Talk:1957–1958 influenza pandemic

Did you know nomination

The following is an archived discussion of the DYK nomination of the article below. Please do not modify this page. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page (such as this nomination's talk page, the article's talk page or Wikipedia talk:Did you know), unless there is consensus to re-open the discussion at this page. No further edits should be made to this page.

The result was: promoted by 97198 (talk) 09:21, 7 May 2020 (UTC)

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• Comment or view
• Article history

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• ... that the 1957–58 influenza pandemic killed at least a million people worldwide? Source: Various, see article

• Reviewed: Grotta del Gelo

Created by Buidhe (talk). Self-nominated at 17:59, 4 April 2020 (UTC).

Starting review. Alex2006 (talk) 08:00, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

General: Article is new enough and long enough
New enough: Long enough:

Policy compliance:

• Adequate sourcing:
• Neutral:
• Free of copyright violations, plagiarism, and close paraphrasing:
• Other problems:

Hook: Hook has been verified by provided inline citation
Cited: Interesting:

QPQ: Done.

Overall: Article complies with length and creation time rules, it is neutral and plagiarism free and richly sourced (AGF on non reachable sources). The hook is interesting and cited. If I understand well, among all the sources one million deaths is the lowest figure, that is why it was chosen. QPQ done. Alex2006 (talk) 08:00, 5 April 2020 (UTC)

Requested move 22 July 2021

1957–1958 influenza pandemic → 1958 influenza pandemic – Date range not directly supported by cited references without original research. Only a minority of cited references use a date range in their titles, and they do not agree whether the start was 1956 or 1957 and whether the end was 1958 or 1959. The majority of the refs use just one year, and the majority of them use 1958, so that is the WP:COMMONNAME that we should use in preference to a made up name. See also: [1] [2] [3] Dhaluza (talk) 23:54, 22 July 2021 (UTC) Dhaluza (talk) 23:54, 22 July 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose, the entire page pretty much concentrates on the 1957 events (please read it again). The years are correct, as is the present title. Randy Kryn (talk) 02:21, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

  Sorry for the typo, I meant 1957. Will relist. Dhaluza (talk) 11:57, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

Requested move 23 July 2021

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: not moved. (closed by non-admin page mover) Jack Frost (talk) 13:18, 30 July 2021 (UTC)

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1957–1958 influenza pandemic → 1957 influenza pandemic – Date range not directly supported by cited references without original research. Only a minority of cited references use a date range in their titles, and they do not agree whether the start was 1956 or 1957 and whether the end was 1958 or 1959. The majority of the refs use just one year, and the majority of them use 1957, so that is the WP:COMMONNAME that we should use in preference to a made up name. See also: [4] [5] [6] Dhaluza Dhaluza (talk) 11:56, 23 July 2021 (UTC) Dhaluza (talk) 11:56, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose, the overlap into 1958 is present and sourced: "The second wave, in January and February 1958, was more pronounced among elderly people and so was more fatal.", and "In Germany, around 30,000 people died of the flu between September 1957 and April 1958." Randy Kryn (talk) 12:04, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

  No argument that it continued to 1958, but sources do not support concluding that it ended then. The majority don't specify an end date, and those that do do not agree on 1958 or 1959. We need to follow the sources. Dhaluza (talk) 13:12, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

  If you look at the titles of the cited refs only three use a range in their titles ending in 1958: #7 uses 1956-1958 so not consistent; #27 uses 1957-1958; but the scope is limited to England and Wales; #13 does use 1957-1958, and is global in scope, and from the CDC which is authoritative, but then in the body text uses only 1957, and the last ref cited there is an NIH paper, "Global Mortality Impact of the 1957-1959 Influenza Pandemic, so no consistency even among authoritative sources. Dhaluza (talk) 13:31, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose Misleading as the flu did not just occur in 1957. You could make a common name case for "Asian flu" however. (t · c) buidhe 15:01, 23 July 2021 (UTC)

  But it did not just end in 1958, so that is even more misleading. Only a tiny minority of sources called it by that name. Dhaluza (talk) 11:38, 24 July 2021 (UTC)

• Oppose, it extended to 1958 as well. Dede2008 (talk) 14:30, 28 July 2021 (UTC)

  According to a some sources, others say it extended to 1959. Others don't specify a definitive range. You can't put unsupported claims in the body of the article, and especially not in the title. Dhaluza (talk) 03:22, 29 July 2021 (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.

Proposed split for vaccine section

Since my last contribution to the Vaccine section, it has been proposed by Buidhe that that section be split into a new article titled "1957 influenza vaccine". Considering the length of the section, this may be appropriate. The vaccination effort during this pandemic, particularly in the United States, often receives a lot of attention in popular histories of the event, and thus I'd argue it passes the test of WP:NOTE. However, if I may be so bold as to express my personal view in this space, these histories tend to frame this episode rather misleadingly, suggesting that the effort had a significant impact on the course of the epidemic (see: [1], [2], [3], [4], [5]). These articles, written for a lay audience, contain some very bold assertions that are simply not supported by the historical record. This was a significant moment in the history of infectious disease and public health, and I believe it's important that it be recounted in full, supported by the facts, without dramatization; it would be, in my opinion, an unfortunate loss to sacrifice the finer points simply for the sake of brevity. For these reasons, I would support a new article dedicated specifically to the vaccine, along the lines of the "2009 swine flu pandemic vaccine" and "COVID-19 vaccine" articles. If this is to be done, I would recommend it be titled "1957 pandemic influenza vaccine" (rather than just "1957 influenza vaccine", as suggested by Buidhe), to make clear that this was a vaccine developed specifically to target pandemic influenza and to align it with the title of the 2009 article. Then, the section on this article could be abridged into some broader points, similar to the Vaccine section of the "COVID-19 pandemic" article. If this split is not desirable to others, then this section may require significant abridgement, but it should remain, if I may suggest, true to the history and accurate with respect to what the effort actually did and did not accomplish. (Apologies for the Opinion and the WP:TEXTWALL, but I believe this decision requires thorough consideration of why it may or may not be necessary.) Nabbovirus (talk) Nabbovirus (talk) 03:58, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

Well, if the vaccination didn't have a significant impact on the pandemic, according to the best sources we have, that would be a further argument for splitting it. (t · c) buidhe 04:03, 9 December 2023 (UTC)

I think splitting out into a new vaccine article is a good idea. I don't remember anything about a vaccine at the time. I imagine we all got the flu before the vaccine was available. An article with all the details rather than an abbreviated section here would be ideal. StarryGrandma (talk) 04:18, 9 December 2023 (UTC)