Bz8x8c

Welcome!

Hi Bz8x8c! I noticed your contributions and wanted to welcome you to the Wikipedia community. I hope you like it here and decide to stay.

As you get started, you may find this short tutorial helpful:

Learn more about editing

Alternatively, the contributing to Wikipedia page covers the same topics.

If you have any questions, we have a friendly space where experienced editors can help you here:

Get help at the Teahouse

If you are not sure where to help out, you can find a task here:

Volunteer at the Task Center

Please remember to sign your messages on talk pages by typing four tildes (~~~~); this will automatically insert your username and the date.

Happy editing! RandomCanadian (talk / contribs) 21:19, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Editing COVID-19 United States medical cases

I've updated the confirmed cases for PA from May 22nd until today, using data provided by the website covidtracking. If you are planning on doing the same for CO you might also be able to find old data there. If you're gonna do this now let me know so I wont update all those totals only for you to change them half an hour later due to you editing old CO data. Poklane 19:27, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

I've added the totals from May 22nd until June 8th using Calculla. I'll leave CO up to you Poklane 19:56, 9 June 2020 (UTC)

I feel your frustration, and as part of trying to avoid editing conflicts I try to only update up to 5 states at a time, because the shorter I spend on editing the smaller the chance of an editing conflict. Before I edit I also check the edit history, so if I see that you or someone else just recently made an edit I don't make an edit myself for some time just out of caution. Also, before I hit submit I check the edit history again to ensure nobody made an edit as I was editing. Poklane 16:40, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for helping editing the page as well! Poklane 19:20, 13 June 2020 (UTC)

I'd just wait for them to update the total numbers and then update it on the template. Also might re-add a note. Poklane 19:47, 19 June 2020 (UTC)

Here's where I got today's 14 Guam cases (from 231 to 245) from, it's the correct website isn't it? https://ghs.guam.gov/jic-release-no-199-end-day-results-fourteen-test-positive-covid-19-dphss-doc-employee-tests-positive Poklane 23:00, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Unfortunately I can't say too much about that dashboard because it never loads for me, which is also why I missed quite a few Guam updates in the past. Poklane 23:12, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

Sure, really strange those numbers aren't added to the dashboard until a day later though. Poklane 23:22, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

You have been imputing Colorado data incorrectly since July 4th. The update for the day occurs at 4PM Mountain time as shown on the Colorado COVID Website. By putting in the data from the website before 4PM it has been continuously one day off since July 4. I don’t know who input only 7 cases on July 4th but Colorado has never reported that few of cases in months. The same thing is occurring with the deaths for Colorado. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 71.218.245.179 (talk) 18:56, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

I appreciate whoever brought this to my attention, and I'll fix the historical entries since July 4 onwards and make a note within the wikitext to note the issue. Thanks. Bz8x8c (talk) 19:53, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

Yeah I see no option but to revert CO back to total cases (confirmed+probable). Also add a note of course. Poklane 21:02, 21 August 2020 (UTC)

MS # of Cases

Hello. Could you please take a look at the way we're tallying up the number of cases for MS in Template:COVID-19 pandemic data/United States medical cases? I think probable cases are included in the numbers. We're excluding probables for other states. Thanks! --Spaastm (talk) 18:18, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

Yes, you are correct that the number we have been using for MS includes probable cases. I'm not sure when they started showing the two values for confirmed and probable cases just below the county table, but this has been happening in various states over the last month or so. It's not always obvious they have changed their data reporting until sometime later, at which point we have to decide how to manage the change. For a few states, we have gone back through the historical data collected on https://covidtracking.com/ to correct back dates as far back as the separated data is available, but it is time consuming to do so. I have recently seen a couple other states showing both values (but hadn't noticed MS yet) and just haven't been able to devote the time to fixing the old data points, so I've chosen to just use the same data point for consistency until someone can spend the time fixing the old data. It's probably the biggest challenge in the effort to compile COVID-19 data from all of the states. Thanks for your recent efforts to update both cases and deaths, as that helps tremendously. Anything else you can do to help is appreciated. Bz8x8c (talk) 18:41, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

Okay, great. Looks like when PR started to separate confirmed from probable deaths, it was just entered as "-87" in the table. Should we do the same for MS deaths? It would be "-4" for today's deaths and "+421" for today's cases. --Spaastm (talk) 18:57, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

I have not worried so much about the deaths because it's a real death either way, even if it's not confirmed they had COVID-19 - cases seems more important from my viewpoint. If we can identify an earlier date for the separation of confirmed and probable for MS, then it might help to take some time to fix the data as far back as possible, but either way just insert a new note to explain the negative quantity on whatever date it appears. Thanks again. Bz8x8c (talk) 19:04, 9 July 2020 (UTC)

Re: recoveries. I calculated today's recoveries from Worldometer as that is the source in the table. However, the numbers in that website are constantly being updated so I don't know if Rider0101 calculates the number at a specific time of the day or what. In any case, I'll let them edit the number as they wish. -- Spaastm (talk) 00:54, 10 July 2020 (UTC)

DE # of Cases

FYI. DE also separates confirmed from probable cases, just like MS. Both of these will have to be updated at some point. Just wanted to let you know so that you're aware. --Spaastm (talk) 16:44, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

ID too. --Spaastm (talk) 23:02, 15 July 2020 (UTC)

Not updated Template:COVID-19 pandemic data/United States medical cases

At about 3 PM PST today only the midwest U.S. COVID-19 cases were updated. Why don't you update cases on the west, the south, and the northeast? I also say that I think that territories were updated.

When were all 50 states update cases daily? I think I don't know when Arizona or Florida updates cases, but it wasn't here at 3 PM PST. Evan0512 (talk) 22:40, 18 September 2020 (UTC)

• Why is the western United States COVID-19 cases not updated as of 14:39 UTC/GMT? Evan0512 (talk) 22:39, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

• • Why isn't Nebraska COVID-19 cases updated as of 14:39 UTC? Evan0512 (talk) 01:12, 6 October 2020 (UTC)

Texas Covid Cases 9/22

Texas is showing 17820 in one day on 9/22. This isn't close to the dshs.texas.gov numbers and is causing a massive spike on google search generated graphs. Was there maybe a transcription error here?

Underwaterprinter (talk) 18:19, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

No, there is no transcription error. The reason for the spike is listed in the footnotes in the case total cell for Texas. Bz8x8c (talk) 18:35, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

To further elaborate, it appears Texas was not including a large number of cases from certain labs in their case count over some period of time, and they dumped them all into their total cases on 9/22 with a note on the dashboard (which I used for the footnote). However, the daily case number given on their dashboard did not include these cases. We have been setting the daily case quantity for each state to the difference between each day's total cases (for some time now), so we include them in our 9/22 case number. Bz8x8c (talk) 18:41, 25 September 2020 (UTC)

Ok I got you. You're looking at cases over time by county excel doc on texas.gov. It's still producing an anomaly that is incorrect though.Daily confirmed Cases are reported as 3964 on county trends dashboard. Sorry if this messes up your totals on the spread sheet, but the daily report is incorrect. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:A601:AACF:CF00:D0FB:40E:2943:954E (talk) 14:35, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

Actually, I'm just pulling the total cases and deaths from the main dashboard from the texas.gov site (but actually hosted at https://txdshs.maps.arcgis.com/apps/opsdashboard/index.html#/ed483ecd702b4298ab01e8b9cafc8b83). The daily numbers for all states are then just calculated based on the difference between the retrieved totals each day. There are a significant number of states that report a different daily quantity when compared with the difference between totals, suggesting they're using some special criteria to determine the daily number. Sometimes, they're removing cases for any of several reasons without accounting for the reduction in the daily count. Sometimes they're excluding some of the new cases for some reason. Instead of using numbers in the table based on some unknown algorithm, someone decided even before me that we would not use daily numbers quoted on the source sites, instead calculating them using the difference between each day's totals. That way, it's completely non-political and traceable math that can be defended. Bz8x8c (talk) 15:08, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

Except, 17k daily quote 4 days after a phase 3 lifting of lockdown looks political. Hence why Im here fact checking. But whatever. I get where youre coming from now. You just work here and these are real book numbers. Who knows where a 14k anomaly comes from or who to blame. Imma get all political and blame the fake science and say they where holding those to spike the graph for fun when they felt politically motivated to and just folded when the gov. said no more. Just started here trying to figure out if the curve was still flat and lazy answer is to check the google daily infection rate. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2605:A601:AACF:CF00:D0FB:40E:2943:954E (talk) 15:53, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

Yep, I get your concern. Understanding the cause for spikes like this is the primary reason we add notes on the state totals for significant events such as this one. Hopefully, consumers of the data will refer to those notes when there are questions about data anomalies. Bz8x8c (talk) 16:15, 29 September 2020 (UTC)

By the way, just for the record for anyone reading: I actually don't work here, I just volunteer here. I suspect you know this but don't want anyone to get the wrong idea! Bz8x8c (talk) 23:26, 1 October 2020 (UTC)