wikipedia Etiquette. I am not making the claim that it's plausible that this virus was artificially created. As I stated in my previous comment, the question of whether a naturally occurring virus was accidentally leaked from a lab is the more plausible hypothesis in this line of reasoning. The sources you cited, as I understand them, don't address this. Azahariev (talk) 16:00, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

@Azahariev: thanks and my apologies, I misunderstood your comment. For what you're saying to be true, the WIV would have had to have located this highly virulent and deadly SARS-CoV-2 strain in Nature sometime in 2019, brought it to the lab, and lost it back into nature once more at the end of the year. I think scientists haven't considered that hypothesis because it's convoluted and preposterous enough to be outside the realm of reasonable investigation. -Darouet (talk) 17:07, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Darouet: Why would a theory of accidental release be “convoluted and preposterous enough to be outside the realm of reasonable investigation”? It happened twice in Beijing with SARS, not to mention all the other times it has happened. Swood100 (talk) 20:12, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

@Swood100: all of those very dangerous lab leakages occurred with viruses that evolved in nature, caused epidemics, and were then stored in human laboratories for study. None of those viruses were created in laboratories: they all evolved naturally, which is what viruses have been doing for billions of years, long before you were born. It's what viruses will continue to do for billions of years into the future, long after you're gone. We know from SARS-CoV-2 genomics that this strain evolved quite recently. We also know from more general studies of coronaviruses that scientists have sampled only a tiny fraction of the coronavirus diversity that's present in nature. It would be truly incredible for scientists to have miraculously found and sampled this particle coronavirus strain in nature just after it evolved, but before it caused a pandemic. In the scenario being proposed by editors above who are clearly not biologists, SARS-CoV-2 was both present in nature in southeast China in October 2019, and was sampled and sitting in a freezer in a lab at the WIV at the same time. According to this scenario, the SARS-CoV-2 strain that's in nature for some reason doesn't infect any of the 350 million pigs, 1.3 billion people, or 5.5 billion chickens living in the country. But, one of a dozen researchers at the WIV makes a mistake, releases the same strain, and now, miraculously, it starts to infect people? -Darouet (talk) 11:47, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

@Darouet: It is well-documented that researchers from these labs visit obscure caves in order to capture bats in order to find ones that are infected with unknown viruses. They take the bats back to the lab in order to study the viruses. They claim to have discovered over a thousand new viruses in the last ten years or so. We know that the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) posted a job opening on December 24, 2019, asking for scientists to come research the relationship between the coronavirus and bats, in which they said “long-term research on the pathogenic biology of bats carrying important viruses has confirmed the origin of bats of major new human and livestock infectious diseases such as SARS and SADS, and a large number of new bat and rodent new viruses have been discovered and identified.”

If they had left the bats in the obscure caves it is unlikely that they would have come into contact with any people. However, by capturing the bats they set in motion a sequence of possibilities for the virus to jump to humans. In the first place unsafe practices have been observed in a video of the bat capture procedure. Once the bats are taken to the lab and the viruses are extracted then they are just like any other pathogen that can be accidentally released. Is it hard to understand that such a virus poses little risk to humans if left in bat caves but substantially more risk if it is extracted from the cave and transported to a metropolitan area with a population of 11 million?

We know that a Chinese researcher published a research paper in which he concluded that “the killer coronavirus probably originated from a laboratory in Wuhan,” and gave his reasons for thinking so. Later he retracted the paper because “it was not supported by direct proofs,” but he obviously didn’t find it incredible that the virus might have escaped from the lab and would no doubt have liked to see whatever evidence was available from the WIV.

We don’t know that this virus was found and sampled just after it evolved. It may have been circulating among the bats for a long time. Could you clarify exactly what part of this scenario you find incredible? Swood100 (talk) 15:18, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

@Swood100: first, you didn't respond to my point that all the lab outbreak examples you linked above are cases where a virus evolved in nature, infected humans and/or their domesticated animals, and were then studied in labs that, from time to time, had a leak. None of those cases involved a virus held in a lab that had never caused an outbreak, but then left the lab and did so. All evidence suggests SARS-CoV-2 is just like all those other viruses and associated epidemics.

Second, there are some really fundamental aspects of viral evolution and transmission that you are misunderstanding, and this misunderstanding follows directly from your confusion above regarding other viruses and past outbreaks. Not understanding that humans are surrounded by viruses constantly, that those viruses are constantly evolving, that viruses jump from species to species repeatedly, that they jump into humans too and have done so often in the past, you appear amazed when it happens yet one more time, and invoke human error or malign human agency. Those bats are not in "obscure caves". In coastal Guangdong, China's most populous province with 113 million people and a higher population density than any US state, samples from hundreds of bats living in caves just a few kilometers from towns or villages have shown many of coronavirus lineages in many different bat species [24]. 90% of villagers raise animals in their homes, 10% report seeing bats fly near their homes, and about 3% test positive for prior infection by random coronaviruses [25]. Bats surround us — I'm surprised if you live somewhere without them — and it's well known that they carry diseases that can spill over into humans particularly where bat, human, and domesticated animal populations are high, like SE Asia [26]. There's a reason why scientific papers have been warning about another outbreak coming for decades. You should try to learn something from these publications rather than blaming the outbreak on the scientists who've been warning you for years about this inevitability. -Darouet (talk) 18:52, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

@Darouet: None of those cases involved a virus held in a lab that had never caused an outbreak, but then left the lab and did so.

I’m sorry, but if a virus is being held in a lab how are the chances of its accidental release affected by whether or not it has ever before infected humans?

you appear amazed when it happens yet one more time, and invoke human error or malign human agency.

No, my amazement or lack thereof is irrelevant. My only point is that if American intelligence agencies are assessing whether the virus might have escaped from a laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology, that should be reported by Wikipedia.

Those bats are not in "obscure caves". In coastal Guangdong, China's most populous province with 113 million people and a higher population density than any US state, samples from hundreds of bats living in caves just a few kilometers from towns or villages have shown many of coronavirus lineages in many different bat species [24].

The reference you supplied identified a particular cave containing the particular bats they are interested in — those related to SARS:

"Furthermore, the building blocks for SARS-CoV were identified from eleven different ARSr-CoV viral strains in a five-year surveillance program in a cave inhabited by multiple species of horseshoe bats in Yunnan Province, China [62]."

This is a reference to a study also described in this article as follows:

"The cave, whose exact location is being kept secret, is inhabited by wild bats that have been found to carry a “rich gene pool of SARS-related coronaviruses,” said Peter Daszak, the president of EcoHealth Alliance, a U.S. nonprofit organization that monitors wildlife diseases that could pose a pandemic risk."

So it’s true that bats are everywhere and that they are frequently infected with coronaviruses. But the researchers are not interested in just every coronavirus, but in particular ones that are SARS-related, and these are located in a specific cave, the location of which is kept secret. That sounds like the definition of an “obscure cave.” If they had left the bats in those caves it is far less likely that the viruses they contain would have come into contact with any people. We are not dealing here with the run-of-the-mill bats that live everywhere. Those bats aren’t infected with SARS-related strains.

and about 3% test positive for prior infection by random coronaviruses [25]

Random coronaviruses are not a particularly great threat. A few strains of the common cold consist of random coronaviruses. If they spill over then nobody notices. Trying to capture and work with SARS-related coronaviruses, on the other hand is a high-risk activity. — Swood100 (talk) 20:40, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

@Swood100: The misunderstandings between us are too great to be resolved by discussion here. I urge you to read some of the papers I cited linked above. In particular, despite our differences of opinion, I think you will find this one very interesting: [27]. Best, -Darouet (talk) 20:48, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Per my comment on the same discussion at SARS-CoV-2: Wikipedia should not be promogulating politically motivated conspiracy theories about the virus. Saying that natural selection is unable of creating such an effective virus and therefore it must have been lab created is idiotic and obviously false considering the many pandemics throughout history have happened with no genomic editing technology whatsoever, and the crude nature of current genomic editing technology. The nature of this argument feels similar to that of Ancient astronauts, where of course "primitive" indigenous people can't have created complex works of architecture therefore it must be aliens. It's the same fallacy. We now know that the US Government is pushing this conspiracy theory to cover for their own failures. (Mazzetti, Mark; Barnes, Julian E.; Wong, Edward; Goldman, Adam (2020-04-30). "Trump Officials Are Said to Press Spies to Link Virus and Wuhan Labs". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved 2020-04-30.) Hemiauchenia (talk) 16:50, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

@Hemiauchenia: Thank you. -Darouet (talk) 17:07, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Darouet, yes I read the sources you quoted above. In my opinion they do not address directly the accidental-leakage hypothesis, provided that we consider it to state that a natural virus that got in the lab (somehow) and accidentally leaked out of it. The middle ground that I hope we can reach looks like this:

"The virus is natural, and some of the earliest cases detected in December 2019 happened to be in Wuhan, China. Patient-zero, that is, the first person to become infected from an animal, has not been discovered yet. However, it is conjectured that a few places in Wuhan may have had favorable conditions for the virus to make the jump to patient-zero. Of these, the most discussed in the cientific community is the Seafood market in Huanan. Another plausible place for the original jump to happen may be the Wuhan Institute of Virology, although experts cited by BBC and Reuters, disregard it judging that it is 'highly unlikely', purely speculative, and unfounded in any cientific evidence." --Forich (talk) 05:13, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Given the truth of those final ten words, the whole final sentence should not be used. HiLo48 (talk) 05:17, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Given that we can't accurately call it "misinformation" until it's disproven ("misinformation" is an extremely strong term), and the hypothesis itself has been bandied about enough to be notable in its own right, where do you suggest it be placed? I suppose one solution is to rename the "misinformation" article to something less prejudicial and creating a "misinformation" heading in said article for the known false stuff; what do others think of that? Magic9mushroom (talk) 06:14, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

HiLo48, thats a respectable opinion. If other editors feel the same way we can opt to omit any reference to the hypothesis, at least in this article. Per the suggestion of Magic9mushroom, maybe the appropiate place to mention the hypothesis is in the "misinformation" entry, after relabeling the whole entry or a section of it to a less prejudicial name. My opinion is that the average reader would never get to that page, so that's why I'm discussing to give it a brief mention here at the pandemic entry.--Forich (talk) 08:12, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

By the way, there is a recent update on the coverage of the story, by the Washington Post. It provides no new evidence, but I find it much more benevolent to the hypothesis. Please watch it and discuss here.--Forich (talk) 08:17, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Misinformation is indeed a strong word, and in this case wholly appropriate. -Darouet (talk) 15:02, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Here are some articles about this subject, if anybody is interested:

https://news.yahoo.com/suspected-sars-virus-and-flu-found-in-luggage-fbi-report-describes-chinas-biosecurity-risk-144526820.html

https://www.msn.com/en-ae/news/coronavirus/did-coronavirus-leak-from-a-research-lab-in-wuhan-startling-new-theory-is-no-longer-being-discounted-amid-claims-staff-got-infected-after-being-sprayed-with-blood/ar-BB12cexD?li=BBqrVLO

https://www.washingtonpost.com/gdpr-consent/?next_url=https%3a%2f%2ffanyv88.com%3a443%2fhttps%2fwww.washingtonpost.com%2fopinions%2fglobal-opinions%2fhow-did-covid-19-begin-its-initial-origin-story-is-shaky%2f2020%2f04%2f02%2f1475d488-7521-11ea-87da-77a8136c1a6d_story.html

https://www.foxnews.com/politics/coronavirus-wuhan-lab-china-compete-us-sources

David A (talk) 15:30, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

What were the odds that the virus get first detected near one of the only super advanced coronavirus lab in the world able to detect it ? hmmmm. Those Chinese people are suspicious and evil. They must be hidding the WP:TRUTH. If only i could decipher the puzzle. But why does the virus was detected near a lab that CAN ! What was the odds !! Wake-up sheeples they are controlling us. Iluvalar (talk) 16:32, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Mind your tone please. I am just suspicious given the tyrannical Chinese government's human rights track record. David A (talk) 05:34, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Iluvalar [editors should treat each other with respect and civility]. This is uncalled for. Please address the sources and provide good faith counterarguments and sources, or abstain from the discussion. It's hard enough as it is to figure out a middle ground on these issues without this turning into a name-calling match. Azahariev (talk) 23:47, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

This discussion at times resembles slapstick, or “who’s on first,” when the statement “the theory is that the virus accidentally escaped from the lab” is answered by “scientific consensus is that the virus is of natural origin.” This is a non sequitur. It is not in doubt that the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) was studying bat viruses. They posted a job opening on November 18, 2019, “asking for scientists to come research the relationship between the coronavirus and bats.” So what is being investigated is whether they accidentally released one of these viruses. I don’t think that anybody here is arguing the non-natural origin theory, so could we just have a moratorium on the refutation of that theory?

I wish we could also have a moratorium on solemn pronouncements that Wikipedia is not the place for conspiracy theories. Everybody will agree with that, but it begs the question. Why is a theory that a virus was accidentally released from a lab a conspiracy theory? We know that similar viruses have been accidentally released from high security labs many times.

Incontrovertible proof is not the requirement for inclusion of a theory in a Wikipedia article. It is enough that the theory is given credence by serious and responsible people. Richard Ebright, a Rutgers microbiologist and biosafety expert said “The possibility that the virus entered humans through a laboratory accident cannot and should not be dismissed.” Ebright also referred to a publically-available video that he said showed CDC workers collecting bats with inadequate personal protective equipment and unsafe practices, including exposed faces and wrists and a lack of goggles or face shields. Is Ebright a conspiracy theorist? There are other serious and responsible people who, in order to find all available facts, have asked China for access to the WIV. What is the reason for refusing to report these requests?

Where is the reference to a source showing conclusively that this is a conspiracy theory or that this virus did not escape from the WIV? I have seen references to articles but I would like to be directed to the specific language in that article that demonstrates conclusively that the accidental release theory cannot be held by any serious person. Swood100 (talk) 21:38, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Scientific consensus is used as a means to squash anything new coming to prominence that has not been first brought to public attention by one of those scientists. Centuries ago, administrators of the then-equivalent of Wikipedia would have hastily deleted any mention of medical treatment that did not involve bleeding or the use of leeches. Well obviously that was ridiculous. And it is equally ridiculous that the stunning coincidence of a lab which ‘researched’ viruses of the most infectious kind just happened to be located a few hundred metres away from the originating epicentre of the most infectious novel viral epidemic the world has experienced for over 100 years can not even be mentioned on the Wikipedia page about the epidemic without people suggesting that that fact be classified as disinformation or worse, a conspiracy theory. Are those people in the pocket of the CCP? Not to give space to the fact I have outlined in the article is tantamount to criminal disinformation. There is, you know, disinformation through deliberate omission of key information. That is what we have at the moment. Boscaswell talk 22:45, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Swood100 Well said! For some reason, the main article on the Coronavirus pandemic is completely silent on an important developing story about the origin, a story that is in complete concordance with the scientific consensus. Yet, in the section discussing origin we have this: On 13 March 2020, an unverified report from the South China Morning Post suggested a case traced back to 17 November 2019 (a 55-year-old from Hubei) may have been the first infection. (Bolding mine).

This wikipedia article is absolutely failing to live up to [neutrality standards]. From the Five Pillars page: "We avoid advocacy, and we characterize information and issues rather than debate them. In some areas there may be just one well-recognized point of view; in others, we describe multiple points of view, presenting each accurately and in context rather than as "the truth" or "the best view". " We are failing the public by not including information about this origin theory. Azahariev (talk) 23:42, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence. WP:FRINGE says that "A conjecture that has not received critical review from the scientific community or that has been rejected may be included in an article about a scientific subject only if other high-quality reliable sources discuss it as an alternative position." So far, no such source ("speculations" and "not discounting the possibility" are not "high-quality reliable sources") has been presented. A quick seach on Pubmed for "covid origin" or "covid leak" does not yield any such results. What I do find, such as this example here; fail to mention it, and instead the only origin they discuss seriously is it crossing over from animals (bats, or some others) to humans:

"Bats have been recognized as a natural reservoir and vectors of a variety of coronaviruses, and these viruses have crossed species barriers to infect humans and many different kinds of animals, including avians, rodents, and chiropters [83,84]. While the origin of COVID-19 is still being investigated, COVID-19 has features typical of the Coronaviridae family and was classified in the beta-coronavirus 2b lineage."

The theory of accidental release, as far as we know, is wild speculation; and it being mentioned in news sources because the US governement mentioned it is not conclusive proof of anything else but it being mentioned by the US govt... The guideline to follow here is (as described previously), of course, to prefer topic-specific peer-reviewed publications over newspapers. The lack of mention in proper sources makes this a fringe theory and mentioning it in the article would be much more WP:UNDUE than ignoring what appear to be, so far, the ramblings of an old man who is definitively not an expert on this matter... 107.190.33.254 (talk) 02:45, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

What the scientific community has said is that they have been shown no evidence that the virus was released from a lab. The U.S. government has formally asked China for access to the Wuhan Institute of Virology in order to examine the evidence there. Why is this request not noteworthy? Swood100 (talk) 14:24, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

If the scientific community has said there is no evidence (i.e. that sounds rather like a rejection of this theory), then we have no reason to include this in the main article here. The US government asking China (their main competitor) for access to a lab to verify a conspiracy theory might go in the article about that government's response to the pandemic (with care taken to ensure it is not presented as a fact or a majority opinion per WP:UNDUE) which is not here but at COVID-19 pandemic in the United States. In any case WP should not be spreading uncorroborated speculation - WP:MEDRS are what we should be looking at. 107.190.33.254 (talk) 15:19, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

If the scientific community has said there is no evidence (i.e. that sounds rather like a rejection of this theory), then we have no reason to include this in the main article here.

They didn’t say that there is no evidence. They said that they have not been shown any evidence. Furthermore, saying that they have seen no evidence of X is not the same as saying that there is evidence of not-X. One can believe that something is true and yet have no evidence that it is true. Police may believe that X is the murderer but have no evidence. This leads them to look for evidence. In this case they are doing that by asking for admission to the places where they believe that the evidence might be found.

If police announce that they are looking for a certain car in connection with a murder because they believe that evidence will be found in it, that is reportable on the Wikipedia page dealing with the murder regardless of whether a majority of the Wikipedia editors on that page disagree with the police as to the likelihood of finding evidence there. The fact that the police are looking for a certain car is not uncorroborated speculation. It is a fact. — Swood100 (talk) 18:44, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

"Have not been shown any evidence", for all intents and purposes, is equivalent to "there is no evidence as of this moment". In any case, logically, the burden of proof lies on those proposing an idea, and since there is no evidence to support Trump's theory (as widely reported by the media, who clearly say that no supporting evidence has been presented), we should not include it. And, no, actually, the example you give would probably not be reported on such a hypothetical WP page because Wikipedia is not a newspaper and we don't provide live 24-hour coverage of the subject, unlike newspapers. (eg. [28] [29] [30]). What we do provide is relevant coverage based on high-quality topic-related sources (i.e. WP:MEDRS). As has been shown below, scholarly journals do not consider this theory seriously; and the mainstream media are widely reporting that Trump's claim is utter hoghwash, with even his own advisors and intelligence agencies contradicting him on the topic. Merely because something has been "investigated" or "not been deemed impossible" (see, again, proving a negative) does not mean we should mention it, i.e. this is literally the idiomatic teapot. 107.190.33.254 (talk) 19:45, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

In terms of familiarity Coronavirus is more familiar than COVID. Georgeadelmoureed (talk) 11:57, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Lab accident

Is this theory covered anywhere? I only saw it in two actual newspapers. This is the closest thing I found online.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 18:31, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Misinformation_related_to_the_2019–20_coronavirus_pandemic#Accidental_leakage — Goszei (talk) 18:54, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Okay, so it's not a credible theory. I haven't read the article yet. I'm waiting to read in the newspaper I subscribe to. It's still outside but I have access to NewsBank so I saw the headlines.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 19:13, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

In the press conference version I had access on youtube, Trump specifically refused to comment on the theory. He did said the US intelligence would comment about this soon. I guess we'll be waiting for that. Iluvalar (talk) 20:36, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

The WHO has dismissed Trump's theory; "The World Health Organization (WHO) has reiterated that the virus is of natural origin after the US president’s uncorroborated claims he had seen evidence it originated in a Chinese lab, AFP reports.". 107.190.33.254 (talk) 20:51, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

No, the WHO did not dismiss Trump’s theory. The issue here is not whether the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) genetically modified the bat virus and so “created” it. The only important thing is whether they released it into the general population. When Trump talks about the WIV being the “origin of the virus” he is talking about the starting point of the pandemic. Even if the virus is of natural origin (as the WHO said) the WIV would be the starting point of the pandemic if they had captured a bat that carried the virus, were currently experimenting with it, and accidentally released it. This is the critical question, and the WHO did not contradict this.

The Washington Post reported that U.S. Embassy officials visited the WIV several times and sent two official warnings back to Washington about inadequate safety at the lab. Swood100 (talk) 19:39, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

• I fixed this a little because one must be very careful here to describe exactly what the cited sources tell. The page currently cites this article. According to it, "Based on their genomic sequencing analysis, Andersen and his collaborators concluded that the most likely origins for SARS-CoV-2 followed one of two possible scenarios. In one scenario, the virus evolved to its current pathogenic state through natural selection in a non-human host and then jumped to humans. ... In the other proposed scenario, a non-pathogenic version of the virus jumped from an animal host into humans and then evolved to its current pathogenic state within the human population..." The article is dated March 17. According to all publications including newer ones (e.g. an article in PNAS), there is no any evidence of the 2nd scenario so far, so it is probably the 1st (welcome to correct if I am mistaken). My very best wishes (talk) 20:41, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

P.S. I fixed it simply to reflect what the source tells. But of course the leakage and even the manufacturing the virus can never be disproven by the sequence analysis. As cited here [31], "Although researchers will likely continue to sample and sequence coronaviruses in bats to determine the origin of SARS-CoV-2, "you can't answer this question through genomics alone," said Dr. Alex Greninger, an assistant professor in the Department of Laboratory Medicine and an assistant director of the Clinical Virology Laboratory at the University of Washington Medical Center. That's because it's impossible to definitively tell whether SARS-CoV-2 emerged from a lab or from nature based on genetics alone. For this reason, it's really important to know which coronaviruses were being studied at WIV. "It really comes down to what was in the lab," Greninger told Live Science." My very best wishes (talk) 20:53, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

• Note that none of the two currently used sources support the phrase tells about "scientific consensus". They do tell about sequence analysis as the basis for the conclusion. My very best wishes (talk) 01:59, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Pinging User:MarioGom as the originator(?) of the current wording, who noted "it is basically every WP:MEDRS dealing with the topic all the way from February to April" that speaks of a natural origin; pinging also User:Robertpedley as someone who has, IIRC, also supported the wording: would either of you like to add sources explicitly using the word "consensus" or defend it as a summary of the totality of sources? -sche (talk) 04:45, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Yes I think I helped a bit in this area. Maybe it's a bit WP:SYNTH so I would accept rewording to say something like "Genetic sequencing of the virus is consistent with a natural origin" then a couple of cites.Robertpedley (talk) 10:55, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

This is not sequencing (i.e. determining the sequence), but sequence analysis, a method which is very useful, but has obvious limitations. For example, it can not say which specimens were in the lab in Wuhan. "Natural origin" can mean a lot of different things. That must be clarified. Anyone is welcome to include more sources and rephrase to reflect what these sources say. My very best wishes (talk) 14:51, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

• Here is one of the problems with sequence analysis. This is sequence-based tree of SARS-Cov-2 related coronaviruses. The key sequences, in particular RatG13, were determined in the lab in Wuhan. However, according to Richard H. Ebright, this lab keeps a lot of sequences unpublished (RatG13 sequence was kept in secret for 7 years, as follows from public database records, see this expert discussion used in this in Science article). What exactly sequences they release will determine this evolutionary tree and conclusions from the sequence alignments. So, basically, if the lab is engaged in a cover-up (and not publishing sequences for 7 years is extremely unusual), they can decide what conclusions other people will make from the sequence analysis. My very best wishes (talk) 15:07, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

This is from the Wall Street Journal:

"The Wall Street Journal and other news organizations previously have reported that American intelligence agencies are assessing whether the virus might have escaped from a laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology."

What objection is there to reporting that American intelligence agencies are assessing whether the virus might have escaped from a laboratory at the Wuhan Institute of Virology? — Swood100 (talk) 18:39, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

The WSJ is probably not a WP:MEDRS. "have reported that American intelligence agencies are assessing whether the virus might have escaped"... is not sufficient "proof" that this is a scientifically significant alternative opinion; merely that this conspiracy theory has been mentioned by the POTUS - whose response to the situation has been widely criticized, and he is not a reliable source for much in this context... 107.190.33.254 (talk) 18:59, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

The Wall Street Journal is a reliable source.

How about this from the Wall Street Journal:

“The U.S. intelligence community publicly confirmed it is trying to determine whether the coronavirus may have escaped from a laboratory in Wuhan, the city where the pandemic began.”

Or, if you prefer, from CNN:

“US intelligence and national security officials say the United States government is looking into the possibility that the novel coronavirus spread from a Chinese laboratory rather than a market, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter who caution it is premature to draw any conclusions.”

Or NBC:

“The U.S. intelligence community is examining whether the coronavirus that caused the global pandemic emerged accidentally from a Chinese research lab studying diseases in bats, current and former U.S. intelligence officials tell NBC News.” — Swood100 (talk) 21:06, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

There is a difference between the WSJ (or any of the sources you mention) being a RS for general topics (which it is) and it being a sufficiently high-quality RS for medicine-related topics (which, as I said above, it probably is not). None of the sources you quote (some of them are two weeks old) say anything different than the WSJ; i.e. they all use highly uncertain language such as "trying to determine"; "looking into the possibility"; "examining whether...". In other words, they are all reporting the same thing. (And the theory, while not entirely discredited, has been many times rejected in news medias). The US intelligence community "looking into it" might be worthy of mention in the news, but WP is not a newspaper and I doubt we should include every possible theory into this article unless it has been properly verified in more scientific literature. As I said, the more proper place for this kind of wild speculation is at Misinformation related to the COVID-19 pandemic. 107.190.33.254 (talk) 21:29, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

That the U.S. intelligence community is investigating whether the coronavirus escaped from a lab is not a theory that has been discredited or many times rejected in the news media or wild speculation. Do you have a reference for that?

That the U.S. intelligence community is investigating whether the coronavirus escaped from a lab is not a scientific issue or a medicine-related topic, and vetting of it would not take place in scientific literature.

Here’s part of a press release from the Office of the Director of National Intelligence:

“As we do in all crises, the Community’s experts respond by surging resources and producing critical intelligence on issues vital to U.S. national security. The IC will continue to rigorously examine emerging information and intelligence to determine whether the outbreak began through contact with infected animals or if it was the result of an accident at a laboratory in Wuhan.”

What’s the rationale for the position that the actions of the Intelligence Community are irrelevant to the search for the origin of the pandemic? — Swood100 (talk) 22:03, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

So what; they are merely "rigorously examining information" (and, in the linked press release, they do not mention the "lab accident" theory at all, only concurring with the scientific consensus that the "virus was not manmade or genetically modified"). Unless they come out with a statement saying that they have found significant evidence in favour of this, for the moment, WP:FRINGE theory, we have no good reason to include the fact that they are investigating it in the article; since the current evidence as reported in scientific journals and mainstream media is that the virus is closely related to bat and other animal coronaviruses and this is the most likely origin. 107.190.33.254 (talk) 22:53, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Scientific consensus

Scientific consensus so far is that this coronavirus, like other coronaviruses and other viruses that have caused pandemics, has a natural origin. To borrow from Rotideypoc41352's earlier post,

We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin.
— Calisher, Charles; Carroll, Dennis; Colwell, Rita; Corley, Ronald B; Daszak, Peter; Drosten, Christian; et al. (19 February 2020). "Statement in support of the scientists, public health professionals, and medical professionals of China combatting COVID-19". The Lancet. 395 (10226). doi:10.1016/S0140-6736(20)30418-9. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |name-list-format= ignored (|name-list-style= suggested) (help)

And quoting from sources I cited above (just a few of many that are available if you consult scientific literature):

Nature:

Our analyses clearly show that SARS-CoV-2 is not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus.

Cell Press:

...SARS-CoV-2 undoubtedly has a zoonotic origin...

National Science Review:

...Our results suggest that the development of new variations in functional sites in the receptor-binding domain (RBD) of the spike seen in SARS-CoV-2 and viruses from pangolin SARSr-CoVs are likely caused by mutations and natural selection...

CSIRO:

...SARS-CoV-2 is the seventh coronavirus known to infect humans, and the third zoonotic virus after SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV...

IJBS:

The emergence of SARS-CoV-2 follows the general theme by which SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV arose. Whereas a bat beta-CoV sharing 95% nucleotide homology with SARS-CoV has been found, there also exists a bat-CoV sharing 96% nucleotide homology with SARS-CoV-2. Whereas civets and other animals in the markets have been found to harbour viruses identical to SARS-CoV, immediate intermediate hosts for SARS-CoV-2 have not been identified. Pangolin beta-CoVs strikingly homologous to SARS-CoV-2 have been found, indicating that pangolins might serve as one of intermediate hosts or pangolin betaCoVs could contribute gene fragments to the final version of SARS-CoV-2. Although questions remain, there is no evidence that SARS-CoV-2 is man-made either deliberately or accidentally.

Zoological Research:

...there are several speculations or conspiracy theories that HCoV-19 was artificially generated in the laboratory (Andersen et al., 2020; Liu et al., 2020)... Based on the information and knowledge gained from past SARS-CoV and MERS-CoV epidemics, combined with the successful detection and isolation of SARS-like coronaviruses (Bat-CoVRaTG13) in bats (R. affinis) with over 95% similarity to HCoV-19, it can be postulated with a degree of confidence that this novel coronavirus likely also originated from bats (Zhou et al., 2020a).

Scientists are basically unanimous that the origin is natural, and the evidence isn't just the RNA sequence, though of course genetics is integrally tied to every aspect of modern biology. -Darouet (talk) 11:35, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

• It is fine to say something like "not a laboratory construct or a purposefully manipulated virus" [references]. That is what I did. It is also important to notice what the conclusion was based on, and that is sequence analysis. If there was something else, we can say "based on [something else]" [refs]. However, which of these sources tells "scientific consensus"? None of them does. This is because establishing what exactly a scientific consensus on highly controversial subjects (such as that one) is a difficult matter. Many different views were published. In the absence of very strong sources saying just that, what you did was WP:OR. This is not your (or my) business to decide what is scientific consensus. My very best wishes (talk) 14:40, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

@Darouet: I actually took that from MarioGom's comments at /Archive 31#'Natural' origins?. Intriguing pattern of people ignoring a pattern of a diverse group of people agreeing on a set of facts. Absolutely fascinating. Rotideypoc41352 (talk · contribs) 15:45, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

• This is apparently the publication in The Lancet [32]. Yes, there is a consensus of authors, but about what? It tells: We stand together to strongly condemn conspiracy theories suggesting that COVID-19 does not have a natural origin. Scientists from multiple countries have published and analysed genomes of the causative agent, severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2), and they overwhelmingly conclude that this coronavirus originated in wildlife, as have so many other emerging pathogens. Yes, absolutely. There are no doubts the ancestor sequence originated from bat viruses, or as a result of recombination of RNA from viruses which came from bats, pangolins and possibly other animals. That follows from the sequence analysis. They also imply there is no evidence the virus was artificially engineered, although they did not say it exactly. Yes, there is no evidence. Does it tell the natural virus was not leaked from the lab? No. One just need to clarify what the "natural origin" means on our page. As a note of order, the publication in Lancet is a political statement, and it make false claim about "The rapid, open, and transparent sharing of data on this outbreak" [by China]. No, some of the early specimens have been destroyed [33]. My very best wishes (talk) 16:33, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

You're ignoring all the other papers that report some variant of the same thing. Of course you won't understand scientific consensus if you choose to ignore it. -Darouet (talk) 18:55, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

FWIW - following "recent edits" added to "Misinformation related to the COVID-19 pandemic#Accidental leakage" may be relevant =>

[On May 2, 2020], Jamie Metzl, a senior fellow at the Atlantic Council, claimed the SARS-CoV-2 virus "likely" came from a Wuhan virology testing laboratory, based on "circumstantial evidence". He was quoted as saying, "I have no definitive way of proving this thesis."

On April 30, 2020, the U.S. intelligence and scientific communities seemed to agree that the virus was natural—nonetheless, the White House seems to be promoting a contradictory message: "... the Covid-19 virus was not man-made or genetically modified." Asked on May 2, 2020, about that conclusion, Secretary of State Pompeo said he has "no reason to disbelieve" the intelligence community, despite comments earlier in the same interview that "the best experts so far seem to think it was man-made. I have no reason to disbelieve that at this point."

- iac - Stay Safe and Healthy !! - Drbogdan (talk) 14:55, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

References

If they know something, they must publicly disclose what it is, with evidence. Otherwise, everyone will think this just another nonsense coming from White House. My very best wishes (talk) 15:28, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

• Comment Should point out that there appears to be a discussion on the same subject (i.e. origin as a lab accident) higher on the talk page. In the spirit of not wasting our time maybe we should merge the two discussions (or close one of them)? In any case neither of them has convinced anyone but the editors proposing it to include this nonsense in the article... 107.190.33.254 (talk) 15:31, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

• Here is the bottom line. Not only there is no scientific consensus on the exact origin of the COVID-19, but it is simply that no one knows the exact origin of COVID-19 (bats, pangolins, another intermediate host, recombination, whatever). To determine its origin, whatever it might be, one must conduct a large-scale investigation by multiple teams, most of which should be on-site, i.e. in China, exactly as this commentary in Science tells. However, China does not allow it. Why? My very best wishes (talk) 19:27, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Separately from the comment below: the article you link to also says of the lab accident theory that "So far, however, the assertions that the new virus was in that facility have not been backed by hard evidence, and some scientists are skeptical of the escape claim, saying it is more likely that SARS-CoV-2 naturally emerged elsewhere." In any case, the main topic discussed is not this conspiracy theory but the overall lack of Chinese transparency (which is nothing new) 107.190.33.254 (talk) 21:11, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

the assertions that the new virus was in that facility have not been backed by hard evidence, and some scientists are skeptical of the escape claim, saying it is more likely that SARS-CoV-2 naturally emerged elsewhere.. Yes, I am also "skeptical" and think "it is more likely...". However, there are way too many strange things around this. For example, here is excellent paper by Dr. Shi Zhengli on the evolution of coronaviruses published in 2018. Here is my question: why did not she include in the analysis the sequence of RatG13 (the closest relative of COVID-19) which their lab had determined in 2013? Why they kept it in secret until 2020? Any explanation? My very best wishes (talk) 21:26, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

I don't know. Maybe because, when writing a paper (on any subject), you include only the most relevant information? The paper does mention sequences with up to "97.2% amino acid sequence identity." (which, I assume, is also pretty close to the RatG13 sequence). Is this criticism based upon any other source or is it just your own? In which case it is nothing more but additional, wild, uncorroborated speculation which is highly irrelevant to this discussion. 107.190.33.254 (talk) 21:41, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Oh no, this is sequence identity to SARS-CoV, i.e. SARS-1, not SARS-Cov-2. Here is phylogeny tree online. The entire SARS-Cov-2 (COVID-19) subfamily seems to be missing for beta-coronaviruses in the paper in Nature by Shi Zhengli. Regardless, keeping an important RatG13 sequence unpublished for 7 years is a red flag, given what we know now about COVID-19. If, as Richard H. Ebright claims, the Wuhan lab did not publish a lot of other sequences, that could explain why the COVID-19 subfamily includes just a few members in the phylogeny diagram online. Red flag. My very best wishes (talk) 23:30, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

In whose opinion is it a red flag. Yours? That is once again WP:OR and we shouldn't be wasting our time on it. If the paper is on SARS-1; then it is no wonder that a sequence which is not more closely related to it than others is not mentioned, there being, of course, plenty of known coronavirus sequences (see [34]). I would assume that only the most relevant ones were selected for comparison. 107.190.33.254 (talk) 23:51, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

No, it was not paper about SARS-1, but about alpha, beta, gamma and delta coronaviruses, with an emphasis on all beta. Yes, there many sequences now, in part because of the pandemic. There were much less in 2018, when the paper was published. And no, RatG13 sequence is (and was) extremely important for the sequence analysis as one of the highly divergent (also check the online tree). My very best wishes (talk) 00:08, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

"And no, RatG13 sequence is (and was) extremely important" Please provide a reliable source for your otherwise WP:OR criticism; otherwise we're not making any progress. 107.190.33.254 (talk) 00:48, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Leave the investigative journalism and scientific research to the experts - on WP we merely report what is the current, verifiable, consensus. Most reports from mainstream news (which is also the place where this wild speculation was first reported) currently discredit the theory; ex. [35] [36] [37]. What they describe as the "theory du jour" (Vox) and "a fringe theory" (Business Insider); and comment that "people pushing these sort of lines are doing everybody a disservice" (Guardian) deserves exactly no coverage nor any further waste of our time. If it goes anywhere it is in the misinformation article. The only time this should be revisited here is if and only if there is a substantial change in the matter. Until then (if that ever happens), I suggest that we add to the current consensus section that this fringe theory should not be mentioned. 107.190.33.254 (talk) 20:12, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

• Some people keeps ignoring WP:MEDRS, but medical sources are quite unanimous here. They agree the virus has a natural origin. They agree the virus is not engineered. They agree there is no evidence of HIV insertions and they agree that the original source for the HIV insertion theory was a bogus preprint paper that is now retracted. Some people also cites a paper published by Nature in 2015, ignoring the fact that Nature editors now added the following disclaimer: Editors’ note, March 2020: We are aware that this story is being used as the basis for unverified theories that the novel coronavirus causing COVID-19 was engineered. There is no evidence that this is true; scientists believe that an animal is the most likely source of the coronavirus. [38] Also, according to WP:RS, Shi Zhengli (mentioned above) is the subject of several conspiracy theories that made her the target of severe harassment, and we had to deal with these WP:BLP issues in the article about the subject. It's quite tiring to continue reading, over and over again, in every talk page all WP:FRINGE stuff that is going on at The Epoch Times, Daily Mail, Zero Hedge, Breitbart News, etc. --MarioGom (talk) 22:49, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Do you realize the the Huanan-market hypothesis had only circumstantial evidence? They reported it based on coincidences and guesses, given the places that some infected people said they had travelled recently. That was speculation, yet we reported it here in Wikipedia. Can the opponents of reporting the accidental-leakage hypothesis tell me why they remained so silent when wikipedians wrote about the speculation of Wuanan? It seems to me you are cherry-picking your battles.--Forich (talk) 16:01, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

1. This is not a battlefield; 2. The Hunan-market hypothesis has been published in reliable, medical journals; and the section in the article about includes proper balancing material given the unsure status of this hypothesis in light of more recent developments. Suggesting that the lab-accident origin should be given equal weight is disingenuous; despite it being parroted around by the US government even their own intelligence services and advisors disagree with them; see [39][40]. As nicely put here, "Trump's Wuhan Lab Coronavirus conspiracy theory is bogus, according to, uh, everyone". 107.190.33.254 (talk) 16:16, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Scientific journal articles also state that early on, we believed the market was the origin. By contrast, scientific journals describe the lab leak idea as unsupported at best, and a conspiracy theory at worst. -Darouet (talk) 16:06, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

• No. According to WP:MEDRS sources (i.e. scientific studies), the virus did NOT originate at the market, contrary to the initial claims by Chinese government. As explained here,

The earliest recognised case of infection with SARS-CoV-2 was an elderly and infirm man who developed symptoms on 1 December 2019. None of his family members became infected, and the source of his virus remains unknown13. Furthermore, 14 of the first 41 cases had no contact with the seafood market 13. In another report, five of the first seven cases of COVID-19 had no link to the seafood market 14. Thus, it seems very likely that the virus was amplified in the market, but the market might not have been the site of origin nor the only source of the outbreak. A recent phylo-epidemiological study has suggested that the virus was circulating but unrecognised in November, and was imported to the seafood market from elsewhere, where it subsequently was amplified1 5.

It does not mean it was leaked from a lab. Seriously, everyone just need to ignore all misinformation planted by unnamed "intelligence sources", Chinese government, Mr. President and even some journalists unfamiliar with the subject. My very best wishes (talk) 17:19, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

You're not understanding what I wrote. I didn't write that early on, scientific journal articles reported the virus came from the market. Instead, I wrote,

"journal articles also state that early on, we believed the market was the origin.

In other words, it's a matter of scientific record that the very earliest investigations — before MEDRS were even available — led researchers to investigate the market. We came to learn not long after that the market was likely a spreading event, and not the source.

So we haven't been selective in our use of MEDRS. -Darouet (talk) 18:26, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Indeed, the early hypothesis that the outbreak originated at the Huanan Seafood Wholesale Market was discarded in January/February. --MarioGom (talk) 17:29, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

@MarioGom: that's consistent with what I wrote above. -Darouet (talk) 18:26, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

The sources are far from being as clear cut on this as they are on the bogus Trump claim. For example, the article mentioned above by 'My very best wishes' states:

"Thus, it seems very likely that the virus was amplified in the market, but the market might not have been the site of origin nor the only source of the outbreak. A recent phylo-epidemiological study has suggested that the virus was circulating but unrecognised in November, and was imported to the seafood market from elsewhere, where it subsequently was amplified[15]."

So, the Hunan market "might not have been the site of origin" (this could be described better in the article); but it certainly had in early important role in spreading the virus. In any case, I think we can agree that the Trump-sponsored lab leak claim deserves no mention in the article; a further, more focused discussion should be started if we wish to improve the "epidemiology" section with other, more reliable information. 107.190.33.254 (talk) 17:52, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

As follows from quotation above and some other publications (for example[41]), first cases in China had happen in the middle of November, but the patient zero is unknown. Unless, the Chinese authorities do know, but do not want to tell because the patient zero worked in the lab, as Fox News reported [42]. And of course this controversy is highly notable (it affects relations between two big countries) and therefore must be included on the page. What was the "majority view" (i.e. no evidence of the leak) should also be noted. My very best wishes (talk) 21:02, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

I am not so sure that a so far unproven, evidence-less, possibly (likely?) politically-motivated and mostly rejected hypothesis should be presented on the main topic article. Maybe, as I said, on the pages for the the 2019-20 coronavirus pandemic in the United States (where this might go somewhere in "Government response" or the like) or the misinformation page (where it already, and rightly so, is). Also, in matters of US politics (anything involving Trump is probably in that category), Fox News is seen by some as a biased source and is in any case far from being acceptable as a WP:MEDRS to support the (again, wildly speculative) statement that "the Chinese authorities do know, but do not want to tell because the patient zero worked in the lab". In any case that article is more than two weeks old, and since then there have been many (from less partisan sources) articles claiming the exact opposite... 107.190.33.254 (talk) 21:22, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

By the responses of many of you opposing the reporting of the lab-accident origin I can conclude that: a speculative theory that is mentioned in scientific sources deserves more weight than a speculative theory that is mentioned in news's RS. So we agree that, at the core, we CAN include a mention on a speculative theory as long as the gold standard, scientific sources, report it. I will search in scientific journals on the fields of Biosafety Health and Foreign Affairs for the mention of the lab-accident hypothesis.

If the wikipedians opposing its inclusion continue to do so, after seeing a scientific journal quote mentioning it, I guess I am gonna have to request for comment or arbitration on this matter. Its a bit hypocritical to defend unproven hypothesis as you did in January with the seafood market one; or to label the official US hypothesis as "political" while curiously omiting that the source used by MEDRS to report on the Hunan market in the first place was an official chinese news agency, which we can argue is as equally or more politically charged, under a cover-up scenario. I am gonna assume good faith of all of you (107.190.33.254, MarioGom, and Darouet), but let me politely ask you to explain again the consistency of your arguments, because it can mislead other wikipedians trying their best to understand the rules for inclusion.

The lab accident theory, have been proved by many (specially, My very best wishes) to be a simple, sensible, hypothesis mentioned in RS all over the place. I have read thorugh all the Wikipedia pillars and there is no rule that Nature and Lancet should be the definitive filters for information included in Wikipedia, as I may be interpreting from the position of some of you. I am open to read a rebuttal to this and change my mind.--Forich (talk) 01:39, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

The fact is that the Hunan seafood market theory and the "lab accident" theory are not on equivalent footing. Until further analysis showed that some cases were not linked to the seafood market, it seemed like a likely origin and even sources which question this status (i.e. the article quoted by My very best wishes (henceforth, MVBW); Mackenzie and Smith (2020)) still agree that it had a role in the early spread of the disease (and most scientific journals are independent of official Chinese news agencies...), and, if the text is rewritten to correct for this, I don't think anybody will have any objection to it's inclusion. In comparison, the only comment about the "lab accident" theory we have from a MEDRS is that "So far, however, the assertions that the new virus was in that facility have not been backed by hard evidence, and some scientists are skeptical of the escape claim, saying it is more likely that SARS-CoV-2 naturally emerged elsewhere." (the Science news article, emphasis mine). Despite the exceedingly cautious language, as Darouet points, this amounts to a thinly veiled statement that the prevailing theory is still natural zoonotic origin and that the "lab accident" theory has not gained traction in the scientific community. In any case, that should probably be treated as a news article from a reputable scientific publication, and it again doesn't "support" the theory, merely mentions it in a very passing manner.

I am afraid that concerning your third paragraph, I have to strongly disagree. Besides some WP:OR criticism of a scientific paper and speculation (the latter, in my opinion, we should leave to the tabloids; the first of course has no place here), what has been presented in favour of the "lab accident" hypothesis is some news statement to the effect that it was being "investigated" by US intelligence agencies (possibly, following pressure by Trump) and reports that it was mentioned by Trump. In contrast, there are many reports that cast serious doubt on this, including from Trump's own advisors (as reported in the National Geographic, mentioned earlier by me) and from intelligence agencies (also mentioned earlier). To the WP:RS which were mentioned previously we can add this report from yesterday, which points out that the only specifics about the origin of the virus in a Chinese lab is a non-peer-reviewed, since retracted and disavowed two-page paper on the topic (thus likely to be, as Trump would have it, "Fake news!"). This interview with multiple scientists also presents multiple counter-arguments to the "lab accident" theory, first, on the likelihood of the origin being "natural" vs "lab":

[...] Compare that, he says, to what we know about the labs: “If you look at the labs in Southeast Asia that have any coronaviruses in culture, there are probably two or three and they’re in high security. The Wuhan Institute of Virology does have a small number of bat coronaviruses in culture. But they’re not [the new coronavirus], SARS-CoV-2. There are probably half a dozen people that do work in those labs. So let’s compare 1 million to 7 million people a year [i.e. clarification from me based on the article: people who could have been exposed to various strains of bat coronaviruses through daily interaction] to half a dozen people; it’s just not logical.”

On the actual similarity of the current strain to known sequences (one of the topics of OR criticism by MVBW):

Some have speculated that perhaps the new coronavirus is derived from RaTG13. Yet virologists say it’s very unlikely: A 4 percent difference in genome is actually huge in evolutionary terms. [...] However, he [i.e. a foreign scientist who has co-authored papers with the Wuhan researchers] said, the new coronavirus is only 80 percent similar to SARS-1 — again, a very big difference. “No one [in Wuhan] cultured viruses from those samples that were 20 percent different, i.e., no one had SARS-CoV-2 in culture. All of the hypotheses [of lab release] depend on them having it in culture or bats in a lab. No one’s got bats in a lab, it’s absolutely unnecessary and very difficult to do.”

There are further points but the two here seem to be the most relevant in light of the discussion we have had so far.

In light of this, and combining with the fact that the scientists from the Wuhan lab seem to be targets of multiple conspiracy theories due to this outbreak, I cannot see any equivalence between the two theories. One is, at the very least from a historiographic perspective, interesting; the other is a conspiracy theory which "is bogus, according to, uh, everyone"; and, as many conspiracy theories, it's sole logical grounding is that relies on the fact that it's difficult to prove a negative (it is much easier to simply go ahead with evidence-less, wild speculations). WP:UNDUE states that fringe theories with constitute only an extreme minority should not be mentioned. It is my opinion, based on the sources I have found so far, that this is the situation here. Of course, if you disagree with my assessment, then feel free to have an RfC on the issue, something of the like of "Should the theory about the accidental release of the virus from the Wuhan Institute of Virology be mentioned in the article?". 107.190.33.254 (talk) 03:21, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

WP:BOLD rewrite of virturally all of transmission

@Doc James: - just removing redundancy and following the WHO faq predominantly. I like explaining it to people that the surfaces are the small droplets, its the same method. And as I was saying during our dispute, the surfaces are not as important in WHO's opinion anymore.

WOuld appreciate a discussion of this as opposed to a complete rewrite! Thanks James. --Almaty (talk) 15:30, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

that's a lot to rewrite IMO--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 17:09, 30 April 2020 (UTC)\

Yes done because the QnAs cited especially by the WHO and ECDC have been entirely rewritten, and they now synthesize the very same evidence we were trying to do. So the rewrite aims to follow WP:MEDRS and avoid WP:SYNTH, whilst giving the primary studies that the WHO ECDC and CDC use their WP:DUE weight. Also the previous revision repeated itself a lot. --Almaty (talk) 01:01, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

When something like this is done it would be better to include a WP:DIFF to help others see what you did. -- {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 07:44, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Citation errors

There are few citation errors that I have found. It would be great if someone fixes those. Thanks, Luke Kern Choi 5 (talk) 15:32, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Can you list the precise location of these errors here so we don't have to go looking for them? Also, you're extended-confirmed, so you can always fix them yourself -- just an FYI if you didn't know. sam1370 (talk) 21:09, 29 April 2020 (UTC)

Actually, I'm not that good in citaions, and I didn't know if the citation name(multiple uses?) is wrong, link is wrong, etc. Next time, I would put the citation number.(Red ones in the main article.) Also, I apologize because I can't spend enough time on Wikipedia these days. Sorry! Just wanted to help.Luke Kern Choi 5 (talk) 00:52, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

@Luke Kern Choi 5: No need to apologize at all; I should have realized that not everyone was able to fix the citation. If you list the citation numbers in the article here, I can try to fix them. sam1370 (talk, contribs) 21:48, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

@Luke Kern Choi 5: I accidentally linked your user page as a template last time, so just redoing the ping here so you get the notification. sam1370 (talk, contribs) 11:41, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Thank you!!! Luke Kern Choi 5 (talk) 00:04, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Citation 706 says this... Cite error: The named reference no_covid was invoked but never defined (see the help page). Possibly an error about nickname??? Luke Kern Choi 5 (talk) 13:57, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Continuing of discussion about whether it is WP:DUE to include a sentence about there being no evidence for immunity in the lead

Hey User:Sdkb, since you reverted my edit including the sentence in the part of the article excerpted from the disease lead, I'd like to reopen the discussion (and hopefully get a few more opinions than just me and you as well). Personally, I believe that the fact that people who recover from the pandemic are not immune is an important thing that should be included in the lead, since I think it would be a common misconception considering the common characteristic among many diseases that recovering from them grants you immunity. sam1370 (talk) 05:56, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

To help out anyone else who wants to comment on this, the reversion diff is here and the prior discussion is here. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 06:12, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

This seems important to me as it more or less directly addresses the cure. Benica11 (talk) 16:04, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Its a negative statement; there's no evidence for the opposite either. Important to keep clutter out of the lead. Plenty of room for something along these lines, further down the page. Robertpedley (talk) 21:44, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Absence of evidence is not evidence of absence but it should be absent from the lead. --Almaty (talk) 04:31, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

@Robertpedley: Of course there's no evidence for the opposite either, but many diseases have that characteristic of recovered means immune, which I think is why the fact that there is no evidence recovereds are immune is making headlines. sam1370 (talk, contribs) 11:39, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Agree should go in the body not the lead. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:26, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

@Doc James: Isn't it an important fact, however, that clears up a misconception that I believe should be fairly common? sam1370 (talk | contribs) 09:04, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Important and should go in the body. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 09:10, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Eh, alright. Maybe it can fit in Epidemiology or something. sam1370 (talk / contribs) 01:37, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Status of Tajikistan

For any observer of Tajikistan its Coronavirus positive status was quite obvious a month ago due to large amounts of doctors being quarantined in various hospitals mostly across the north of the country. In any case the Tajik government has now officially certified that the country does indeed have Covid-19. This means the map needs to be updated. The source of this information can be found in Russian in Asia Plus's article here: https://asiaplustj.info/ru/news/tajikistan/security/20200430/v-tadzhikistane-ofitsialno-priznali-koronavirus-v-strane-est Zaharous (talk) 11:43, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

thank you--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 01:17, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Hubei description in the lead

header refactored 19:26, 30 April 2020 (UTC) for clarity

I notice an interesting difference in the lead in this article and coronavirus disease 2019. There, a clause in the first paragraph of the intro reads The disease was first identified in December 2019 in Wuhan, the capital of China's Hubei province, whereas here we just use The outbreak was identified in Wuhan, China, in December 2019. A while back, it read The outbreak was identified in Wuhan, Hubei, China, in December 2019. The difference seems a little backwards, since we shouldn't have more on the origin at the disease article than the pandemic article. So: what phrasing should we use at each? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 17:23, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Sdkb, I'm not too sure what you're concerned about. The first time the disease was noted was in Wuhan which eventually became the pandemic. It's appropriate to use "disease" in coronavirus disease 2019 and "outbreak" for this article that is talking about the pandemic. Is is the omission of "Hubei" that you have problems with? —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 19:09, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

@Tenryuu: sorry, I should have clarified more. Yeah, it's the difference between "Wuhan, the capital of China's Hubei province", "Wuhan, Hubei, China", and "Wuhan, China". Which option do you prefer for here, and which for the disease article? {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 19:25, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Sdkb, I like being as specific as possible, so the third one is out. I also think that mentioning that the place of origin is the capital city is helpful as it is already notable, so my choice would have to be the first phrase for both articles. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 19:37, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

I mildly prefer the 3rd "Wuhan, China" and consider any efforts to homogenize articles systematically as evil by definition. Sorry Tenryuu, that's about as far as it could be from your opinion ^^. Iluvalar (talk) 19:57, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

(edit conflict)@Tenryuu and Iluvalar: Saying "Wuhan, China" rather than "Wuhan, Hubei, China" feels a little like saying "Boston, United States", rather than "Boston, Massachusetts, United States"; the former would sound odd to me. I don't have a good sense of how appropriate it is for Wuhan; do any MOS folks or folks with cultural knowledge want to weigh in? Regarding the longer option, I have some hesitations from WP:DUE — it's absolutely important information, yes, but for the second sentence of an article with as much to cover as this one, there is a massively high bar to clear. And there's also the matter of people who have sought to emphasize the virus's "Chineseness" for xenophobic reasons — I wouldn't want to give ammunition to that perspective by letting the coverage of the virus's early history in the lead become overlong. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:05, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

@Sdkb: If you look at the Chinese Wikipedia's article on the subject, it reads "疫情最初在2019年12月於中華人民共和國湖北省武漢市開始爆發，隨", which, using my extensive Chinese knowledge (read: Google Translate), translates to "The outbreak began in Wuhan, Hubei province, the People’s Republic of China, in December 2019." I think this gives a bit of credibility to your argument. sam1370 (talk) 20:24, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

I think the "Wuhan, China" wording is my doing: another user objected that having both "Hubei" and "China" was redundant and mentioning its capital-city status was excessive detail, and so they removed "China", but in an article on a global pandemic (on an edition of Wikipedia where many readers are unlikely to know Chinese province names) removing the country name was clearly bad, so I changed it from "Wuhan, Hubei" to "Wuhan, China". I would prefer "Wuhan, Hubei, China" (but would be fine with the "Wuhan, capital of China's Hubei province" wording, if that's preferred). I don't think it's a problem for articles to be inconsistent about such minor points, though—it's not as if any of the wordings differs on matters of fact, only presentation. -sche (talk) 02:11, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Its historical the lead was very unweildy in the early march editathons of hundreds and hundreds of additions per day, i was cutting text every day. I took out Hubei because It's unnecessary detail IMO. Wuhan, China is like saying Christchurch, New Zealand or Lyon, France or St Petersberg, Russia dont need the state or province in most articles not particularly about the region in question --Almaty (talk) 15:38, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

• Happy with Wuhan, China as it keeps it shorter. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:25, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
• Okay, so we're quite split here so far. We have 1 for the long version, 2 for "Wuhan, Hubei, China" (I'm starting to lean that way), and 3 for "Wuhan, China". I'm going to put out a few invites to see if I can gather some others to comment and help us flesh out consensus here. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 04:47, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
• I would prefer "Wuhan, China" - it's a little more brief and Wuhan is a reasonably large enough city in itself to allow omission of its province name. "Hubei" just doesn't feel like it has enough relation. Juxlos (talk) 06:53, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
• Wuhan, China is probably sufficient and shorter. Unless some significant cultural element emerges as discussed above by others. Wikilinks can be used if someone is wondering why it says Wuhan and not Hubei. Also: there is a relevant item in the project consensus: Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_COVID-19/Current_consensus let's remember to update it once this discussion is over as this decision applies potential to several project pages. -- {{u|Gtoffoletto}}  ^talk 12:15, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

coronavirus pandemic

this article should be renamed simply "coronavirus pandemic" this isnt a science journal. the intricacies and details are described within the article. no historian is going to refer to this disease as COVID-19 i assure you — Preceding unsigned comment added by 128.114.255.226 (talk) 05:04, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

I disagree, there are many different coronaviruses, and Wikipedia's goal is to be as accurate as possible. For example, both COVID-19 and SARS are coronaviruses and caused outbreaks, but we don't title them both "coronavirus pandemic". Andromeda26430 (talk) 06:19, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

There is a page move discussion up the page. But if either of you bring comments there, please try to refrain from such gross crystal balling, and inform yourselves about the difference between a virus and a disease. Kevin McE (talk) 08:06, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

A bit unnecessarily hostile towards Andromeda26430 there, Kevin McE, it's a pretty common mistake to call COVID-19 a virus and their point actually still stands. In any case, I agree that the IP is not contributing to a discussion here with this thread. Prinsgezinde (talk) 01:58, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Much of the thrust of the discussion, I would suggest the entire essence of the discussion, has been about the naming differences between viruses and diseases. I believe it is perfectly reasonable to ask people to come to the discussion with clarity about that distinction. Kevin McE (talk) 11:08, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Possibly good news regarding the mortality rate

Hello.

Would the following information be useful to incorporate into the article, if it has not been cited previously?

https://www.economist.com/graphic-detail/2020/04/11/why-a-study-showing-that-covid-19-is-everywhere-is-good-news

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/apr/17/antibody-study-suggests-coronavirus-is-far-more-widespread-than-previously-thought

Help to do so would be appreciated if it is deemed acceptable

David A (talk) 15:15, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

In addition, has it been mentioned that the United Nations think that the global shutdowns could cause 265 million people to starve?

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-52373888

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/0/un-warns-biblical-famines-due-coronavirus/

https://edition.cnn.com/2020/04/22/africa/coronavirus-famine-un-warning-intl/index.html

https://www.france24.com/en/20200422-un-says-food-shortages-due-to-covid-19-pandemic-could-lead-to-humanitarian-catastrophe

David A (talk) 15:23, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

We've been sitting on the antibodies results for a while now. The tests are not the most reliable. Although it have been conducted in many place around the world with the same ~20%ish result. I also note that today Robertpedley cleaned up Doc James IFR chapter. The higher estimates have just been removed. So, in some sens, the article is moving. I'd expect both of them to come have a chat here later today. Iluvalar (talk) 16:09, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Okay. Thank you for the information. What about the projections of mass-starvation released by the UN? David A (talk) 19:45, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

The UN announcement is relevant IMO. Not sure how and were we should cover it. Primary source : 2020 GLOBAL REPORT ON FOOD CRISES (there is a page about covid-19). Iluvalar (talk) 20:56, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Were other than NYC is the result 20%? We should be moving to review articles at this point rather than the popular press and primary sources. By the way 0.15% have died in NYC from COVID, with 20% maybe infected that would give an IFR of maybe 0.6%. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:08, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

What the IFR is, is separate from projections regarding if people are going to starve. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:05, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Well, according to models by the Public Health Agency of Sweden, 26% of the population of Stockholm county (0.26 x 2.344 million = 609440 people) have supposedly currently been infected at some point, and Sweden as a whole currently only has 2669 dead from the infection: [43]

That said, the researchers may have changed their mathematical models since then. I unfortunately haven't kept up to date regarding every detail.

In any case, as far as I have understood, this article also lists social effects of the pandemic, and 265 million starving people is certainly an enormously devastating social effect. David A (talk) 13:12, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Doc James the first tests you questionned was from california, germany had similar results. I kinda lost track, there is a few more places, all with similar results. Chelsea, Massachusetts ? Between 15% to 25% of the world seems infected already. Iluvalar (talk) 19:05, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

The Santa Clara study claimed 2.5 to 4.2% of people had antibodies not 20%.[44]

User:CFCF can you read the Swedish paper?

Which ref says "Between 15% to 25% of the world seems infected already"? Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 04:18, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Here is the main page containing the PDF document. It was released April 21, so it is fairly recent: https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/publicerat-material/publikationsarkiv/s/skattning-av-peakdag-och-antal-infekterade-i-covid-19-utbrottet-i-stockholms-lan-februari-april-2020/ https://www.folkhalsomyndigheten.se/publicerat-material/publikationsarkiv/e/estimates-of-the-peak-day-and-the-number-of-infected-individuals-during-the-covid-19-outbreak-in-the-stockholm-region-sweden-february--april-2020/

That said, it was almost 2 weeks ago, so I am not certain that they haven't changed their estimations since then. I will check to see if I find something. David A (talk) 07:53, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

I couldn't find any further updates via several adjusted Google searches at least. David A (talk) 08:03, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Roche's antibody test claims a sensitivity of 100% and specificity of 99.8% and got FDA EUA, warrants inclusion. Havent seen the studies but if this is true it warrants inclusion --Almaty (talk) 08:45, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Okay it says "To estimate the model parameters, we used a survey that showed that 2.5% of the population in the Stockholm region were infected between March 27 and April 3." So did they do antibody tests and find that 26% of people had antibodies? Does not look like it. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 08:06, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Not as far as I know. I think that they simply made mathematical models of the projected infection rate. David A (talk) 10:09, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Sorry Doc James, I must say i'm confused, I'm sure the santa clara study was mentioning data for santa clara CITY which was significantly higher then in all the county. But who knows, maybe i'm just going crazy. It seems obvious that in most big city the R0 of COVID is a bit higher then in less populated area, which cause a large variation of prevalence. [45]. So when I say 15%-25% that's in the big city, the regions around are lagging behind. Iluvalar (talk) 19:33, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

So is somebody experienced willing to insert the United Nations mass-starvation projections into the article? David A (talk) 06:43, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

possible future projection

(aside from the current 'Duration' subsection)might it be a good idea to insert a section/subsection towards the end which indicates which way this thing might go?...I was looking through "Covid-19's future: small outbreaks, monster wave, or ongoing crisis". STAT. 1 May 2020. Retrieved 2 May 2020.which offers three possible scenarios, 1 a larger infection in the fall(U.S.), 2. a continuation thru 2022/ or until theres a vaccine 3 a smaller but continuing version of the present. Of course, better references than this one would be needed....however the 3 'scenario' graphs, with proper referencing, may not be a bad idea IMO --Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 01:16, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Who did those graphs without paying attention to the ILI seasons ? XD . Could of of those scenario include a peak next January please (as if it was a coronavirus) ? Iluvalar (talk) 02:18, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Remdesivir

Hasn't gone through the full approval process of the FDA but they have approved it for emergency use. It has the following wording it is reasonable to believe that the known and potential benefits of RDV outweigh the known and potential risks of the drug for the treatment of patients hospitalized with severe COVID-19. So this is an specific, approved antiviral treatment to use our wording, and therefore the lead is now incorrect. What are others thoughts? --Almaty (talk)

The benefit with respect to mortality if any is likely to be small as no significant difference in that study. There are also concerns that the primary endpoint changed half way through the trial.[46] Also a little concerned when I see this happen. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 06:10, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Yes there doesn't seem to be a difference in mortality. The endpoint changing is the Gilead sponsored studies, not the NIH study (Adaptive COVID treatment trial), two different studies. First published RCT shows nothing but thats because they couldn't enrol. But theres a trend in that study towards what NIH is finding too. However, what the FDA have done is balanced up all the data we have so far (to use a legal term for that as a another way to explain it other than our previous lengthy discussions - its still approved though, that is a real approval, whether we agree with it or not. So our wording is currently wrong. We need to change it to "there is no antiviral treatment that has been proven to be effective on mortality in published RCTs", and consider at what point Remdesivir goes into the lead of the article. Just like oseltamivir gets into the lead of influenza despite having only a slight benefit on duration, but not on mortality. --Almaty (talk) 08:22, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Ah okay thanks. This is looking at ACTT and also discusses how the primary endpoint changed. https://www.healthnewsreview.org/2020/04/what-the-public-didnt-hear-about-the-nih-remdesivir-trial/

When WHO changes / updates their position should than definitely go in the lead. We have a bunch more studies ongoing so I am sure we will know more soon.

We of course have a published RCT in the Lancet on May 1st that found no benefit (14% mortality for remdesivir, 13% for placebo) but yes a trend at 14 and 28 days for more improvement but not change in time to hospital discharge.[47][48]

Hydroxychloroquine is also approved for emergency use, though more and more evidence shows it is harmful. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 09:13, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Yeah the Wuhan study was the one i was referring to above. Its not very helpful because it didn't enrol its target number of patients. I wouldn't say the WHO are the authority on medicines, rather the FDA, EMA, TGA, health canada etc. --Almaty (talk) 10:35, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

United States timeline

"On 6 March 2020, the United States was advised of projections for the impact of the new coronavirus"...Should it be 16 March? Whispyhistory (talk) 12:30, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

The source states 6 March 2020. Veritycheck✔️ (talk) 19:03, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Are you sure the source (a newspaper) is correct? Whispyhistory (talk) 21:00, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

@Whispyhistory: If you can provide a reliable source to counter that statement, then please do so. If not, we will trust The Guardian over Whispyhistory. sam1370 (talk / contribs) 10:19, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for replying @Sam1370:.... It’s old enough to be cross-referenced, or stated in other sources, as it doesn't fit with other timings. I’m probably missing something. I don't understand what happened on 6 March.

• The pandemic article cites The Guardian (4 April), which says ”On 6 March, a group of epidemiologists at Imperial College London gave the White House coronavirus taskforce a heads-up about the terrifying projections for the disease they were about to publish relating to the US.” [49] and makes reference to the paper of 16 March.
• In the section on the ‘Containment efforts within the U.S.’ in the pandemic in the United States article, it says ”On March 16,… Coronavirus Response Coordinator Deborah Birx cited an analysis by Imperial College London that if nothing was done by government officials, 2.2 million would die in the United States and is referenced with The Washington Post (30 March).
• The NYT said on “16 Mar 2020 - A new report shows the number of deaths that could occur in the U.S. and ... The lead author of the study, Neil Ferguson, an epidemiology professor, said in an interview that his group had shared their projections with the White House task force about a week ago” [50], which still makes 6 March too far back.
• The government press briefing for 6 March doesn’t say anything about it and the W article on the US timeline doesn’t mention it on 6 March. Whispyhistory (talk) 12:55, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

@Whispyhistory: Alright, that makes sense. Yes, that should be 16 March sam1370 (talk / contribs) 17:07, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Transclusion sections

I am sure most will agree that transclusion of sections is very detrimental for updating this article and is something we should be discouraging if we want editors to get involved here on this article. Wondering if we should take the time to just write the sections so they are not repetitive in nature and flow as one article. Lucky we dont have to many sections with this yet and I think It should be discouraged and fixed. I do remember us having a guideline or an essay on the merits and disadvantages of this but I cant find it (anyone remember the name of the essay?).--Moxy 🍁 15:00, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

I tried swapping the transclusions for actual text and was reverted. I'm all for anything to reduce the post-expand include size and make editing easier. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 16:32, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

• Strong oppose. The number one thing transclusions help with is making sure material stays up to date, and that's extremely important when it comes to COVID-19. Copying transcluded sections would double the amount of work needed to keep everything updated, and result in many lesser-edited articles rapidly decaying. It's not hard for editors who want to update a section to go to that article, and if any extra clarification is needed, that's what hidden text is for. Also, I'm not sure where the idea that there aren't many transclusions here is coming from — there are a bunch and they're firmly established at this point. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 17:57, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

I support reducing the number of transcluded sections. While they can be useful in some articles, and some of them (involving paragraphs full of frequently-updated figures) may be useful here, others are unhelpful and indeed harmful and result in text (and PEIS-limit-approaching references) being included here that may be fine for the main subtopic article but that is excessively detailed or redundant or undue in this global, full-topic overview article. This is particularly true with content that does not see overly frequent (substantive) changes, for which the rationale of keeping things up to date does not hold/apply, like the "misinformation" section. -sche (talk) 18:54, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Correct transclusion of pros text is just lazy and impedes article updating and flow. This causes a few problems - editors have to search for articles, creates repetitive text, triple editing to add references, non-relevant pictures being used and formatting and wording at the parent page just to accommodate transclusion.... all time consuming and discouraging for anyone not familiar with how portals type pages work. Also bad to have to start a discussion at one article when the intent is to change another article when the change may not be relevant to both articles...lets all try an encourage contributing not block it. Article sizes also a factor as mentioned above. --Moxy 🍁 18:59, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

• Transclusions have held up when they've been brought here before, and they have community support across Wikipedia more broadly. If you really dislike them for generalized reasons, I'd suggest going to the pump rather than trying to build a WP:LOCALCONSENSUS here. Or, better, try to improve them rather than tearing them down by offering suggestions to the developers. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 03:28, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

What is best here in this article is the topic...I think it's best we write summaries for sections that don't have stats so all have the ability to edited here over having to convince others to change another article just to make a change here. We should make revision as easy as possible for anyone so we don't get dated statements. Telling editors to go start a talk somewhere else definitely doesn't address the concerns raised for this article.--Moxy 🍁 04:03, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Just as a procedural note, the question "should X paragraph be transcluded into Y article, or should article Y include different text on topic X?" is a question to be addressed no the talk page of article Y (here), and if you tried to file such a small-potatoes, in-the-weeds, article-specific RM in a big forum like the pump, you'd most likely be told you were in the wrong venue and should have a discussion here before possibly escalating to a bigger venue. -sche (talk) 22:17, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

We should start working on this as we just had an new editor block for edit waring because they had no clue what the non-inclusive tags are in an article. Not only is this making it harder for all to update the article it's also causing us to lose editors.--Moxy 🍁 00:37, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Recommend starting a section on Reopening

I think it is the right time to start this section, even though just a few countries are beginning to do this, this will soon start to become a major topic throughout the world and it is best to start this section when it is still an early topic of discussion. This section can include general examples of reopening strategies used throughout the world, risks and problems associated with reopening, as well as some specific examples of countries reopening. Maybe even WHO recommendations on reopening when they come around to making them or the fact that currently they are cautioning against reopening. One interesting question that can be touched on in this section is what constitutes the "end" of an epidemic in a given country? Which nations have already declared that their epidemic has ended, and what criteria are they using? If done well, I envision a similar section on each nation's 2020 coronavirus pandemic page with more specific information for each specific country, state, or region. -- Beezer137 (talk) 05:56, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Yes agree with starting a section and maybe we need a who page on the topic?Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 08:02, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

We don't have a section on Lockdown so you'd have to call it "Lockdown and Reopening". Lockdown measures in different countries are pretty diverse, and reopening measures more so (tattoo parlours in Georgia, US?). It's going to be difficult to get it right.Robertpedley (talk) 11:26, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

I have removed COVID-19 project essays

The template that they placed at the top of the page is against policy. Current COVID-19 consensus is invalid, they can have consensus over there, but it is local consensus and should not be binding on any page until it has gone through WP:PROPOSAL. From WP:Wikipedia:WikiProject_Council/Guide#Advice_pages, An advice page written by several participants of a project is a "local consensus" that is no more binding on editors than material written by any single individual editor. Any advice page that has not been formally approved by the community through the WP:PROPOSAL process has the actual status of an optional essay.

Please ecourage members of the wikiproject to continue to write essays, but not impose them as Current COVID consensus or the like, because they are only essays, per wikipeida policy . --Almaty (talk) 13:38, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

And I have restored them, as they seem perfectly in keeping with the principles at WP:PROJ. They are communication, not imposition. "The pages of a WikiProject are the central place for editor collaboration on a particular topic area. Editors there develop criteria, maintain various collaborative processes and keep track of work that needs to be done. It also provides a forum where issues of interest to the editors of a subject may be discussed." Kevin McE (talk) 14:28, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

WP:PROJ is not a policy or a guideline. This template is imposing it literally like the current consesnsus of the page is, with far less consensus, it is disruptive and it causes confusion and false consensus. Your project does not control or own the page, yet it acts like it does. --Almaty (talk) 14:37, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Am I right to assume the only problem right now with this list is the "origin" part ? Because the consensus is to use Index case. But in the model the attribute is called "origin" still. Iluvalar (talk) 19:03, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

• Wrong venue. Please move to the WikiProject talk page

   – You've brought this up at the project talk page. Don't create duplicate discussions — use Template:Please see to refer one to another. If this draws further comments here, someone uninvolved should archive it. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 21:01, 3 May 2020 (UTC)
• This is exactly my point, a very important discussion as to whether the project has scope to impose consensus on all articles is brought to the project page. Rather than the page where most editors contribute. It isn't right. --Almaty (talk) 09:14, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

  Feel free to make an invite from one to the other, but you are violating WP:MULTI. See WP:TALKFORK for more info. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 23:52, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Typo in the "Epidemiology" section

 Done

I can't edit this page, seeing as it's protected and I'm on my IP address rather than a custom made account, so can someone fix the two typo in the "Epidemiology" section in the word "comparative" and "coronaviruses" in this sentence: "A comarative sequence analysis of different coronoviruses found no evidence that COVID-19 was made in a laboratory."? 2600:1702:10A0:6DA0:71B1:8FB6:2531:3BE4 (talk) 21:26, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Done, thanks for the suggestion. ϢereSpielChequers 21:37, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

Discussed elsewhere under the heading "Lab Accident"Robertpedley (talk) 10:43, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Establishing consensus for "also known as" in the lead

I'd like to establish a consensus on what name (if any) should be included in "The COVID-19 pandemic, also known as..." in the lead.

I think there are three immediately obvious options:

1. Nothing, remove the clause entirely, because "COVID-19 pandemic" is accurate unlike many of the common names

2. "...also known as the coronavirus pandemic" because it is just as common, if not more, than the COVID-19 pandemic and because regardless of it's in accuracy (naming a pandemic after the virus instead of the disease) it is often called that (currently on the page as of time of writing)

3. "...also known as the 2019-20 coronavirus pandemic", to help with the transition between the old name and the new. sam1370 (talk | contribs) 02:06, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

• 3. "2019-20 coronavirus pandemic" still describes the time frame (assuming the pandemic doesn't go past into 2021). —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 02:13, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

No need the 19 has nothing to do with a time frame but the year of discovery.... makes no difference if it goes on for 5 years....the disease is called COVID-19 and that won't change no matter how long it goes on. A new virus will have a new name.--Moxy 🍁 02:26, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Moxy, it does have to do with the time frame in the sense that the pandemic started in 2019. The virus name has already been decided. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 02:57, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

The pandemic didn't start in 2019. The spread of the disease did. There is a huge difference. Prinsgezinde (talk) 16:33, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

@Tenryuu: However, it is less common, with the Google search (including quotes) "2019-20 coronavirus pandemic" returning 241,000 results, while "COVID-19 pandemic" returns 143 million and "Coronavirus pandemic" returns 136 million. Description as "also known as" would therefore be WP:UNDUE. The start date of the pandemic is only a few sentences away in the lead. sam1370 (talk | contribs) 02:53, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

@Sam1370: (edit conflict) Google search results are not definitive proof and are subject to many limitations; see WP:GOOGLETEST. As I described in my comments to the RM discussion above, a search on google trends still shows that "coronavirus" is more frequently searched for than "covid". A prospective reader is thus likely to come here having searched for "coronavirus". 107.190.33.254 (talk) 02:59, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

107.190.33.254: WP:GOOGLETEST states that problems with partial search results can be fixed by putting the topic in quotation marks, which I have done. However, I agree with User:Tenryuu when he stated that the coronavirus pandemic is not the only one, and combined with your info that coronavirus is more frequently searched for than "covid" I change my stance to 3 as it seems to be the best option that is still precise. sam1370 (talk | contribs) 03:10, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Sam1370, "coronavirus pandemic" is inappropriate because SARS and MERS are also coronaviruses that had pandemics. I support 3 as the transitional option from what we had before. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 03:00, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

@Tenryuu: I see. However, is there any real need for a transitional name when we already have a redirect? sam1370 (talk | contribs) 03:04, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Sam1370, the article has gone through various renames starting from "Wuhan pneumonia"/"China pneumonia outbreak" to "2019-20 novel coronavirus outbreak" to "2019-20 coronavirus pandemic" and there had been thorough deliberation and consensus over each rename, which meant that the names were notable. The last one is still the most accurate out of all of them —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 04:02, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

@Tenryuu: I'm sure all of those were accurate at the time -- for example, "2019-20 novel coronavirus outbreak" named the specific coronavirus we are facing, unlike "2019-20 coronavirus pandemic", which actually makes it more accurate. sam1370 (talk / contribs) 05:02, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

​Except that there have been no other coronavirus pandemics in that time frame. Despite not being as popular as other search terms, it is still commonly used and understood as the COVID-19 pandemic, even if it is nominally incorrect. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 11:23, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

@Tenryuu: COVID-19 pandemic is nominally incorrect? Doesn't it follow all the rules of naming a pandemic, i.e. after the disease? sam1370 (talk / contribs) 00:54, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Sam1370, subject confusion. I was still referring to the "2019-20 coronavirus pandemic". —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 01:03, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

@Tenryuu: Ah, okay. 2019-20 coronavirus pandemic isn't as common as COVID-19 pandemic, as evidenced by Google search results (with the term quoted) "COVID-19 pandemic" is about 590 times more common (154 million vs 260 thousand). sam1370 (talk / contribs) 10:07, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

• 2 or 3, I have not seen "2019-20 coronavirus pandemic" used outside anywhere but here as the previous title for this article (out of concerns for precision); and since the less precise "coronavirus" is commonly used instead of "covid-19" it should be included, in whichever form (precise or less so) is deemed most appropriate. 107.190.33.254 (talk) 02:59, 4 May 2020 (UTC) Edit 04:33, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

107.190.33.254: However, as Tenryuu stated, "coronavirus pandemic" is completely inaccurate because there have been multiple. sam1370 (talk / contribs) 03:15, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

I do not disagree that "coronavirus pandemic" is wholly lacking in accuracy; my point was that outside of WP, I have not seen option 3 used (since mostly everybody is discussing the "current" (i.e. no dates required) pandemic). In the spirit of being somewhat precise and future-proof I see no significant problem with variant 3 either. 107.190.33.254 (talk) 04:33, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

I see your point. Actually, I've changed my mind on this one: SARS and MERS were not, as User:Tenryuu said, coronavirus pandemics: see 2012 Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus outbreak and 2002–2004 SARS outbreak. I now support 2. By the way, is there any specific reason you haven't made an account? I'm not sure if this is all you, but your IP address appears to have made over two thousand edits. sam1370 (talk / contribs) 05:02, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Sam1370, I'll concede to that. They were at most epidemics. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 11:26, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

2 (or 3), although we might change "also known as" to "commonly known as". Pace the editors who find it technically inaccurate, it's certainly common... although, as long as "coronavirus" occurs somewhere in the first sentence, I suppose the identity of the ongoing "coronavirus pandemic" with the "COVID-19 pandemic" will be adequately apparent even if we drop the a.k.a.-clause. -sche (talk) 05:10, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

1, although not simply for that reason. "...also known as the coronavirus pandemic" gives undue prominence to a loose, almost slang, reference. "...also known as the 2019-20 coronavirus pandemic" is not true for most. "Could be recognized" might be true, but "known as" is a high threshold statement. If anywhere, a brief synopsis of what people were calling it in different times and places belongs in COVID-19 pandemic#History, not the lede sentence. This article is already content heavy. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:55, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

@SmokeyJoe: I disagree; many news sources refer to the COVID-19 pandemic as the coronavirus pandemic and a search on Google (with the respective terms quoted) shows they both have around the same number of results, which eliminates any possibility of WP:UNDUE. "Also known as" is just that, "also known as", and does not guarantee that it is in accordance with the rules of naming a pandemic or that it is not slang. sam1370 (talk / contribs) 07:32, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Many news sources are not reliable sources. Ghits is even worse. Look at quality sources. Surely, the quality sources are represented by the reference list. I just went though the first 12 references. The “COVID-19 pandemic” is dominant, where the word “pandemic” occurs at all. Only one uses “Coronavirus pandemic”, and it was a paragraph about what Trump had to say. The high Ghits you mention can be explained by the previous title of this article. —SmokeyJoe (talk) 08:34, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

@SmokeyJoe: The Ghits for the article in quotes only number about 300,000. Reliable sources are a reliable source for the information they provide, not how common something is, while Google hits, with the term quoted, is a fairly accurate measure of how popular a term is. Of course reliable sources are going to use the more precise wording, because they are reliable and accurate. sam1370 (talk / contribs) 01:00, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Hi Sam1370. I'm not sure what you're saying to me there. #1 is good. It's the name that matches the sources. #2 is bad, because although loosely known as "the coronavirus pandemic", it is not the first coronavirus pandemic, and putting it there like like makes it liable to mislead. #3 is cumbersome, is not supported by any of the first twelve references, and if it goes anywhere it belongs in the History section; it is but one of a set of terms that have been used. #1 is simple and accurate and the way forward. If #1 is not adopted immediately due to the recent title change, it should be adopted fairly soon, unless something changes. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 01:44, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

@SmokeyJoe: To clarify, I support 2. #1 is fine, but 2 is better as it includes a name that is approximately as common as COVID-19 pandemic. This is the first coronavirus pandemic, the other outbreaks/epidemics being 2012 Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus outbreak and 2002–2004 SARS outbreak. sam1370 (talk / contribs) 10:13, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

• 2 with 3 being my second choice. 2 gets 136 million hits. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 07:59, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
• Anything but 3. The old name was a compromise, whereas "also known as ..." is used to describe other common names. "2019-20 coronavirus pandemic" is not a common name. "coronavirus pandemic" or, "corona pandemic", yes, but no one right now says "2019-20", partially because it wasn't even a pandemic until 2020 but mostly because we're still in the middle of it (or, more likely, somewhere at the start). As of right now I'd agree with both 1 and 2, with a slight preference for 1 since we don't really need an alternative title that may again be debated. Prinsgezinde (talk) 16:33, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

@Prinsgezinde: I think having an alternative title will be useful for clarity, since it shows up in Google search results and is right there so readers who are unfamiliar with "COVID-19 pandemic" can see the alternative title. sam1370 (talk / contribs) 01:30, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Proposal: Move moratorium

As we finally passed final name "COVID-19 pandemic" for this article and first step on improving page with correct info. We still need the move requests controlled meaning no one should doing it for next 30 days. This is to prevent "opposed" move disruption on the COVID-19 pandemic page.Regice2020 (talk) 03:13, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Comment How about we wait and see if the RM's become a problem or not. The moratoriums are to prevent disruptive discussion, not act as pre-emptive strikes for possible unwanted proposals. Mgasparin (talk) 03:19, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Agreed. The RM we just had was huge, and probably contains arguments against almost all other reasonable name changes. sam1370 (talk / contribs) 03:37, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Agree with Mga, we should wait and see if they become an issue. If they do we can propose another one. QueerFilmNerd (talk | contribs) 03:57, 4 May 2020‎ (UTC)

Propose the standard 6 months following a consensus decision, and this means hiding this thread, because this thread is in violation. --SmokeyJoe (talk) 05:57, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

• We should wait to see if any issue occurs. Not sure we need a moratorium currently. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 07:56, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Comment If RM counter was not record high, then move request fetish indeed existing. But at least April 26's one was interesting. --91.207.170.201 (talk) 10:57, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

• Not necessary - If multiple persons propose RM that are not substantially different from the previous ones then we might reconsider this but as of right now this appears premature. In any case, if any such RM was proposed in the near-future, I would see no objection to a speedy close for it being disruptive...107.190.33.254 (talk) 16:24, 4 May 2020 (UTC)
• Suggestion: A moratorium might be overly strict, but we're already having issues below. What I would suggest would be a requirement that requested moves have to themselves be proposed. So, before you'd be allowed to use the RM tag and place a notice on the article, you'd have to open a small meta discussion on the talk page here about whether there is sufficient interest in holding a RM. This would allow us to shut down the more frivolous ones while providing a path for more serious proposals. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 00:47, 5 May 2020 (UTC)
• Wait: Such actions should be reactive, not anticipatory. --benlisquare_T•C•E 05:52, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Source not about COVID

This text ", though the CDC says that hand sanitizers are less effective than hand washing, in part due to the higher margin for error (wiping sanitizer off too early, not using enough, etc)." the source is not about COVID.

It says "Soap and water are more effective than hand sanitizers at removing certain kinds of germs, like Cryptosporidium, norovirus, and Clostridium difficile1-5" and would be fine in those articles. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 07:56, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

References

Title

The title of this article is different from other pandemics and epidemics. There is no year included in the title. So the title should be '2019-2020 COVID-19 pandemic'. The previous title '2019-20 Coronavirus pandemic' was better. --Wester (talk) 20:29, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

If I may, boldly, but this has been discussed with an RM which closed yesterday (see higher on the page). You (and I, and others) might not fully agree with the current result, but get over it. 107.190.33.254 (talk) 20:56, 4 May 2020 (UTC)}}

That past discussion was on the topic of COVID-19 versus Coronavirus as name in the title. I simply point to the fact that the naming system of pandemics and epidemics is not followed here. A year should be added in the title, and '19' is not recognizable as a year. To follow the naming convention it should be '2020-19 COVID-19 pandemic'. --Wester (talk) 21:09, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

@Wester: It is not per se standard to put the year in the title, unless there have been multiple pandemics with the same name. There has been only one Spanish flu, which is why we name the page "Spanish flu", and there has been only one COVID-19 pandemic. --MrClog (talk) 23:06, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

COVID-19 pandemic should be the final move decision even after when this is over just like "SARS" or "EBOLA". There no evidence the COVID-19 pandemic ended in 2020 from the start anyways even the oppose cant provide one. Regice2020 (talk) 00:00, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Please ping me when the 2047 COVID-19 pandemic hits (as we all know it will) and we can consider disambiguating the name. Until then, there was a lot of consideration put into the RM that just closed. Please don't make us implement another move moratorium; just let the new name stand. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 00:21, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

@Wester: The title of the article was just changed recently, and we're in the process of changing all the other articles for consistency, so that's why they're not all the same. I'm starting to support the move moratorium that was proposed earlier. sam1370 (talk / contribs) 01:05, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

No historian is going to refer to as COVID-19

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

---

No historian is going to refer to as COVID-19. It's called Coronavirus Pandemic--128.114.255.218 (talk) 23:25, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

This issue has already been decided at § Requested move 26 April 2020, though I appreciate your concerns. --MrClog (talk) 23:41, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

A pandemic is named after a disease, not the virus (and especially not an entire virus family, which is what "coronavirus" is), so that's simply incorrect. sam1370 (talk / contribs) 01:01, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Also see WP:CRYSTALBALL. QueerFilmNerd^talk 01:18, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Also historians would all set the coronavirus pandemic to start a few million years ago, not 2020. Bad title. Iluvalar (talk) 14:56, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

Map: Status of Nunavut

Nunavut needs to be grey on the map again. Their single case was a false positive. Source CBC News: https://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/covid-19-nunavut-false-positive-1.5554545 Basser g (talk) 00:05, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Wrong venue. You should mention this at the talk page for File:COVID-19 Outbreak World Map per Capita.svg. 107.190.33.254 (talk) 00:09, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 5 May 2020

Schools might go back to school on May 25th 203.218.207.118 (talk) 00:55, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. Acalycine (talk) 01:00, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Reference sources

Original agency sources are preferable to Yahoo News quoting them. Currently the source for "it was later discovered that a person near Paris tested positive for the virus on 27 December 2019 after retesting old samples" is https://www.yahoo.com/news/retesting-samples-french-hospital-discovers-153353216.html. It should be replaced with https://www.reuters.com/article/us-health-coronavirus-france-idUSKBN22G20L which is what appears at https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/COVID-19_pandemic_in_France#cite_note-Reut4520-29. At the moment I'm being prevented from changing the URL. Mcljlm (talk) 10:07, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

 Done: updated as requested. robertsky (talk) 12:57, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

I'd like to independently re-open this request. As at COVID-19 pandemic in France, the following ref should either be added or substituted for the above one since it is the actual original source for this (i.e. it's the paper by the researchers).

"SARS-COV-2 was already spreading in France in late December 2019". International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents. In Press, Journal Pre-proof. 2020-05-03.

Thanks, 107.190.33.254 (talk) 16:30, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

 Done: however, fair game if some other editor decides that the additional ref is not necessary here. You may want to update in COVID-19 pandemic in France as well. robertsky (talk) 17:16, 5 May 2020 (UTC)

Is coverage really 'neutral' enough? specially in article leads & 'impact' articles & sections

As a reader, each of my subsequent visits to various COVID-19 pandemic related articles bemuse me more.

If there were no human individual & group failures, then how did the decease spread ? If failures at multiple levels contributed spread of decease where is adequate Wikipedia coverage?

People and groups not following expected precautions on various pretexts- whether for secular or non secular reasons does not seem to to be adequately covered. Whether it is half-heartedness of W.H.O. in issuing timely advisories; to governments, to groups, to individuals; not following advisories. Failures are at multiple level and media seems to have if not enough minimal coverage of the criticism of human failures in giving pandemic proportions to the decease .

My contention is Wikipedians do not seem to cover criticism, as I said each of my visit I find refrain, avoidance, curtailment, window dressing and at places undeclared censorship that criticism does not get wider attention. On side note many times I find Wikipedia consensus more of a democratic process than logical process which tends to indirectly compromise on neutrality.

Most of 'impact' articles & sections are unidirectional, how the COVID-19 pandemic affected 'So and so' but hardly any mention of the 'so and so' were likely contributors to spread of pandemic and many not taking seriously and flouting public health wise very important advisories.

Is not main article COVID-19 pandemic indirectly connected to sub topic article? and talk page of main article does not want to entertain failure of neutrality in subtopic article than how does main article remains neutral?

As a Wikipedia editor my present focus is some other topics, still I attempted to give minor coverage to criticism part, but as a reader and frank reviewer I find information gaps on above mentioned topics.

Thanks and greetings

Bookku (talk) 02:12, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, centralized discussion is @ Wikipedia_talk:WikiProject_COVID-19#Is_coverage_really_'neutral'_enough?_specially_in_article_leads_&_'impact'_articles_&_sections thanks.

Bookku (talk) 04:26, 6 May 2020 (UTC)

Could you give some examples of where specifically in the article you see an absence of neutrality? For example, can you provide an example for "how the COVID-19 pandemic affected 'So and so' but hardly any mention of the 'so and so' were likely contributors to spread of pandemic and many not taking seriously and flouting public health wise very important advisories."? Would be very useful for this discussion. Thanks. Acalycine (talk) 04:55, 6 May 2020 (UTC)