Talk:COVID-19 pandemic in Massachusetts/Archive 1

Archive 1

Biogen

I don't love the Biogen section, but it is essential to have a section on this particular cluster. I am trying to track down more information concerning the progression from February 26 until the present. One thing is clear is that what began as two symptomatic executives at the meeting has exploded into 70 confirmed cases out of the 175 participants. These Massachusetts employees of Biogen, Inc. represent 70 out of the 92 confirmed cases in the state of Massachusetts as of March 10,2020. For that reason I think it is necessary to have a section on the Biogen cluster since it appears from new reports that executives left the state and has led to outbreaks in several other states. ThomasAquinas2019 (talk) 03:43, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Ok could someone find a way to integrate the fact that out of 92 cases as of March 10, 70 are employees of Biogen, INC? This is also noteworthy because Biogen, Harvard and MIT are all located 15 minutes apart from each other in Cambridge Massachusetts. The news reported this morning that there was a total of 70 presumptive positive cases all of which were Massachusetts residents, employees of Biogen, who had contracted the virus from an Italian colleague who had been present at the February 26-28 conference. Within an hours of these reports both Harvard and MIT began reporting that they were going to transition to online only classes and were advising students not to come back from spring break. In addition, Harvard told the remaining few students still on campus that they had to vacate the premises within 5 days. Harvard's letter to their students indicated that graduation was canceled as well. I am graduate student at Boston College which is located in Brighton, MA and all are classes are still in person on campus. My point is i don't want to appear to be focusing on Biogen and painting them in a negative light. However, this conference of Biogen executives which was convened in Boston is the epicenter of our state's outbreak as of March 10 and all the university closing are in response to the close physical proximity between the schools and the company.

see for instance: ThomasAquinas2019 (talk) 07:38, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

References

specific section dealing with Long-term care facilities (April 15)

are we going to continue to update the information on the LTCs in the daily section or do we need a separate section. I think we need a separate section since this is becoming a problem all itself. For instance on April 15, only 14% of the overall positive test were from nursing facilities. So only 256 of the 1,755 new cases of COVID19 were of individuals associated with nursing homes. This is consistent with all the overall trend in the state were only 13% of the 29,918 positive cases in Massachusetts are from individuals associated with LTC facilities. However also on April 15, 86 of our 151 fatalities in Massachusetts were from individuals associated with LTCs. That means 57% of the people who died of COVID19 in Massachusetts were in nursing homes. In addition, 47% of the overal total fatalities in the state of Massachusetts for COVID19 are either residents or staff nursing homes. In Massachusetts we have had 1,108 fatalities related to COVID19. Residents/staff of nursing homes comprised 530 of these deaths. If 48% our the fatalities for COVID19 shouldn't we address the efforts to combat the virus in these facilities? ThomasAquinas2019 (talk)

List of nursing home outbreaks and clusters

Ok now lets talk about this again. As of April 11, there are 686 fatalities from COVID19 in Massachusetts. 306 of these fatalities have occurred within the long term nursing facilities throughout the state. I don't know how this accomplished, but we need to either make a separate section. As of 4/11/20, 190 LTC in the state of Massachusetts are reporting at least one case of COVID19. see https://www.mass.gov/info-details/covid-19-cases-quarantine-and-monitoring ThomasAquinas2019 (talk)

By my count there are at least 5-6 nursing facilities in the state have had anywhere from 3-21 residents die of COVID19 in the last week. Considering as of 4/4/20 less than 200 individuals have died of COVID19 in Massachusetts these facilities seem to be significant. Several of these facilities appear to be now under investigation for patient mismanagement in regards to COVID19. Does this need a separate section or should we just continue to update these developments each day in the timeline? ThomasAquinas2019 (talk)

List of known infections and fatalities in Long term care facilities in Massachusetts as of April 11, 2020

We need a separate section? To focus specifically on the impact that COVID19 is having on nursing facilities in Massachusetts. Major spikes in deaths. ThomasAquinas2019 (talk) 06:44, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

Life Care Center in Nashobi Valley, 10 deceased residents, 1 deceased nurse - 4/11/20.

Soldier's Home in Chelsea, Massachusetts - 37 residents deceased

AdviniaCare at Wilmington 77 of the home's 91 residents have been diagnosed with COVID19.

Charlwell House Health & Rehabilitation Center in Norwood, Massachusetts - 15 people have died in two weeks.

43 COVID-19 cases at Chapin Nursing Home in Springfield;

Poets seat nursing home in greenfield, Massachusetts is reporting 25 positive cases and 5 deaths from COVID19.ThomasAquinas2019 (talk) 06:35, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

In Brockton Massachusetts, 5 residents of Alliance Health at West Acres nursing home had died. Following that, Saint Joseph Manor in Brockton reported four residents died as of Thursday morning.ThomasAquinas2019 (talk) 06:44, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

here is a new JGS Lifecare in Longmeadow, Massachusetts announced today 21 residents have died and 97 patients have tested positive for COVID19. In addition, 43 staff members also have tested positive. ThomasAquinas2019 (talk)

need sources? ThomasAquinas2019 (talk)

April Month formatting

ok so I am starting to collect and keep updated the page regarding the latest developments concerning the outbreak of COVID19 in Massachusetts. They way I am formatting the month may need to some tweaking. I am still getting the hang of this. That is on me, sorry folks! ThomasAquinas2019 (talk)

Biogen outbreak

hi guys as of today 70 out of the 95 infected individuals in Massachusetts are executives of Biogen, INC. This has been well documented in the state as it releases its numbers. I don't want to focus undue attention on them in a time of crisis, but everyone in this state has heard about that company and it is the index case for this state. With the dates setup, I think you lose the sense that this thing is moving a definable trajectory in terms of who got it and from where and can be traced at this point very clearly. Is there away to either make a sub section about the developments at Biogen? It is well documented that an Italian national who is an executive flew into Boston on February 24 and attended the conference. This is a probably the third largest community spread in the country besides the Kirkland Life Center in Washington and the synagogue in New Rochelle, New York. any thoughts? ThomasAquinas2019 (talk) 01:54, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Worcester County case from March 14

I am not sure who added the table with the March 14 dates, but it appears that today Worchester County got its first COVID19 infection. This person is affliated with the Biogen conference. — Preceding unsigned comment added by ThomasAquinas2019 (talk • contribs) 23:39, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

References

Biogen conference

Is it me or does this Biogen conference need its own article? I feel like it's consistently creating more news and will likely be a 'textbook' source for future understanding of how a disease like this spreads. Curious what others think? Victor Grigas (talk) 01:57, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Victorgrigas, Consider starting with a Biogen section here first? If the section becomes too long, forking out a standalone page is easy. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 02:00, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Growth by Exposure Cluster

I'd like to add or convert the data under [by Exposure Cluster] to a chart analogous to what is shown on the NY state page. I think this would help enable comparison between geographic entities (in this case, states).

I am a data visualization professional but with limited Wikipedia editing experience. Wanted to check in here about best practices and get people's thoughts on this.

Smtology (talk) 14:57, 18 March 2020 (UTC)smtology

Done. Mark Taylor (talk) 18:15, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

So great -- thank you! Smtology (talk) 21:07, 18 March 2020 (UTC)smtology

WikiProject COVID-19

I've created WikiProject COVID-19 as a temporary or permanent WikiProject and invite editors to use this space for discussing ways to improve coverage of the ongoing 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic. Please bring your ideas to the project/talk page. Stay safe, ---Another Believer _(Talk) 16:49, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Yes ThomasAquinas2019 (talk) 22:56, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

County by county infections image

It would be helpful to users to be able to visualize county by county where cases are being reported, similar to the image in this article https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_outbreak_in_New_York_(state) 199.46.250.141 (talk) 12:01, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

ok i have all the data on the county breakdown of infections. I do not know how to create a map or what would be the best way to create this in wiki. I am happy ot provide this information in this talk page if that would help or if someone wants to design the structure, I can fill in the places and locations. ThomasAquinas2019 (talk) 18:10, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

I can get the data, but I am not sure how to do it in wikipedia ThomasAquinas2019 (talk) 16:22, 11 March 2020 (UTC)16:22, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

How are we supposed to resolve simultaneous edits? I am not sure sorry. ThomasAquinas2019 (talk) 18:05, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

The New York and Washington state articles are modifying images similar to this https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Massachusetts_Democratic_Presidential_Primary_Election_Results_by_County,_2016.svg 199.46.250.141 (talk) 19:47, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

As it turns out, SVG images are just XML documents dictating to the browser/interpreter how to draw an image. So taking that democratic presidential primary SVG and modifying it to show different colors denoting presumptive/confirmed cases was very simple. I am working on figuring out how to upload an SVG I modified showing the 3/10/2020 statistics from the state. 199.46.250.141 (talk) 11:55, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Here is the image I made that I was talking about: Uncreativite (talk) 12:11, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Map of counties in Massachusetts (state) with presumptive and confirmed cases of COVID-19 as of March 10th, 2020

perfect thank you for the image. Two questions one. I have the current list of outbreaks per county. (March 12, 2020) This number is released each day at 4 pm (EST) on the MassDPH website. The url is Is there away to add the numbers into the counties themselves to give a better understanding of the scope?

Current numbers are Berkshire - 9 Essex - 2 Middlesex - 49 Norfolk - 24 Suffolk 22 Worcester 1 Unknown - 1 Also the issues of presumptive and positive test results is at this point a distinction without a difference because the law is such that only the CDCD "confirm" and so the MassDPH lab has to mail the samples to Georgia and await results. Obviously given the gravity of the problem the CDC is not confirming state test but trying to get kites out. Therefore nothing is ever going to be "confirmed" until after the situation is in some sense stabilized. The state labs have the kits to test and so the "Presumptive" are determined by positive test administered by the state of Massachusetts. It is just they haven't been administered by the CDC. The problem is this gives the impression tat someone is symptomatic and is considered "presumptive" as opposed to someone who has a positive test as administered by an official from the Massachusetts State Department of Health. I am not saying change it but maybe we could note that somehow, because this is how it is described in the media, but it is seems to confuse a lot of people in the state regarding the scope or size of the problem. ThomasAquinas2019 (talk) 00:03, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

References

I checked the list at 4:01 PM on March 12, 2020 and they had not updated it so I had to make the image for what they had released on March 10th. It seems the pandemic hasn't yet shown up in testing for other counties, so I think we can just update the description of the image to say it's accurate for March 12th released statistics. And while I agree that putting the numbers into the image itself to help users visualize the spread better is a great idea, I have no idea how to do that. Modifying an existing image's colors was a simple job but adding text or changing the shapes is not something I'm equipped to do. As far as noting this issue with the testing/presumptive stuff, I'm not quite sure how to add a little note mentioning that. But I think it would be a good idea to add one. Uncreativite (talk) 16:31, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

Hi I love the stuff you guys are doing. I updated the url for the MassDPH site for today's numbers. Stay safe out there. it is getting scary here ThomasAquinas2019 (talk) 03:40, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

I agree "the table" discussed earlier was not appropriate for this article, but it did have a breakdown by town which is now missing. Maybe if you live in Suffolk county the geography is small enough, but for (especially) Middlesex and Worcester, the area is far too large. When the table still existed, someone in Tyngsborough could see that all the Middlesex cases were in the far south of the county. Now it is just one lump. Is the data available to smaller geographic areas? Can the larger counties be subdivided? --Wikirjd (talk) 13:22, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

Section headers by date

Can we rearrange the section headers so it is by workweek and weekend, like this?

• February
• March
  • Week of March 2-6
  • Weekend of March 7-8
  • Week of March 9-13
  • Weekend of March 14-15
  • Week of March 16-20
  • Weekend of March 21-22

Toran107 (talk) 14:15, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

Total Cases by County map in *Diagrams*

The map has some misinformation. It says Plymouth and Barnstable counties are in the '10-49' range. They need to be moved to '50-199' range. Also, it puts Norfolk in the '50-199' range but it is in the '200-499' range. Can someone please fix that?--Qwerty325 (talk) 12:52, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Does File:COVID-19_cases_in_Massachusetts_by_county_map.svg look correct to you now, Qwerty325? Thanks for the catch. Emw (talk) 11:55, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

File:COVID-19_cases_in_Massachusetts_by_county_map.svg is now mostly correct. Fix the data for Barnstable County still. It should be in '50-199' range. --Qwerty325 (talk) 21:47, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

Should File:COVID-19_cases_in_Massachusetts_by_county_map.svg have a separate color for '1000+'?--Qwerty325 (talk) 12:26, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

Actually, the color coding could probably be reworked since the first three colors aren't even needed any longer. Wikirjd (talk) 06:51, 1 April 2020 (UTC)

Cases by County table

I found a site on the NY Times stating the number of deaths per county at https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2020/us/massachusetts-coronavirus-cases.html . Should we add 2 major columns with a colspan="14" each and add the number of deaths to the table, Ahecht? --Qwerty325 (talk) 19:02, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

I added it to the table. Qwerty325 (talk) 01:14, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Recoveries

I see that Qwerty325 has been updating the tables and charts with recoveries numbers, which are cited to https://www.mass.gov/info-details/covid-19-cases-quarantine-and-monitoring. However, I don't actually see recoveries data on that site anywhere, neither directly nor in the linked documents. The closes things I can find is "individuals who have completed monitoring (no longer in quarantine)", but that's not the same thing. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 14:40, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

However, it is a closer estimate than what we had before. Before, we had stated 729 recoveries. How is that logical? It takes 14 days to recover. We had 6620 cases 14 days ago. The number now stated is closer to the accurate number, which is not listed in any reliable source, Ahecht. Therefore, I would suggest just leaving the number at 5402, which is very close to the accurate number. Qwerty325 (talk) 18:55, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

@Qwerty325: I would leave recoveries out altogether if we don't have a reliable source. Many of the people in quarantine were never counted in the confirmed cases, so it makes the chart misleading since the blue bar is subtracted from the red bar. I've updated the table to indicate what the numbers actually mean. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 20:08, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

@Qwerty325: Please don't re-add these numbers to the chart. They're obviously very different from the actual number of recoveries. For example, on March 2, only 2 cases had been confirmed, but 377 had been released from quarantine. One March 5 it was 470 released and only 3 cases. It wasn't until March 25th that the number of total cases was greater than the number released from quarantine. WP:Verifiability is a policy, not a guideline, and it states that the burden to demonstrate verifiability lies with the editor who adds or restores material ... Any material lacking a reliable source directly supporting it may be removed and should not be restored without an inline citation to a reliable source. I tagged the recoveries with {{citation needed}}, and will be removing the data again in the near future unless someone can provide a reliable source. Per WP:PROVEIT, do not remove the tag or re-add the data without providing a reliable source that those numbers represent recoveries. --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 00:16, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

I removed Recoveries from the chart. Instead I changed "altlbl1 = Active cases and recoveries". Qwerty325 (talk) 01:15, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Thanks! --Ahecht (TALK
PAGE) 02:19, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Cases by county map

Can the map be changed to cases by county per capita? County boundaries are relatively arbitrary and the populations of each are nowhere close to being the same. I think that normalizing the number of cases with the population of each county would make the map more useful. Grk1011 (talk) 16:28, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

• Support Toran107 (talk) 20:20, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Grk1011, This makes sense to me. I'm pinging @Emw:, who has been putting in the good work of creating these visualizations and updating them daily. Qono (talk) 01:11, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Where can I find this map? Thanks! 181.66.57.118 (talk) 21:41, 18 April 2020 (UTC)

List of cases in Massachusetts

Necessary detail? ~Half of the table is currently unsourced. Thoughts re: this list/table? ---Another Believer _(Talk) 15:17, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

I think it's WP:UNDUE, especially without sourcing. This is an epidemic, a few isolated cases aren't really that important. If reliable sources exist for the information, and it's relevant, it's best presented in prose anyway. --AntiCompositeNumber (talk) 15:48, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

AntiCompositeNumber, I've removed for now. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 15:55, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

I have to admire the effort expended by the anonymous contributor of that table, and I can see how it might have had some utility in the short term, but it is naive to think that we could possibly keep it up-to-date in the days to come. Mark Taylor (talk) 17:38, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

dang i wish the user identified themselves because i didn't see it except on my phone. i wish there was a way to work that into this somehow. ThomasAquinas2019 (talk) 18:09, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

I'd like to suggest to the anonymous user to create a Wikipedia account and maintain the table on their user page. I find the content interesting even if it might not meet the criteria for this page. Mark Taylor (talk) 20:43, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

I think the table is extremely useful, but I don't think it really belongs on the article. Also, cases 124 and 125 are duplicates, but 125 states it's the first case within Bristol county but the source for it is the same source as 124 (a source stating the first case in Barnstable county). That table needs to be checked more thoroughly or removed — Preceding unsigned comment added by Uncreativite (talk • contribs) 23:58, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

I've removed the table twice already. I'll let someone else take over from here so I don't violate WP:3RR. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 00:17, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

If it keeps reappearing after people have removed it, we may need to ask a moderator for some sort of assistance in the matter. Uncreativite (talk) 01:28, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Honestly, I wouldn't bother. Given the exponential growth, I'm afraid this problem will resolve itself in just a few days when it becomes impossible to document every new case. Mark Taylor (talk) 01:56, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Hello, brand new to editing on Wikipedia here-- I created this table as a way to track the municipalities that have cases. I understand that it will only grow, but there is value in that not only does it show the municipalities, it provides more information not included in the text of other sections (which towns are in a state of emergency, which cases signal community spread, Norwood town manager, etc). *Because my goal was to identify the towns with cases, I have created a complimentary map of infected towns in MS Paint- maybe this would be more beneficial than an "unmanageable" table.* Again, still new here so I don't know the standards for maps (let alone how to upload one). Another alternative would be to create/link to a separate page- the table is the fruit of my quarantine labor, other users have edited/added to it, so it must serve some purpose/provide informative value/people are on board w me..? so why not keep going for now :) go easy on me ok thanks bye~ q 108.26.178.240 (talk) 03:52, 18 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for your contributions here, but the consensus is that the list doesn't belong in the article because it gives undue weight to individual cases and is unmaintainable in the long term. One potential way to address this is to use the data to produce a chart that shows the growth in cases by county or town over time. I think that would be more useful to readers and would consolidate this information into a smaller space, which would address the due weight issue. Qono (talk) 01:25, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Alright well :( Not sure abt the "unmaintainable" thing, considering it's been maintained for approx 1 week- but this is not very long term, I understand. I'll just keep going with it in an excel sheet. Is there any interest in a map of towns (like a political map-style)? Or a simple bulleted list of towns rather than the table? q108.26.178.240 (talk) 02:55, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Hi! I've been coming to this page for a few days now just to see the table. If they're taking it down, and you're still maintaining it somewhere else, is there another place for people to see it online? Thanks for building it so far! Cseyrafi 15:10, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Cseyrafi, I've created a subpage of the talk page for this article that recreates the last version of the list of cases section before it was removed from the article. This page can be referenced and updated, but you won't be able to use the Visual Editor because it is on a talk page. If you want to use the Visual Editor to maintain this list, I recommend creating a subpage of your user page for this list. Qono (talk) 15:32, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Qono Thank you so much for preserving it!! Cseyrafi I'd like to transfer the table out of excel and into a public table for others (once I get organized haha) 108.26.178.240 (talk) 01:24, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

@108.26.178.240 Would it be possible to provide the map of individual towns form MS Paint? , I still think a map of towns instead of counties is more helpful. Toran107 (talk) 20:10, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Toran107 Thank you for the interest but after looking around, I discovered you need a Wikipedia account to upload images so :/ 108.26.178.240 (talk) 01:24, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Toran107 I don't think we have a publicly-available source of town-by-town figures. Mark Taylor (talk) 19:35, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Mark Taylor Sure we do (I made it). The excel sheet tracks between 66%-75% of cases in MA, which obviously fluctuates depending on new cases per day/how much I research/how towns report. If you know how to navigate cities' websites and press releases, it's not hard. 108.26.178.240 (talk) 01:24, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

Qono, thanks! Cseyrafi 14:55, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

I noticed a big spike in cases for 24 April 2020. See https://www.mass.gov/info-details/covid-19-response-reporting for details and the COVID-19 Dashboard - April 24, 2020 PDF on that page. The PDF restates the correct number of cases for many days. What is the policy about editing the table on this wiki page to reflect this new data? First time poster. Hieronymous Who (talk) 04:00, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

Proposed reorganization

I think the organization of this page, which mainly consists of chronological sections under the "Timeline" header, probably served us well when the pandemic was something we were measuring in weeks, not months. Now it seems that the majority of developments related to the pandemic in MA are being included in this article according to when they were reported (often at one of the press conferences by Walsh or Baker). I think we may be doing a disservice to our readers by organizing it this way. For example, if someone came to this article wanting to learn about the issue that MA has been having with respect to COVID in nursing homes and long-term care facilities, they would either have to read the article start-to-finish or know exactly when these developments were reported.

I would propose that we maintain a considerably shorter timeline section, for any content that really makes sense to be reported chronologically (for example, closures). We would then split out other sections on topic areas like long-term care facilities. I am going to take a stab at it in my userspace since I think it will be a considerably large change, but wanted to float the idea here to get any input from other editors. GorillaWarfare (talk) 16:54, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Now that I have completed drafting my change, I'm going to go ahead and boldly introduce it into the article. GorillaWarfare (talk) 19:32, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

Oh my goodness! The reorganization of the article is exactly what I wanted to happen, but lacked the experience to implement. Thank you so much! ThomasAquinas2019 (talk)

Oh great, I'm glad to hear it was a welcome change. GorillaWarfare (talk) 17:40, 25 April 2020 (UTC)

2020 coronavirus pandemic in Boston

Hi Wikipedians, there was an article entitled 2020 coronavirus pandemic in Lowell, Massachusetts but it was removed and it was replaced by a redirect. So the largest city in the state of Massachusetts is Boston and also the state capital of Massachusetts. I hope anyone will create article titled 2020 coronavirus pandemic in Boston, The proposed article will be titled as 2020 coronavirus pandemic in Boston will be focused on the pandemic specifically within the city of Boston, Massachusetts. The propose article will include how many active cases, how many deaths, how many recoveries and how many overall cases within the city of Boston. I will by happy for anyone's reply for the requested article to created and will be only focused on the city of Boston. Thanks for your time. Come back some other time. 2001:569:74D2:A800:146C:3B2A:B2DE:1A1F (talk) 05:22, 19 April 2020 (UTC)

@2001:569:74D2:A800:146C:3B2A:B2DE:1A1F This makes sense to me. There is already a similar page titled 2020 coronavirus pandemic in New York City. I am unable to create a new page on Wikipedia but you can contact a checkuser or administrator on Wikipedia to create the site. --Qwerty325 (talk) 23:04, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

@Qwerty325: Just as an FYI, you should be able to create new pages because your account is autoconfirmed. IP editors will not be able to create new pages directly, but can use the Article wizard. There are rare exceptions (protected redirects existing at the page you wish to create, or salted pages) where an administrator is required to help; I will note that a checkuser would not be useful when it comes to creating pages aside from the fact that checkusers are also administrators. GorillaWarfare (talk) 23:40, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

@GorillaWarfare: 2020 coronavirus pandemic in Boston already exists as a redirect page. Does that mean I am able to directly create the article from there by removing the redirect and adding the page? --Qwerty325 (talk) 00:45, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Yep. GorillaWarfare (talk) 01:46, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

I started 2020 coronavirus pandemic in Boston here: 2020 coronavirus pandemic in Boston. --Qwerty325 (talk) 13:54, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

I added all necessary information so far to the article. I think it needs more info though. --Qwerty325 (talk) 18:19, 1 May 2020 (UTC)

Can someone please create a medical cases chart for 2020 coronavirus pandemic in Boston? I tried 4 times but it glitches and the editing doesn't work. Please if you have the time, create the medical cases chart. You are able to use the /* Cases by category */ section (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_pandemic_in_Boston#Cases_by_category) to make the chart. Thank you! --Qwerty325 (talk) 17:10, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Epidemiology Section

My hats off to whomever is updating the Cases by category and Cases by county tables. Those two tables have to be a pain to gather and maintain. Since there is a lot of data contained with in them, they could be confusing to some readers. I have added an additional sidebar template that provides more simplified information for each county. This additional template is being added to all other state articles pertaining to the COVID-19 pandemic. — Mr Xaero ^☎️ 03:12, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

@Mr Xaero: Would you also be able to add this to 2020 coronavirus pandemic in Boston? It has a Cases by district table (2020 coronavirus pandemic in Boston#Cases by district) in it. Are you able to please use that and make a template based on Boston districts for the article? Thank you! --Qwerty325 (talk) 17:12, 3 May 2020 (UTC)

@Mr Xaero: I was able to do it myself. No need to do it again. --Qwerty325 (talk) 01:20, 4 May 2020 (UTC)

Statistics section appears incorrect

Up until a few days ago, the new cases and new deaths appearing in the statistics section were just the differences in total cases and total deaths from day to day. This provided a graph that helped assess the trend at a glance.

For the last few days, the numbers in the new cases and new deaths have been much lower, misrepresenting the situation.

It's possible this is because Massachusetts has gone to the New York reporting style, where new cases and deaths are backdated to the date of actual occurrence. However, if we're going to follow that on this page, we have to update all the numbers from the last week or two every day, to avoid misleading low numbers in the history. In addition, the graph will always still show a misleading recent dropoff.

I'd advocate continuing to list new cases based on date of report, which can easily be determined by listing differences in the daily total case count. If there aren't objections, I'll make that change.

Warren Dew (talk) 14:54, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

@Warren Dew: That's exactly what happened, Massachusetts switched to reporting cases according to the date the test was administered rather than the date the result was received. If you take a look at this edit I actually did what you mention yesterday: updated all the numbers to the latest data. Because they release the raw data as CSVs it's not difficult to do. I don't have an extremely strong preference for reporting numbers one way or the other, as long as we're consistent day to day, but I think I lean towards following how the state is reporting the numbers. GorillaWarfare (talk) 16:13, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Recoveries

Before, Massachusetts did not provide recoveries data. We were relying on Released from Quarantine for that. However, now Massachusetts has released Recovery data for the first time on pg. 22 of [1]. I have added this Recovery data to the Cases by Category table and the medical cases chart. Please let me know if you have a better way to add this to the medical cases chart that isn't so sudden. --Qwerty325 (talk) 16:10, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

@Qwerty325: That seems reasonable to me. There are a bunch of columns in that table where numbers either suddenly start or stop appearing, based on changes to what data MA is reporting. Usually where that happens I just add a note to explain the change, for example here. Might be worth doing for this data as well. GorillaWarfare (talk) 17:35, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

A Commons file used on this page or its Wikidata item has been nominated for deletion

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B-class

Should the quality of this article be upgraded to B-class? It meets the requirements for B-class as shown in Wikipedia:WikiProject Wikipedia/Assessment. I will move to B-class if no one objects. Qwerty325 (talk) 19:36, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

Local decisions spreading to the rest of the state

I had noticed that early on in the epidemic here in Massachusetts that schools closed early in several towns. Such as Lexington, those school closures then spread to the rest of the state before the State declaring all schools should close. When I read this article, while I do see some mention of local closures, I think overall the focus is on the big cities such as Boston. Rather I think it's important to tell this story that local decisions. School closures, social distancing, wearing masks; often started in one or two towns and then spread, before being adopted by the State. Would it be possible to put more effort into tracing the early decisions on efforts to combat the epidemic at the local level, and how that had an impact to larger cities and the state?

For example Lexington Schools closed March 13th, but closed March 15th in Boston.

"LEXINGTON PUBLIC SCHOOLS

Lexington Public Schools announced that they will be closed on March 13 through March 27 to safeguard against the spread of the coronavirus." https://whdh.com/news/which-mass-schools-are-closing-amid-coronavirus-outbreak/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.110.188.28 (talk) 03:14, 2 May 2020 (UTC)

Yes, but in regards to Lexington, that was because several of the students had parents who worked at Biogen. Wouldn't that be covered under the Biogen topic? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 98.118.83.128 (talk) 22:27, 17 June 2020 (UTC)

Number of cases

@THEunique: If Massachusetts is indeed ninth in the list of cases by state, you need a reliable source that supports that. The source that's currently being used lists MA as #8. I'll note that Wikipedia itself is not a reliable source, so if you are going off a table somewhere on here that's not usable. I'd also like to point out that regardless of whether MA is #8 or #9, it should be spelled out as "eighth" or "ninth" per MOS:NUMERAL. GorillaWarfare (talk) 23:12, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

@THEunique: Are we really going to have to go through this same exact thing again? You have once again changed the ordering of states by number of cases in the article, this time to say North Carolina has overtaken MA. Once again, the inline citation that's currently being used does not support that, and you have not provided a new one that does. GorillaWarfare (talk) 15:08, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

Probable cases

There's a way to find probable and confirmed cases cases. On page 14 of the daily report, there is the combined total of confirmed and probable cases. Subtract the confirmed cases (on page 1) from the total cases (on page 14) to get probable cases. Then use the total number of cases as used before. Hope this helps! --Qwerty325 (talk) 18:11, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

Ooh, good find. I'll look into incorporating that when I do today's numbers this evening. GorillaWarfare (talk) 18:13, 19 August 2020 (UTC)

Case data by county and by age group

So, it appears that as of August 12, MA is no longer including county or age data in their raw data CSVs. I was hoping to find this would be included in the new Chapter 93 reports they are releasing, or at least that it could be rolled up from them somehow, but sadly that doesn't appear to be the case. The Chapter 93 reports do include the number of new cases and new deaths by town and by age group, but when the number is between 1 and 4, they just report it as "<5". Since it's only new cases that day, there are a lot of "<5", and it introduces a significant margin of error into county-by-county totals. For example, from that data I can only extrapolate that Middlesex county had 73.5 ± 34.5 new cases, and 10 ± 6 new deaths on 8/14. This is basically useless, if not potentially misleading, so I don't think it should be included at all.

Does anyone know of a report I'm missing that includes this data? I was hoping that they would at least continue to release it on a weekly basis, but no cigar there either. They do release county data weekly, but it only includes total cases—the per-county death #s are only for the past two weeks. The age group information included in the weekly report is also only for the previous two weeks. Extremely disappointing, if in fact the state has stopped reporting this data. GorillaWarfare (talk) 01:32, 16 August 2020 (UTC)

@GorillaWarfare: Yes you are right. Looking through the weekly report, while it does provide total cases by county, the deaths by county as well as the age group data is all just the last 2 weeks. Looking through the daily report, I did not find this data either. The raw data for the weekly report also only has the data for the last 2 weeks. The raw data for the daily report also doesn't have this data. The Chapter 93 data table has the cases by age group data, but only for the last 24 hours. I'm pretty sure the state has stopped reporting this data altogether. --Qwerty325 (talk) 21:48, 19 August 2020 (UTC)