Talk:COVID-19 pandemic in the United States/Archive 1

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Oregon

Resolved

Coronavirus in Oregon guys! Will you update the map? Thanks! https://www.oregonlive.com/news/2020/02/coronavirus-appears-in-oregon.html 2600:1700:8660:2150:70BB:37DE:3E66:FAD2 (talk) 02:04, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

I've marked this section as unresolved until the map is updated. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 16:55, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

It's not just Oregon that's missing from the map. Nebraska is missing too . . . there are repatriated cases at the University of Nebraska Medical Center near Camp Ashland in the Omaha area with positive test results. The maps should only show confirmed cases, though, as suspected cases will definitely get out of hand quickly and may unnecessarily spark fear in readers. 73.99.89.46 (talk) 21:09, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

Consideration should be given to how repatriated cases are displayed. In theory, these cases present no potential threat to the public. It's my understanding that four repatriated cases from Travis AFB are currently being cared for in Spokane, Washington but because they were never a threat to the public, the Washington Health Department does not include them in their counts. Hypererleas (talk) 22:05, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

Agreed. Maybe remove the suspected cases and add some sort of dashes (or other non-color coding) to indicate that there are repatriated cases? 73.99.89.82 (talk) 00:05, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

I couldn't agree more on the suspected cases. "Presumptive" cases might be a better secondary highlight (cases deemed COVID-19 by local health officials but not yet confirmed by CDC). Hypererleas (talk) 22:09, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

I believe the map has been updated correctly, so I've marked this section as resolved. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 18:10, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

Notice for spellings

Because this article is happen in the United States, this article should using American English, same as COVID-19 outbreak in Singapore article which should using Standard Singaporean English because there was a strong national ties to their respective country and in ordinance with WP:ENGVAR. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 180.245.214.207 (talk • contribs) 14:09, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

The template at the top of this page encourages American English. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 15:57, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

Section for states with amount of cases

Whenever I want to find how many cases are are in each U.S. state with a coronavirus case, I look it up with unhelpful sources. Do you think you could add numbers to the states with coronavirus cases and how many there are in each state? Thanks 2602:306:8BB9:4E20:9479:D4BE:302F:BAEE (talk) 03:38, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

There is a table showing information in this way. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 21:32, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

2 images at top of "Timeline" section

Is there a way to display these 2 graphics so they don't add a ton of white space around both? ---Another Believer _(Talk) 21:31, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

I went ahead and moved one of the graphics into the lead section. The table with all the number is just going to keep getting wider... ---Another Believer _(Talk) 21:37, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

No cases yet in Pennsylvania

I would fix it myself but I don't know how. Please edit PA or provide a source. The CDC source in the file doesn't mention PA. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 170.115.248.24 (talk) 15:41, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

Ah, suspected cases. Those really should be removed as they are irrelevant at this point. 73.99.88.126 (talk) 15:44, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

I don't even see anything that says that there's a suspected case. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 170.115.248.25 (talk) 16:31, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

See update to article here. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 15:22, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Error check "COVID-19 cases in the US by state"

It literally doesn't add up, neither vertically or horizontally. jax (talk) 17:46, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

Jax-wp, You might submit suggestions at the template's talk page: Template talk:2019–20 coronavirus outbreak data/United States medical cases. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 18:16, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

Didn't realise it was a template. The template/table been rehauled, and after that the numbers add up, so this section is no longer relevant. (The sums are manual, not any automatic sum function if WP has any, so errors might creep back up in the future. Now it is fine.)jax (talk) 14:05, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

US Map With Cases By County

Right now it looks like, in Washington State, King County is highlighted; however, I believe the first case was actually in Snohomish County, which is just to the north of King County. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:602:9E80:2EA0:ACBA:5D0:689E:B40C (talk) 17:01, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

Oregon now has a confirmed case in Washington County just outside of Portland, the county and state maps should be updated to reflect that case. --71.179.186.50 (talk) 23:53, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

Suffolk County, Massachusetts (where Boston is located) has a confirmed case as well and it is not highlighted on the county map. 71.179.186.50 (talk) 00:04, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

As of March 3 both Fulton County, Georgia and Wake County, North Carolina have confirmed cases of the coronavirus hence the chart has been updated. So far it seems there are two cases (the man and his teenage son in Georgia (probably will increase furthermore as he is in home isolation with his family) and one person in North Carolina who is connected to the Lifecare assisted living facility in Kirkland, Washington. 108.34.55.120 (talk) 05:56, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Colorado now has two confirmed cases in Jefferson County.

Montgomery County, Maryland now has three confirmed cases. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.34.55.120 (talk) 02:31, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

References

Cumulative total column in the cases table

A cumulative total column should be added to "Non-Repatriated COVID-19 cases in the US by state" table in the Timeline section.―― Phoenix7777 (talk) 22:16, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Suspected case in Colorado?

Can't find any info on a "suspected" case in Colorado, even though it's shaded blue on the map. Can't find a cited source either, including today's WHO situation report. Can anyone change the map, or alternatively, provide some evidence? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 63.144.200.34 (talk) 23:51, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

Confirmed Case in Tennessee

https://www.newschannel5.com/news/gov-bill-lee-tennessee-health-department-to-hold-press-conference-on-coronavirus StickyKeys (talk) 17:08, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Dannelsluc, I believe the article has been updated. Can I archive this section? ---Another Believer _(Talk) 15:23, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Confirmed Case in Nevada

https://www.kolotv.com/content/news/Report-First-coronavirus-case-confirmed-in-Nevada-568521011.html 17:30, 5 March 2020 (UTC) 50.198.133.197 (talk) 18:18, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

I believe the article has been updated. Can this section be archived? ---Another Believer _(Talk) 15:24, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

political agenda

I am kindly asking that people refrain from expressing their political opinions and biased views on Wikipedia. Its extremely annoying and has nothing to do with the facts. Thank you! — Preceding unsigned comment added by Bluerose1967 (talk • contribs) 22:17, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Bluerose1967, What content do you have a problem with in particular, and why? ---Another Believer _(Talk) 22:23, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Kentucky Case

https://www.kentucky.com/news/state/kentucky/article240970991.html StickyKeys (talk) 23:39, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Tennessee Case Count

The daily summary is showing three cases in TN. I've looked and looked and can't find any report of the two extra cases. I think it's still 1. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.135.82.98 (talk) 23:42, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

I removed the extra 2 cases from the table. Seatto23 (talk) 23:57, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Virginia Case

https://wtop.com/fairfax-county/2020/03/first-positive-test-for-coronavirus-confirmed-in-virginia/ StickyKeys (talk) 01:34, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

Vermont Case

https://vtdigger.org/2020/03/07/vermont-has-first-presumptive-case-of-coronavirus/ 71.179.186.50 (talk) 15:17, 8 March 2020 (UTC) 01:45, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

Category:Presidency of Donald Trump

Should we add Category:Presidency of Donald Trump? "Trump" currently appears in the article's prose 17 times. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 19:34, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

I am not an expert on categories, but I tend to think not. Enough of this material is about topics other than the Trump Presidency that it does not seem appropriate. Perhaps we could add a "See also" to something like the article "Presidency of Donald Trump" under the section for "Governmental response." JEN9841 (talk) 17:53, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

"Cases in the United States" Realtime vs Match CDC Page

The CDC updates their totals once a day or so, which does not keep pace with newly-announced cases. The "Cases in the United States" table has been going back and forth between attempting to tally cases in real time, and reflecting the CDC page's totals. I think tallying cases in realtime will become unmanageable since the CDC does not provide a detailed listing of which individual cases are included in their totals, and reconciling this will is only possible by inference, or by keeping one's own complete tally of announced cases. I have added a note to the table explaining that it reflects CDC official numbers that are not real time. Should we stick with that approach, eliminate the table entirely (as questioned above) or a different approach? Know135 (talk) 19:23, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

The two maps in the infobox have a "as of" date in the title. Adding that to the tables as well might help avoid confusion. Fcrary (talk) 00:00, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

I'd like to elaborate on the cdc page being a bit behind by saying their website still doesn't include Texas at all as having confirmed cases. Wikipedia's map is also a bit behind saying that there is 9 or less when there are in fact 11. 4 March 2020 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 12.232.134.20 (talk) 19:10, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

The CDC page is 24 hr delayed, which is going to be a lot right now as numbers ramp up. I think it's good to have real-time numbers and then next morning double-check the days number against the state health dept (or CDC if that page is up to date). In the WA Health Dept page updates at 11am each day but they are also doing updating throughout the day (so maybe the 10pm number is the one for the day?). Hopefully other state health depts are also updating regularly. The one problem with referencing to the state health page is that it is changing every day (sometimes during day too). So far in WA at least, there are not daily reports that can be linked to for the daily totals. Seatto23 (talk) 19:59, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

Table of CDC reported cases

I have just for the second time corrected the table to conform with the CDC numbers of 60 people infected. That is what is currently being reported and what the table advertises itself as presenting. Whoever is doing other edits is making a mess of that table. What clues me into there being something odd is that the rows and columns did not add up the total (from 70 and then 71). And even the totals in the rows failed to be the sum of the values in that row.

Not sure who is doing what. I can understand someone wanting to add newly reported cases, but making the table inconsistent should not be happening. And the table should only be edited once per day, when the CAC reports new cases. EMS | Talk 23:52, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

@Ems57fcva: I add new cases throughout the day but only to the Timeline section. 73.99.90.174 (talk) 05:15, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

I also add news cases throughout the day but only to the Timeline section.Seatto23 (talk) 21:14, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

Better footnote needed for the number of cases

The number of cases (total and breakdown) is a key point of this article, but so far the footnote doesn't match the number cited in the article. Better citation/footnotes should be added so that a reader can readily verify the source and reach the same number cited in the article, instead of reading one number in the source and a different one on Wikipedia. I've added "failed verification" in two places to highlight the issue. I hope someone can figure out how to fix it properly. --Happyseeu (talk) 21:20, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

@Happyseeu: Well, the entire references section is a gnarly mess that needs to be cleaned up and consolidated . . . now that you mention it. 73.99.89.114 (talk) 21:23, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

Non repratiated cases chart: UT has no current non-repatriated cases

On the daily chart of non-repatriated cases by state, UT is listed as having 1 case on Feb 28. However, the article cited states that he was a repatriated passenger of Diamond Princess who tested positive for coronavirus while under quarantine in the USA, and has since been transferred to Utah. I submit the chart be changed to reflect this. Either that, or a new source be found if there is indeed a case of non-repatriated coronavirus in Utah. Smachable (talk) 02:44, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

I would change it myself, but I don't know how to edit a chart. Smachable (talk) 16:24, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Doesn't MA have two cases?

There's a Norfolk County woman who has it, she was part of the RI school trip I believe.

https://www.wcvb.com/article/massachusetts-presumptive-positive-casecoronavirus-case-norfolk-county/31195169# — Preceding unsigned comment added by Scientificaldan (talk • contribs) 17:51, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

I think the question here is how to handle presumptive cases that have not been confirmed yet. To me it seems very unlikely that the tests produces a false positive result since its based on RT-PCR which is very specific but it does not make sense to use different reporting guidelines for different states. --hroest 20:54, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

@Hannes Röst: Is there even a difference any more with many of the individual states being upgraded to test for coronavirus by the CDC? I am going to presume here that "confirmed" refers to a CDC test result while "presumptive" is confirmed by some other test but a CDC test is still pending. The New York Times has a visualization of "known coronavirus cases in the United States" that is being regularly updated that appears to lump together confirmed and presumptive cases (so @Scientificaldan: would be correct about Massachusetts having two cases). Either way, I am not sure if there is a difference any more. 73.99.89.114 (talk) 21:19, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

The NYT visualization is also lumping together non-repatriation cases and repatriation cases. For example, March 4, WA has 39 non-repatriation cases (travel + community) but NYT shows 44 since it includes 5 repatriation cases being treated in Spokane. Same for CA which has 36 travel+community but NYT shows 51 since it includes the repatriation cases at the military bases and hospitals. Seatto23 (talk) 00:59, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

I think at this point we have to take count the presumptive cases since they are reported as cases by most media outlets and people will start editing them in as soon as they become known. If we wait for confirmation, it would just lead to a huge argument and edit war with people not understanding why our numbers differ from what is on TV. However, we need to talk about what are authoritative sources at this point since individual newspaper reports will be very messy to keep track and will make the numbers not add up at some point. --hroest 18:31, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Bar Graph of Cases by date

With the cases seemingly increasing in the US, I think it'll be convenient for people that a bar graph detailing the number of confirmed cases by date is needed. Similar to what South Korea and Italy's page have. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_outbreak_in_Italy https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2020_coronavirus_outbreak_in_South_Korea — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2601:409:8500:CD50:B414:886A:6108:8EA0 (talk) 23:44, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Yes. Excellent idea. We should have one for each infected nation and the world as a whole. --Pete (talk) 00:19, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

The visualization is an excellent idea, except that it's not 1-1 applicable to the US. The US is massive geographically compared to both Italy and South Korea; just because one state has cases doesn't mean the entire state is infected. Rather than focusing on states, we really ought to focus on clusters of cases. This of course is somewhat more challenging to put together. 73.99.90.178 (talk) 03:05, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

Skyring, Is Template:2019–20 coronavirus outbreak data/United States medical cases chart what you had in mind? ---Another Believer _(Talk) 00:47, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

That template is good but needs to be by state since, as above, US is big. At the moment the table works, but that'll get unwieldy within 4-6 days as the numbers go up. Seatto23 (talk) 23:17, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

@Seatto23: Data and information on individual cases, whatever the format, is getting unbelievably wild now. Will it continue to grow and get increasingly unwieldy? Yes. Within four to six days? Likely sooner. That's not to say that data and information on individual cases shouldn't be preserved - but we need to focus on visualizations, static and animated, as necessary. 73.99.90.174 (talk) 05:17, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

The narrative part of the timeline section is getting long but for now, I think it needs to stay for references. I find it essential for cross-referencing the numbers in the Timeline table. Until states (or CDC) publish daily numbers, like WA is now doing, we are stuck using the news reports for cases. The only real official numbers are CDC but they are not showing the numbers by date and what they have for states is not up to date. The John Hopkins numbers don't have references so you can't tell if they are 'official' or not. I think their application is a news webcrawler of some sort like the BNO New site is BNO News Coronavirus Cases. So there is no way to validate or reference the numbers. Seatto23 (talk) 02:41, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

State of federal preparedness at start of outbreak

On 3 March 2020, @Adoring nanny: edited the article to remove a description of the state of federal preparedness at the time of the outbreak:

As the COVID-19 outbreak began, the United States had "never been less prepared for a pandemic," Foreign Policy reported on January 31, 2020. After Donald Trump took office in January 2017, his administration had been slow to fill positions related to planning for and responding to pandemics. In April 2017, the Washington Post reported, "There is no permanent director at the CDC or at the U.S. Agency for International Development. At the Department of Health and Human Services, no one has been named to fill sub-Cabinet posts for health, global affairs, or preparedness and response." The following year, "the Trump administration fired the government’s entire pandemic response chain of command, including the White House management infrastructure." In late January 2020, Laurie Garrett, a Pulitzer Prize-winning science journalist, attempted to learn how the Trump administration was planning to deal with the COVID-19 outbreak. She reported: "In numerous phone calls and emails with key agencies across the U.S. government, the only consistent response I encountered was distressed confusion. If the United States still has a clear chain of command for pandemic response, the White House urgently needs to clarify what it is."

I added this because it is crucial for even the most basic understanding of the federal government's response to know the state of its preparedness at the start, and so I have reverted the edit for discussion here. Thoughts? PRRfan (talk) 13:39, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

No. First of all, it's WP:UNDUE. Secondly, per WP:BURDEN, you should be getting consensus for inclusion before restoring the material. This would be true in any case, but it's particularly true as this is not longstanding material; it's something you added recently. Lastly, people are going to go there to look for what the Gov't did in response to the epidemic, which this is not. It's WP:BRD, not BRRD. [1]

Ah, my bad on BRRD. Feel free to revert while we discuss and assess the consensus for inclusion, if you like. In any case, the text is not WP:UNDUE, as it does not "give minority views or aspects as much of or as detailed a description as more widely held views or widely supported aspects." The minority view would be that the federal government *was* prepared at a "normal" level, and it's not clear that *any* informed observer holds this view. Even Donald Trump admitted that he needed to quickly hire people to fill out his response team. More importantly, this effort to restore organization and staffing was very much a part of the government's response. It was, in fact, among the necessary first steps in the response. And explaining why requires an explanation of why the government was in the state of readiness it was in. Perhaps a way forward is to edit the text to make it clearer that the federal response started with this? PRRfan (talk) 14:48, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

I believe it is fair to add this as a common critical view in the US and international media, however to state as fact that "the US government was unprepared / never been less prepared" is simply wrong (factually wrong, "never been less prepared" is not believable over the whole history of the US). This is based on individual journalists assessments and not a majority opinion. So overall, I am in favor of adding critical viewpoints that question the preparedness of the US government, but this has to be balanced with the administrations view. --hroest 20:58, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

I notice a contrast between the Gov't action section of the US article and similar sections for the corresponding articles on the outbreaks in South Korea, Italy, and even China. In the South Korea and Italy articles, the sections are almost entirely about what the Gov't did. They closed this, cancelled that, quarantined those people, and so forth. The China article is also largely that, though there is some criticism mixed in. Those three articles are excellent examples of how a section on Gov't response should look. By contrast, this one starts out with an assertion that the gov't was unprepared and talks about who tweeted what. I think the style in the other three articles is more helpful to the reader, who is most likely to be interested in what Governments did. Adoring nanny (talk) 01:10, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

hroest raises a fair point in that "never been less prepared" probably isn't true over the entire history of the country. But it is simply fact that the Trump administration left key anti-outbreak leadership positions unfilled, eliminated swaths of its anti-outbreak organizations, and cut anti-outbreak funding — in sum, reduced the country's preparedness to face an outbreak. And so the administration's response to the outbreak began with the hasty reassembling of some of that capacity. An encyclopedic treatment of the "2020 coronavirus outbreak in the United States" that does not bring forth these facts would do readers a disservice. Moreover, it is hardly clear that readers are "most likely" to be interested in the smaller details of response ("closed this, cancelled that") than in an overall description of the response, and it is certainly not the case that the current text "talks about who tweeted what". So, let's change the opening sentence to something like: "As the COVID-19 outbreak began, the federal government faced the crisis with a diminished capacity to respond." Sound good? PRRfan (talk) 09:30, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Sounds good to me but I strongly suggest to add factual statements to back up that claim, e.g. make the reasons clear behind that statement: funding cuts to the CDC and leaving the position of director unfilled for some time (how long? was it still vacant in Jan 2020?). Even this is somewhat speculative since it is not clearly established that doing these things really led to a diminished capacity to respond (maybe other parts of the CDC budget were cut, not budget for this particular scenario?). But of course a diminished capability to respond is highly likely using common sense and has been asserted by multiple outlets. Probably there will be an inquiry with definitive findings at some later stage. --hroest 17:07, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Your points are well taken, and this seems like a sensible approach. I'll start with my proposed change and then work toward adding facts and citations as necessary. Thanks. PRRfan (talk) 18:14, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

I would stick to indisputable factual information. "Position X was unfilled" is an excellent indisputable fact. Let the reader draw conclusions. Adoring nanny (talk) 10:29, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

References

Cases currently understated?

Most countries around and above USA in the table on the "by country and territory" page have a death rate in the range of around 1-2%. The rate for the USA is currently 6% (14 deaths out of 233 cases). Does this suggest that many cases are only being confirmed upon death and that the number of current cases could therefore be significantly higher, perhaps by a factor of 3 or more? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 81.111.158.18 (talk) 10:02, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

9 deaths in one nursing home is quite the outlier, and we can see statistically significant comparisons to the rest of world only when the total number of deaths in the US is no longer dominated by this one event. Not wishing the numbers to rise, obviously, just stating the inevitable. --84.133.215.164 (talk) 15:04, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

The numbers of positives is known to be greatly understated based on genetic analysis by the Trevor Bedford lab at the Fred Hutch lab, UW https://bedford.io/blog/ncov-cryptic-transmission/ Estimate is that there are 600 cases in WA though most not serious otherwise the hospitals would have noticed. The 'Influenza Like Infection' surveillance system did not show anything amiss...until last week. WA is greatly expanding testing and UW is also going to be testing, so we'll see WA numbers make big jumps over the next few days due to detections. Seatto23 (talk) 16:11, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

What to do about California numbers?

The numbers in the non-repatriated table don't match the numbers that San Francisco Chronicle has Interactive map with cases listed. This seems the best source that I could find as the CA Dept of Health is not posting numbers [update they are posting but not county by county at least on links below]. But SF Chronicle is paywalled so I couldn't check their list to see what cases are non-repatriated. The SFC page lists 62 cases. The table has 36. But I don't know how many of the SFC cases are repatriated. Also what to do about cruise ship cases? Seatto23 (talk) 18:46, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

California does track numbers, see https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/CID/DCDC/Pages/Immunization/nCOV2019.aspx and here https://www.cdph.ca.gov/Programs/OPA/Pages/NR20-012.aspx "As of March 4, 2020, as of 10 a.m. Pacific Time, there are a total of 53 positive cases and one death in California: 24 are from repatriation flights." -- Note that these numbers are of course dated, but at least are the official counts. See also my comment above about the data flood becoming unmanageable. --hroest 18:51, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Based on these data, it would make sense if the 62 cases include repatriated ones, so subtracting the 24 would give 38 cases which is quite close to what we have in our table. --hroest 18:52, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for link! I'd seen that but was looking for a county by county list like in WA but I guess that's as official as we have at the moment. Agreed data flood is becoming unmanageable but hopefully each state will start releasing daily official numbers. Obviously CDC official numbers would be great but I don't see that on their website yet. Seatto23 (talk) 19:21, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

But also note that the 'official' CA number of non-repatriated cases is 29 (see quote above) on March 4. That's pretty different than the 36 we have on March 4 for CA. What we have is closer to the SF Chronicle number (62-24=38) from March 5th but without going onto the SFChronicle page (paywalled) I can't see which of those 62 are from March 5th vs 4th and why they have so many more than the official CA number of 53. Seatto23 (talk) 19:29, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

I think the CA numbers should be edited to match the official CA numbers. So on March 4th, the official number of non-repatriated cases is 29 (not 36). But that means going back and tracking down which of the previous CA days is wrong. There are an extra 7 cases somewhere in the table. Seatto23 (talk) 20:09, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Judging from other data sources (Italy, etc) the official data sources tend to be behind the newspapers, so generally the discrepancy is mainly due to the fact that official government sources wait for confirmation (potentially 2 lab tests with a preliminary one and a confirmation) and then report the numbers while media report all "presumptive" cases as soon as they are announced. But we do have an issue with counting (see my comment above) that we use unofficial sources of varying quality to populate the tables. The difference can be explained if some of the 12 cases in our table on March 3 are not yet included as confirmed in the March 4 update, for example if four of these cases were not confirmed yet in the morning of March 4. --hroest 22:37, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

I just went through all the CA cases we have and checked the references. Every case seems to be unique. The 12 cases listed for March 3 check out. See write up in the narrative below the Timeline table and I looked at each reference to make sure we are double-counting. It all checks out. But the after Mar 1 the numbers from news reports stop matching what CA Dept Pub Health posted. On Mar 4 at 10am, they list 29 cases (non-repatriation). We have 33 if you don't count the 4 listed for March 4 (assuming they were announced after 10am and the state hadn't confirmed them yet). I guess maybe there could be 4 cases from March 3 that the state hadn't confirmed yet. Frustrating that they are not posting regular updates with cases by county like WA is doing. Seatto23 (talk) 23:50, 5 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for this, so it does look like it is indeed the case that four cases from March 3 have not been included in the March 4 update. This is what we observe with other countries as well that report data, official data is 1-2 days behind the current news reports. As I mentioned above, we can also cross-check this against the John Hopkins data: https://github.com/CSSEGISandData/COVID-19/blob/master/csse_covid_19_data/csse_covid_19_time_series/time_series_19-covid-Confirmed.csv --hroest 03:13, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

@Hroest: The John Hopkins numbers are not 'official'. The official would be CDC, no? But that is still showing 99 non-repatriated cases. BNO News (news crawler) is showing 222 (but that includes repatriated cases). At 7:30PST, 3/5, John Hopkins website is showing 233 (also includes repatriated cases). Where are all these extra cases coming from? There is no 'reporting' service that is collecting the US much less the worldwide data. Seatto23 (talk) 03:42, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

I think we should try to keep the numbers as referenced as possible. Just reposting the numbers from other sites whose numbers are not not themselves citeable or referenced doesn't add anything, IMHO. Seatto23 (talk) 03:48, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

I agree, the CSSE numbers are not official but still a "best estimate" and probably the most reliable numbers as they are checked by experts. Note that for better or worse, https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_outbreak_data uses the CSSE numbers for most countries as well. It would be strange if the US article number was very different from those numbers. I did suggest to wait for the WHO report but that was deemed to be infeasible -- I think we should go the way the Italy article goes with two counts. Also there is the Wikipedia article that contains WHO counts only: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Template:2019%E2%80%9320_coronavirus_outbreak_data/xWHO_situation_reports best --hroest 16:30, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Individual cases

The addition of the table of individual cases (in section titled "Cases"), while revealing admirable work, I foresee might become unwieldy at some point. Is that the kind of thing that could be moved to its own article at some point? We might want to begin considering how that would work. JEN9841 (talk) 18:18, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

Yes, that exact thought occurred to me as four new cases were announced while I was working on it. I do think it might make sense for its own article at some point or breaking it out into several tables on a monthly basis. I suspect March could soon be as long as January and February. Hypererleas (talk) 18:50, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

I think a separate article detailing known cases (up to the time they may become too numerous to find information on them individually) makes sense starting around now. Know135 (talk) 19:23, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

I tend to agree. I think it makes sense to adopt the new Template:2019–20_coronavirus_outbreak_data/United_States_medical_cases and add a simple table that tallies the current known cases, recoveries, deaths and remaining cases on a per state basis. Hypererleas (talk) 22:32, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

However it's done, I think there definitely needs to be a state by state table. I haven't seen that info summarized anywhere else. Needs at least cases/deaths. In the next 10 days, it'll get unwieldy but I think it's good to document the start of the epidemic. The case by case listing by day (narrative part) is about to be swamped out. Today WA added 9 cases, tomorrow will be more. Seatto23 (talk) 20:33, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

Would it make sense to cap the individual case table to 100 max instead of removing it all together? It could be beneficial to readers to have it in the future to show how COVID-19 was able to spread so quickly. 50.198.133.197 (talk) 18:02, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Cap it...no. Move it to its own separate page...yes. Friends Don't Let Friends Go to UVA (talk) 18:54, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

overlinking

Please let's watch the overlinking. Someone is linking coronavirus literally every time it's mentioned, is linking every location, sometimes linking the same location when it's mentioned twice in the same sentence, and is linking irrelevant stuff like the US Postal Service, is linking United States for heaven's sake. --valereee (talk) 20:01, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Valereee Allow me to raise my hand. I am guilty as charged. The posts come from an IP address in a Comcast netblock; I have only now gotten around to creating an account and only because I needed one to upload pictures to Wikimedia Commons. I started adding new cases to the timeline waaay back when this was still part of the global outbreak page, before it got forked on to its own page. Generally, whatever I post during the day, I err on the side of what some might think as "overlinking." That said, hopefully this page will get pruned and cleaned up as time goes on; in the meantime, I just try to post updates as quickly and accurately as I can. Friends Don't Let Friends Go to UVA (talk) 18:35, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Hey, Friends Don't Let Friends Go to UVA, welcome! No worries about the overlinking, it's easily removed, we just wanted to clarify guidelines, which are at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Linking, so that it didn't continue (because that just causes work for other editors to remove the overlinking). In general we link to things that will make it easier for readers to understand the subject, to things that may be completely unfamiliar to people, and not to anything that doesn't contribute to either of those. Most people understand that Santa Clara County, California is a place in California, so unless there's a need for people to understand more than that, we don't necessarily have to link to it. It can be a judgement call; what we want to avoid is an overwhelming number of links that makes it hard for readers to even figure out which of the links are important to understanding the subject. --valereee (talk) 18:47, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

That's fine...let's just make sure that whole chunks of content don't get tossed out due to perceived or actual overlinking. Things can always be edited. Friends Don't Let Friends Go to UVA (talk) 18:50, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Valereee, I was just about to come here to post a similar request. The amount of overlooking is maddening! Thanks for your work to reduce duplicate links. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 20:15, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

@Seatto23: Please do not add duplicate links to cities, states, counties, etc. If anything, we could use your help to reduce the number of such links. We only need to link to locations the first time, as long as the context is understood in subsequent uses. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 20:32, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

@Another Believer: Let the content get posted as is...people are coming here to look at WP for general lack of proper centralized sources of information about the outbreak. Now, I have plenty of free time and can clean up "overlinking" as needed provided I know what the rules are - and that includes the rats' nest that the entire references section has turned into. I know for a fact that there are way too many duplicate references, badly formatted references, references missing archive links, etc. I tried to keep things nice back when this was on the main outbreak page, but...well, everything went sideways. Friends Don't Let Friends Go to UVA (talk) 18:59, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Another Believer, I was trying. I saw that you were cleaning that up and looked at your changes before I posted. What about states? It seems like those should be linked. Someone from another country won't necessarily know what and where the US states are. For example, I wouldn't know the states in India, say, and in my experience, when I'm in a foreign country other people don't know the US states. When I'm reading a page on something happening in another country, I find the links to placenames very helpful. Seatto23 (talk) 20:36, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Seatto23, U.S. states should only be linked to the first time. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 20:37, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Another Believer What does "first time" mean? First time on the whole page, paragraph (so like March), or day so like March 6th. Seatto23 (talk) 20:39, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Seatto23, For the most part, a link is only needed the first time on the whole page. Except within tables, locations can be linked in those again. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 20:40, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Another Believer Ok. How do you keep track of the first time? But I'll stop the linking. I was def linking everything. Seatto23 (talk) 20:48, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

Seatto23 You don't have to keep track. In general, the only things that need a link are things that will help people understand the subject better. There's nothing at Santa Clara County that will help the reader understand the coronavirus outbreak better than a simple map will; an article like this would only link it the first time to help visually-impaired people who can't see the map get some idea exactly where in California that is. So you never need to link to everything that has an article, even once. Link to things that might help the reader understand THIS ARTICLE better. For instance, I linked to correct handwashing technique, but I unlinked US Postal Service. You can find the pertinent guidelines at Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Linking. One of the things on that page, subsection is MOS:OVERLINK, is information about a study that says the vast majority of links are seldom clicked by anyone. Overlinking just means people can't easily see which links Wikipedia thinks are actually important to understanding the subject. --valereee (talk) 11:31, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Valereee The links to counties and cities are critical for understanding the location and something about the location. If I am reading an article about another country or another state, I don't know anything about their counties, states and cities. I need the link to put the information into context and rolling over the link gives at least brief info. Personally, I would always link placenames. But I am going with wikipedia convention and only linking once. Seatto23 (talk) 16:05, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Seatto23, I'd argue (based on the study cited in MOS:OVERLINK) that you may be an unusual reader. :) We want to make sure people notice the important links. There's an element of personal preference in how much to link in any article; some editors will link more, some less. Other editors come along and make changes they think are necessary, linking less or more; sometimes there's disagreement, and then we try to find other opinions about a subject. It's all good. We generally get there in the end. :) --valereee (talk) 18:07, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Connecticut cases potential double counts of New York cases

Both Connecticut listed as of 3/7/2020 are New York State residents that only work in Connecticut. I believe they are officially being reported and counted as Westchester cases by New York officials. I can find no official government sources stating these are Connecticut cases, only non-government news articles stating they are "linked" to Connecticut. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 108.24.133.160 (talk) 22:06, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

I think you are correct. According to https://portal.ct.gov/Coronavirus, there are currently no Connecticut COVID-19 cases.--Rmaloney3 (talk) 22:56, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Wait, are you really going to list every single person who got the disease?

The table under "Non-repatriated cases" is already absurdly long at 89 individuals, which is only a third of the number reported in the "Non-repatriated cases by state", and of course thousands more are expected as testing ramps up. And what the hell is the "Case No." column supposed to represent – are you implying this is a comprehensive chronological count? This is way too far into WP:NOTEVERYTHING and WP:NOTNEWS and soon likely impossible to maintain and should be removed. Key cases are already listed in the timeline. Reywas92^Talk 10:05, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Thoroughly agree. Looking at the timeline graph, with infections increasing at something like 40% daily, a death rate of 3% gives over a million Americans dead sometime next month. A major methodology change is needed right now. We don't need every name, just reliably supported totals. --Pete (talk) 11:25, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Agreed. But we don't have reliable state numbers yet. And CDC (per their website) will not be posting over the weekend...as numbers ramp up. Not that they are posting much info yet anyhow. Presumably they will start issuing official daily reports...soonish. Seatto23 (talk) 16:08, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Of course it's absurdly long and unwieldy now. It wasn't, though, when the number of cases was under twenty. And is it worth keeping track of individual cases as they are reported? Depends on who's reading: if it's someone who wants to build a timeline of how this whole thing went to hell in a handbasket, then yes; if it's someone looking for a bird's eye view of the outbreak, then no. Friends Don't Let Friends Go to UVA (talk) 18:39, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

I think it would serve as an invaluable archive of detailed information. However, as it expands I think it'll certainly need to be its own article. Probably broken down by month. I could see it getting very long, but from an analysis POV the information therein would be very useful in compiling other data, such as ages, underlying conditions, outcomes, etc. --ZombieZombi (talk) 20:05, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

That's the job for real epidemiologists and will be tabulated more comprehensively and accurately elsewhere, not by random people on the internet compiling news...we are not WP:RAWDATA for people to run their own statistics on... The total cases jumped by 50 to 328 overnight with just three new people added to this table from local news. Not a reasonable use of anyone's time, and you shouldn't pretend this is either "invaluable" or "detailed." Reywas92^Talk 21:12, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

It's a developing event, and we need to keep the numbers coming, but I think that having people be included on Wikipedia merely for getting sick is not something we need to do in too much detail. Another consideration, though, is that centralised figures may not be entirely reliable or timely, given the political spin being put towards this story. --Pete (talk) 01:54, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

@Skyring: @Reywas92: @ZombieZombi: @Seatto23: Reiterating what I wrote earlier: Of course it's absurdly long and unwieldy now. It wasn't, though, when the number of cases was under twenty (the number twenty being an arbitary choice of mine). At some point - a point that we may have already hit - it's probably pointless to document individual cases, though deaths (until that gets out of control, but hopefully it won't get there!) and cases that mark the beginnings of new clusters (such as the LifeCare cases in Seattle, the Grand Princess cases, and the New Rochelle lawyer, for example) may still be noteworthy. Otherwise, after we hit that "some point," it's probably better to report official estimates and figures. My $0.02 on this matter. Friends Don't Let Friends Go to UVA (talk) 07:08, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

@Skyring: Another consideration, though, is that centralised figures may not be entirely reliable or timely, given the political spin being put towards this story. Then report numbers from multiple "official" sources (CDC, individual states, WHO, whatever) and where each set of numbers came from. The chances that all are manipulated to satisfy a desired political agenda diminishes with the number of sources. (I hope.) Friends Don't Let Friends Go to UVA (talk) 07:13, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

Use past tense, even for breaking news

Hey, all! Please write in past tense for timeline information. When something is current happening, you can write it as "was reported as in good condition" rather than "is in good condition," etc. This prevents other editors from having to go back and do tweaks for maintenance, thanks! Guideline is at MOS:DATED. --valereee (talk) 13:14, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

web page to be up to date about U.S. spread

FYI: I found this web page to be very up to date about U.S. spread: https://coronavirus.1point3acres.com/en   I'm not associated with the web page in anyway that I know of. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 23:05, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

Thanks, but I believe the consensus is to stick with government agencies as much as possible. Mgasparin (talk) 07:39, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

https://coronavirus.1point3acres.com/en is not a reliable source

See here, this is a self-published source by non-experts and should not be used in Wikipedia. Please use either CDC or the CSSE source which has been published in a peer reviewed academic journal. --hroest 17:34, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Structural suggestions

After looking over similar outbreak articles, some structural possibilities might be the following sections:

• General description
• Symptoms
• Causes
• Diagnosis
• Prognosis
• Number of cases and deaths
• Treatment
• Prevention
  • Tests
  • Quarantine
  • Social distancing
  • Vaccines
• Containment
• Governmental actions
• Economic effects
• Social effects

Since there's already an article on the virus itself, there's no need for sections like epidemiology, virology, etc. Nor is there any need for a limitless timeline section of daily news clips. And as things evolve, subsections can be added. Thoughts? --Light show (talk) 01:04, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

I think that is too much on the virus itself. As you mention, we already have entries for the virus itself and the disease caused by the virus. We used to have information about prevention announcements by the CDC in the lead section, but someone appears to have removed that information. I think you are right though that we could have more of this information in this article. I think a better idea is a more "catch-all" section towards the begging of the article, called something like "Symptoms, treatment, and prevention of the disease" would be appropriate, with "Main article" or "See also" links below the section name to the appropriate articles. General, detailed information about the virus belongs in other articles, though things like CDC statements and advice about the virus (since it is specifically American) warrants inclusion in this article. JEN9841 (talk) 01:21, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

I should also add that I do not see what you mean that "similar outbreak articles" have the same inclusion of such a large amount of general information. The other analogous articles on this virus, like 2019–20 coronavirus outbreak in mainland China, 2020 coronavirus outbreak in South Korea, and 2020 coronavirus outbreak in Italy, though some of them are less developed than this article, do not have this information. JEN9841 (talk) 01:25, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

I was looking over articles like 2009 flu pandemic, Ebola virus cases in the United States and Swine influenza. --Light show (talk) 02:08, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

These articles are comparable to 2019–20 coronavirus outbreak, which indeed has the suggested structure and where this information should go. No need to duplicate information. The country-specific article should have only country-specific information, think of it as a sub-section of 2019–20 coronavirus outbreak that was outsourced into its own article, basically this. The current article should be read in that context where this article should describe the domestic response in the US, e.g. preparedness, which testing kits were used in the US, closure of schools, airports, flights, economic and political impact etc. No general information about the virus etc. This would be as inappropriate in 2020 coronavirus outbreak in Italy as it would be in 2020 coronavirus outbreak in the United States. Note that Category 2019–20 coronavirus outbreak by country and territory currently has 82 pages and 3 subcategories with a total of 9 additional pages, we do not want to duplicate all this information across 91 individual articles. It makes much more sense to improve the overall 2019–20 coronavirus outbreak article and focus our efforts on explaining the outbreak there instead of duplicating efforts on dozens of local articles. --hroest 03:07, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Agreed. There's no reason to duplicate facts, especially since the lead section of 2019–20 coronavirus outbreak already covers the basics. But we still have a giant Timeline section and chart to consider. If that topic can be maintained, I'd suggest someone creating a separate article. However, while it was useful during the first U.S. cases, I don't see any benefit at this point for a daily log of selected news stories. --Light show (talk) 04:29, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

I think it is worse that 91 individual articles as that just shows the countries. The main template links to just under 200 articles by my count and does not include all of the articles for the US(Life Care Centers of America, US Bill). Not to mention that this article is a sub-article of a sub-article of the main article on the outbreak, which is related to the main articles on the virus and disease. Personally, I think that the current article just needs a bit more summarizing. --Super Goku V (talk) 05:24, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

My prediction is that, as for many current events, the timeline is used and maintained in the beginning and a few months after the fact becomes quite useless and does not fit into the article any more. However, at the current time we have no chance of stemming the tide as people will come in and add "time-line" edits and newspaper articles. With some distance, the timeline becomes the least important aspect of the article, however I feel we would be in a loosing battle trying to remove it right now. Maybe we can outsource the timeline into its own article and solve the problem that way? Or as I suggested above, have a per-state timeline in 2020 coronavirus outbreak in the United States by State and people who enjoy adding timeline edits can go wild there? --hroest 17:40, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

sections for spread from the US?

Do we really need this? It doesn't seem like it adds anything to an already bloated article. --valereee (talk) 22:53, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

Ping Osram, who added this -- why do you think we need this? --valereee (talk) 23:10, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

Seems to me that it warrants inclusion--at least for now; there are other areas where I think the article needs to be trimmed. JEN9841 (talk) 00:17, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

I added it and I think it is relevant because it adds context to the situation and the time when the general population understood that it is spreading in (and from) the US. Osram (talk) 20:11, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

This non-article is completely useless

This non-article is completely useless people. Besides the lead, the average visitor will look at this page and think WTF is this? WP? Of course the topic of the article shouldn't be deleted, but it should be blanked. As it is now, it's only a meaningless daily list of stuff with giant ultra-trivia-loaded charts and graphs, that no sensible person would spend time trying to understand. There's no particular context to the title of this article. Typical filler junk: Helen Ferre, the spokeswoman for Florida Governor Ron DeSantis, announces a third presumptive positive case in Hillsborough County.

I thank god the U.S. has our CDC where people can get real information when they Google. IMO, the only purpose, whether accidental or designed, of this kind of massive violation of guidelines (ie. Wikipedia is not written in news style) is to prevent people from getting a clear encyclopedic description of this pandemic in the U.S. from WP. While I did think about adding some material, since I had contributed to the 2009 flu pandemic and the Ebola virus cases in the United States articles, I quickly saw this one is hopeless. --Light show (talk) 3:57 pm, Yesterday (UTC−8)

All the tables are stale. Recommend moving the daily updates to a sub article. Daniel.Cardenas (talk) 16:08, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

The other wikipedia pages have a table for the number of cases by region, e.g. Italy and Germany. The table of cases by date is standard. Seatto23 (talk) 20:19, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Second, the CDC does not have any timeline information (how many cases each day by state). Maybe they will eventually but they don't now so where are people supposed to get info to see how the outbreak has progressed in each state. They have a map that you can roll over, but info on county nor date. Often that information is out of date and in any case they don't report what day the information is for. The timeline table shows this information and every case in that table (up to March 6h at least) is referenced. Seatto23 (talk) 20:19, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Third, Regarding the timeline narrative. With no national reporting, the only way to keep track of cases last week was the timeline narrative where we could add the reference from news reports or state health departments. Now someone could go back and edit that shorter though keep in mind that there is still not a reference to use for the case numbers by state. Seatto23 (talk) 20:19, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure what you mean? @Light show: Are you saying it is meaningless to have an article about the outbreak in the US? Or do you think the article has poor content? Or something else? Osram (talk) 18:43, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

The article title is perfect, but the body text is a problem, IMO. It's already 9,200 words, not including the 457 cites. The first 5,000 words are only a flood of daily news clips, in diary style, which makes those sections useless. That giant timeline chart can have its own article, but shouldn't be hogging up this one. The article really needs to be rebuilt from the ground up since it lacks a meaningful structure. Some sections a bit like those in 2009 flu pandemic, would help. In any case, as the article is already over 192kb and the infection is just beginning in the U.S., changes are needed. --Light show (talk) 21:03, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

Well, yes and no... I also worked on the 2009 flu pandemic article and (I think) I am one of the two leading editors of the Ebola article that you mention. This is an important and useful article but it does need to come to some sort of agreement on what to include here. I have been working on the U.S. responses and I consider that information to be extremely important and useful to our readers. Gandydancer (talk) 23:25, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

People come to Wikipedia for information, and we have a high enough visibility that we are in the first few results. This article is vital, but at the moment there's a lot of tables and trivia that could be made less visible. It was okay when it was just a minor outbreak with a handful of cases, but in a day or two there will be over a thousand cases and deaths to match. Deaths look to be about 4% on figures given, which is just horrific for a rapidly-spreading illness, but I think that there must be a lot of cases that are somehow not showing up, making for a much lower death rate.

I think we definitely need the article, but we also need to think about what form it has and how to present it. Perhaps hive off some of the timeline and patient histories to sub-articles so that readers can drill down if they want, but they aren't confronted immediately by a wall of numbers and trivia that is concealing the important information they have come to find. Um. Good pithy bullet points might be better. As if it were being written for the President, rather than somebody who might enjoy searching through a novel for keywords. --Pete (talk) 00:09, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

I think making a separate article for a timeline and moving a lot of the information there would be helpful. I think moving this huge timeline table (the one named "COVID-19 cases in the US by state") to another article would be good as well--right now there are just too many tables in the article, making it unwieldy. JEN9841 (talk) 00:13, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Skyring said, "[so] they aren't confronted immediately by a wall of numbers and trivia that is concealing the important information they have come to find." and what JEN said as well, I sure do agree with both of you. On the other hand, I do not find fault with the "numbers people"--this is how articles first come into being and then we work to improve them. They do their artwork and others (like me) who are not so good at numbers, do ours. Gandydancer (talk) 00:23, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Honestly, I think people are forgetting that this article is already a sub-article of 2019–20 coronavirus outbreak. The only issues with the article that I see is that the "State and local response" section needs work to focus less on cases and more on the response in addition to some sections potentially needing to be reordered. --Super Goku V (talk) 02:10, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

I agree, @LightShow I suggest to look at the 2019–20 coronavirus outbreak to compare to 2009 flu pandemic, this article here is a highly local article that describes the situation in the US with regards to the outbreak but should not describe the virus itself, the symptoms etc (otherwise its just duplicated info). Think of this as a subsection in the 2019–20 coronavirus outbreak article where all US-related info went, comparable to 2009 flu pandemic in the United States.

@Super Goku V maybe a good idea would be to create a new 2020_coronavirus_outbreak_in_the_United_States by States article similar to this one 2009 flu pandemic in the United States by state. That solves the issue of having a new article for each state and dealing with 50 tiny articles. Best --hroest 02:52, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

From my experience with the Ebola article your suggestion would be better than a bunch of small articles. At the Ebola article the U.S. split was good as was the Nigeria article. The others were not since nobody kept them up. As much as I worked on the main article I remember the separate country articles as being crappy then and they probably still are--who knows since nobody ever works on or cares about them. It's not just the opening of an article--people must be willing to expand/delete, etc., and keep them up as time goes on... Gandydancer (talk) 04:03, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Here is my opinion regarding the current situation: (--Super Goku V (talk) 05:13, 9 March 2020 (UTC))

* Coronavirus disease 2019 (Article on the disease)
 * Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (Article on the virus)
 * 2019–20 coronavirus outbreak (Article on the outbreak overall)
  * 2019–20 coronavirus outbreak by country and territory (Article on the outbreak by area)
   * Timeline of the 2019–20 coronavirus outbreak in March 2020 (Current Timeline article on the outbreak)
   * 2020 coronavirus outbreak in the United States (Here - Article on the outbreak in the United States and related areas including territories and cruise ships)
    * Template:2019–20 coronavirus outbreak data/United States medical cases chart (Template chart with sourcing link to this article)
    * 2020 coronavirus outbreak in New York (state) (Stub article on the outbreak in the state of New York)
    * 2020 coronavirus outbreak in Washington (state) (Article on the outbreak in the state of Washington)
     * EvergreenHealth#2020 coronavirus outbreak (Stub section on the outbreak for the Washington facility)
     * Life Care Centers of America#Kirkland, Washington_COVID-19 outbreak (Section on the outbreak for the Washington facility)

This isn't every article that I could list, but it gives a gist of things while focusing on the US. We have an article for the disease, for the virus, for the outbreak, for the outbreak by area, for the US, for the US chart showing infections, for New York, for Washington, and two articles that are connected with the virus due to the impact. I am not a fan of another article nor for a major rework of this article, but if it happens it happens. I will say that if someone does create an article like the 2009 flu pandemic in the United States by state article, it needs to be kept up to date as the flu pandemic article is in 30+ maintenance categories, not to mention all of the maps that are inconsistent in design with each other. Such an article can be done, but I am worried that the maintenance cost of the article would be higher. --Super Goku V (talk) 05:13, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Problem with template width

Template:2019–20 coronavirus outbreak data/United States medical cases now stretches beyond the standard page width. Can anything be done to reduce width, or should we collapse so the entire page isn't affected by default? ---Another Believer _(Talk) 21:22, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Date format

I have brought the date format in line with the other COVID-19 articles. This one used the peculiar American format (month dd, yyyy,), and I have changed it to the standard one (dd moth yyyy). Is it alright?--Adûnâi (talk) 21:14, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

Comment per MOS:TIES, Any articles that are subject to the United States and happens in American soil should use MDY (with exception of US military, which use DMY), articles that are subject to the United Kingdom, Australia, India, etc should use DMY even there use MDY in most of their newspapers. Articles that are subject to Canada and happens in Canadian soil can use either format consistently, although majority of Canada articles use MDY with many exceptions. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 36.77.95.122 (talk) 22:41, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

Adûnâi, This article should use U.S. date formatting. ---Another Believer _(Talk) 21:29, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Maryland Incosistency

Under 2020 coronavirus outbreak in the United States#Timeline, Maryland has 4 cases. Under 2020 coronavirus outbreak in the United States#Cases, Maryland has 6 cases. —  Melofors  TC  22:17, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Removed material about Trump hoax claim

An IP user removed material about Trump's claim that Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus outbreak, and Trump's claim that the virus is the Democrats' "new hoax,." The material removed was the following:

On February 27, President Trump stated of the coronavirus that "It's going to disappear. One day it's like a miracle, it will disappear," and that while things might get worse before they get better, the virus will "maybe go away. We'll see what happens. Nobody really knows." On February 28, President Trump at a political rally in North Charleston, South Carolina said that "Democrats are politicizing the coronavirus" and that the coronavirus is "their new hoax."

References

The user's rationale stated in the edit summary was the following: "wtf was that? that had no business on this page, so i removed it."

I think it is obvious this material should be included, but, because I added the material in question, I discuss re-instating it here instead of adding it myself so as to not start an edit war. These statements have received substantial coverage and criticism in significant outlets, including the following:

• "Is coronavirus panic a hoax?" -- TheHill
• "Trump, the Coronavirus, and the 'hoax' that isn't a hoax" -- MSNBC
• "Democratic candidates hit Trump's coronavirus 'hoax' claim" -- NBC News
• "Trump, Bloomberg spar over coronavirus response, 'hoax' claims" -- Fox News
• "Democratic Candidates Step Up Criticism Of Trump's Handling Of Coronavirus" --NPR
• "'No need to panic': President Trump says risk to Americans is low as first coronavirus death reported in US" -- USA Today

So given that these statements have received very significant coverage across really all major news outlets, I think it clearly warrants inclusion in a section on the United States' response to coronavirus (which importantly includes the President of the United States). JEN9841 (talk) 17:39, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

Any coverage of Trump should be politically neutral. Quote him, but do not evaluate his statements. Note that "major news outlets" are not politically neutral and are not expected to be so. Wikipedia is expected to be neutral. So major news outlets are not a justification for including evaluation, good or bad, of Trump's statements on covid-19 in Wikipedia. 70.57.231.181 (talk) 01:01, 10 March 2020 (UTC) Kathleen Rosser

@JEN9841: Of course, as long as its inclusion in the section is in proportion of coverage to other information in the section. 73.99.90.178 (talk) 09:57, 3 March 2020 (UTC)

@JEN9841: Agree, should be included. The president's response to the situation is definitely relevant to the situation itself. Osram (talk) 18:42, 7 March 2020 (UTC)