Talk:COVID-19

Topic code	Area of conflict	Decision linked to
{{COVID-19|topic=aa}}	politics, ethnic relations, and conflicts involving Armenia, Azerbaijan, or both	Wikipedia:General sanctions/Armenia and Azerbaijan
{{COVID-19|topic=crypto}}	blockchain and cryptocurrencies	Wikipedia:General sanctions/Blockchain and cryptocurrencies
{{COVID-19|topic=kurd}}	Kurds and Kurdistan	Wikipedia:General sanctions/Kurds and Kurdistan
{{COVID-19|topic=mj}}	Michael Jackson	Wikipedia:General sanctions/Michael Jackson
{{COVID-19|topic=pw}}	professional wrestling	Wikipedia:General sanctions/Professional wrestling
{{COVID-19|topic=rusukr}}	the Russo-Ukrainian War	Wikipedia:General sanctions/Russo-Ukrainian War
{{COVID-19|topic=sasg}}	South Asian social groups	Wikipedia:General sanctions/South Asian social groups
{{COVID-19|topic=syria}}	the Syrian Civil War and ISIL	Wikipedia:General sanctions/Syrian Civil War and Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant
{{COVID-19|topic=uku}}	measurement units in the United Kingdom	Wikipedia:General sanctions/Units in the United Kingdom
{{COVID-19|topic=uyghur}}	Uyghurs, Uyghur genocide, or topics that are related to Uyghurs or Uyghur genocide	Wikipedia:General sanctions/Uyghurs

Long covid.

 Courtesy link: Long Covid

There is limited information on the condition known as long covid. We should add the following:

How it is defined? Epidemiology of the condition. Diagnosis Prognosis Treatment Research Frenchfries124 (talk) 10:52, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

We should not add it until it is defined and validated. Right now it's conjecture from limited anecdotal accounts without any published research, just practioners saying they see it. There is no way to add any of the parts you mention without this. MartinezMD (talk) 17:34, 10 October 2020 (UTC)

Update: There is now an article in the works on the subject. Courtesy link given above. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 05:05, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Is the CDC a preprint-restricted source?

From https://www.cdc.gov/coronavirus/2019-ncov/long-term-effects.html

Heart damage may be an important part of severe disease and death from COVID-19, especially in older people with underlying illness. Heart damage like this might also explain some frequently reported long-term symptoms like shortness of breath, chest pain, and heart palpitations.

The risk of heart damage may not be limited to older and middle-aged adults. For example, young adults with COVID-19, including athletes, can also suffer from myocarditis. Severe heart damage has occurred in young, healthy people, but is rare. There may be more cases of mild effects of COVID-19 on the heart that can be diagnosed with special imaging tests, including in younger people with mild or minimal symptoms; however, the long-term significance of these mild effects on the heart are unknown. CDC will continue to assess and provide updates as new data emerge.

Oathed (talk) 12:10, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

it's not making any assertions, so it shouldn't be used. It's saying they don't know and that they're investigating. At most it would support is something saying they are doing research, and that's just unnecessary and definitely takes up needed space in the article. MartinezMD (talk) 14:34, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

"frequently reported long-term symptoms like shortness of breath, chest pain, and heart palpitations."

"Severe heart damage has occurred in young, healthy people" Oathed (talk) 15:41, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

"associated", "closely watching and working to understand", "might explain", "CDC will continue to assess and provide updates as new data emerge." I understand what you're saying, but it's clear from what they're saying that they don't know and are looking. They don't provide data or make hard statements. MartinezMD (talk) 16:03, 12 October 2020 (UTC)

COVID-19 pandemic link

@Gerald Waldo Luis: I removed the link from the passage space, but kept the "ongoing coronavirus pandemic" term. Instead, I have added the COVID-19 pandemic link in the hatnote. I also included the "COVID-19 redirects here" on there. Seventyfiveyears (talk) 22:19, 13 October 2020 (UTC)

Seventyfiveyears, I'm reverting. Hatnotes and body text serve separate functions and should not influence each other. Hatnotes are purely about navigation, i.e. readers that have arrived at one page when they might actually be searching for another. The passage space text, on the other hand, is about the topic itself. To not link COVID-19 pandemic early on in the passage space for this article would be extremely odd. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 07:49, 14 October 2020 (UTC)

Discussion at Talk:COVID-19 pandemic § Confirmed vs. suspected deaths

 You are invited to join the discussion at Talk:COVID-19 pandemic § Confirmed vs. suspected deaths. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:32, 16 October 2020 (UTC)Template:Z48

"Boomer remover" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect Boomer remover. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 October 21#Boomer remover until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. funplussmart (talk) 19:06, 21 October 2020 (UTC)

Is reason.com a reliable source?

I saw this link and wanted to possibly include this info about the IFR if warranted. Thanks, LaceyUF (talk) 18:07, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

LaceyUF, the answer to this question depends on what info and how you planned on wording it. Nobody can just say "yeah, go ahead use that link and put whatever you want" - but if you actually propose an addition or change to the article, other editors can evaluate the specific change. Sources are not "reliable" or "not reliable" in a black and white manner - it depends on what is intended to be placed in our article here. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 18:42, 22 October 2020 (UTC)

I want to include the IFR (infection fatality ratio) if that's okay. LaceyUF (talk) 18:57, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

LaceyUF, the section on the infection fatality rate already includes numbers sourced to much more reliable sources than that, such as the WHO and the CDC. I do not see any reason that an additional, less reliable citation is necessary in the article. Again, if you want specific wording to be added, it helps if you provide such. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 18:59, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

Agreed, the Reason article is just linking to the CDC (a source appropriate for this page), which itself is a reworking of one paper using European data. But the linked article is 5 months old now, and the CDC has updated their estimates since then (which this article hasn't yet updated, as they're now age-range IFRs). As for Reason itself, here's what Wikipedia:Reliable sources/Perennial sources has to say on the topic:

There is consensus that Reason is generally reliable for news and facts. Editors consider Reason to be a biased or opinionated source that primarily publishes commentary, analysis, and opinion articles. Statements of opinion should be attributed and evaluated for due weight.

This seems to match my read on the article. Either way, it's neither appropriate nor necessary to quote the article here for this purpose. Bakkster Man (talk) 20:05, 23 October 2020 (UTC)

"COVID" listed at Redirects for discussion

A discussion is taking place to address the redirect COVID. The discussion will occur at Wikipedia:Redirects for discussion/Log/2020 October 28#COVID until a consensus is reached, and readers of this page are welcome to contribute to the discussion. GeraldWL 04:20, 28 October 2020 (UTC)

"Asymptomatic" requires clarification

Regarding data on COVID-19 "asymptomatic" transmission, one of the problems is that evidence of "asymptomatic" transmission includes transmission from people who are "presymptomatic". See Asymptomatic SARS Coronavirus 2 infection: Invisible yet invincible, for example:

Defining “asymptomatic”

Transmission of the virus by infected, albeit asymptomatic individuals has been reported since the early stages of the outbreak (Pan et al., 2020, Yan et al., 2020) posing substantial COVID-19 containment challenges. The likely spread of COVID-19 occurs to a large extent via asymptomatic individuals, as these do not present to health care or testing facilities. Uncertainty about the significance of asymptomatic infections is reinforced by the vagueness with which the term “asymptomatic” is used. WHO defines an asymptomatic case as a laboratory-confirmed infected person without overt symptoms (WHO, 2020). It remains to be established how thoroughly such a person needs to be examined clinically. Moreover, the distinction between asymptomatic and presymptomatic individuals is often neglected in COVID-19 case definitions.

A distinction between asymptomatic and presymptomatic stages can currently only be made retrospectively, after the occurrence or non-occurrence of clinical symptoms. Recent evidence suggests that elevated serum/plasma lactate dehydrogenase levels may, already in the early stages, be indicative of presymptomatic infections and, thus, facilitate early differentiation (Ooi and Low, 2020). Diagnostic imaging cannot distinguish between the two infection stages, as, surprisingly, 30% of asymptomatic individuals showed ground-glass opacities, and 27% had diffuse consolidations (Long et al., 2020).

"Presymptomatic" is sometimes a subset of "asymptomatic", since the infected person "does not show symptoms" when they infect another person. The term "true asymptomatic" is sometimes used to refer to infected people who will never develop symptoms, i.e., asymptomatics excluding presymptomatics. In the COVID-19 article, it is not enough to say "asymptomatic", since we are referring to infected people who will never develop symptoms, specifically, and are excluding presymptomatic people. To avoid the terms "presymptomatic" and "true asymptomatic", it is better to define exactly the groups we are talking about (e.g., "infected people who will never develop symptoms"). If you want to keep "asymptomatic", then we need to define it, which is what researchers are asking for from even case study reports. TechnophilicHippie (talk) 22:57, 29 October 2020 (UTC)

Courtesy ping: other editors that I have seen tweak terminology (MartinezMD—Gerald Waldo Luis)

I should've added in my edit summary that I gave "asymptomatic" a definition in addition to the revert.

TechnophilicHippie, I went by the Wikipedia article Asymptomatic, which has the bullet point: [The condition] may develop symptoms later and only then require treatment, which implies that presymptomatic people are included. We could also reverse the order of the two's mentions ("asymptomatic" before "presymptomatic") for a top-down approach from generality to specificity.

  This also leads into me starting a conversation about how simple the article content should be made. A simple version of this article exists (which unfortunately gets less traffic than this one), so I believe we can afford to add medical terms (that are appropriately wikilinked). A question that I think will help everyone decide on the level of terminology use and definitions given is: Who is this article intended for? It seems many of the editors who maintain this article feel that people who are ESL should be considered. As this article focuses on an urgent life-threatening disease and receives many daily page views, I personally see no problem with spelling terms out more than in other articles. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 00:03, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

I think the way the article is currently phrased, with the initial explanation of asymptomatic is good, as it is used subsequently in the article. The article on asymptomatic imho excellently describes the meaning and is far better than anything we could add to this article. We should not reduce the reading level of the article as by definition it is a complex topic and would detract from its value. The technical terms are linked for further reading if the reader isn't clear on a meaning. If not, should we add full definitions for septic shock, acute respiratory distress syndrome, pandemic, aerosols, etc - all undefined terms in the article? Some degree of reader effort is expected. If they want simple they can read the CDC summary. MartinezMD (talk) 01:11, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

When you go down to the Transmission section of the article, it says, "It can transmit when people are symptomatic, also for up to two days prior to developing symptoms, and even if a person never shows symptoms." The subsection clearly communicates the idea without the word "asymptomatic" (although it says "symptomatic"), and "never shows symptoms" is clearly referring "true asymptomatic" rather than including presymptomatic people. Can we use the same clever phrasing? The reason why I think we should put more effort into clarifying transmission is because there is a lot of misunderstanding about transmission in particular, where stores focus on disinfecting surfaces multiple times a day and offer this effort as a safety guarantee for customers entering the store. Schools focus on hiring janitors to deep-clean classrooms every day. However, this does not make things safe, because it's not the main way it spreads. My concern is not that someone would find Wikipedia too hard and decide to go to the CDC site instead (what type of person would fit this profile?), but that someone would find Wikipedia too hard and go to Facebook instead for information. See Misinformation related to the COVID-19 pandemic. TechnophilicHippie (talk) 02:57, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

It is not just ESL people who should be considered, but people who are sufficiently literate in English, but not literate in science, where sending them to Simple Wikipedia would be condescending. If a native English speaker thinks that scientists should look into researching using disinfectant to cure a person infected with the coronavirus, then they seem to not have a basic understanding that human beings are made of cells, etc. People who think 5G causes the coronavirus seem to be literate enough in English, but lack a very basic understanding of biology and technology. TechnophilicHippie (talk) 02:57, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

Alright, what we're discussing then is different from a definition and instead clarifying a disease course and how it has been portrayed by different reports in the media (and the initial understanding of the medical community). So it's not just the term, but how it has been sometimes incorrectly or incompletely described. I can support expanding that idea, but it needs to be phrased well. MartinezMD (talk) 03:17, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

Droplet precautions poster

Deeper than that, there was no scientific consensus at the beginning of the epidemic that the virus was transmitted via fomites, as the problem back then was not enough data. The WHO appeared to recommend droplet precautions for hospital PPE due to lack of information, as there was no reason to make an extraordinary claim/recommendation to use airborne precautions without evidence. As shown in the image inline, droplet precautions assume fomite transmission out of an abundance of caution. Health authorities of UN member countries just parrot whatever the WHO says, since they themselves don't have more information, which led to the public perception that "scientists" thought the disease spread via fomites. However, it was never the scientific community--some of whom tried to desperately tell the WHO that there was evidence of airborne transmission--that made such a conclusion. Health authorities didn't make this conclusion either, but they needed to decide on transmission precautions to recommend to hospitals to prevent healthcare workers from working without PPE. The end result of this mess of transmission precautions taken out of context and poor communication is that there is public distrust of "science". What I hope is for Wikipedia to communicate actual science better than health authorities (giving out mindless instructions), possibly hinting at the actual scientific method people use to learn about the world, so that people understand that it's not about "the government is telling me what to do". Maybe I need to start a new subsection of the talk page to communicate this broader idea, since it's not really just about the word "asymptomatic". TechnophilicHippie (talk) 00:25, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

MOS:JARGON might be the relevant guideline here. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 22:39, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for this: "Do not introduce new and specialized words simply to teach them to the reader when more common alternatives will do." TechnophilicHippie (talk) 23:45, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

I agree with Martinez MD in many ways. We don't need a lot of clarification, we link to respective articles instead if the readers wants to know more about it. Why should we make all "hard" terms ESL-level? The Simple English Wikipedia will do its job on that. Sure we shouldn't make articles overly technical, but this article is already good enough and not very technical. Like I said previously, if we're to make all terms simple, we should say stuff like "COVID-19 is a very easily spread disease that affects the nose and the blood caused by SARS-COV-2, which has made many people worldwide sick. When getting it, people may experience fever, cough, excessive yawning, hardness to breathe, and unable to smell and taste. After getting it, these effects may last for one to fourteen days. Some do not feel anything, while others get their lungs inflammated, possibly added with psychological reactions to proteins, inability of multiple organs, pressure in the blood, and coagulation of the blood."

Look at 2009 swine flu pandemic. "Some studies estimated that the actual number of cases including asymptomatic and mild cases could be 700 million to 1.4 billion people—or 11 to 21 percent of the global population of 6.8 billion at the time." Seriously, why should we define such a simple term in a lead? GeraldWL 08:13, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

Gerald Waldo Luis, where else would we define simple terms, but in the lead? See MOS:INTRO:

It is even more important here than in the rest of the article that the text be accessible. Editors should avoid lengthy paragraphs and overly specific descriptions – greater detail is saved for the body of the article. Consideration should be given to creating interest in the article, but do not hint at startling facts without describing them.

In general, introduce useful abbreviations, but avoid difficult-to-understand terminology and symbols. Mathematical equations and formulas should be avoided when they conflict with the goal of making the lead section accessible to as broad an audience as possible. Where uncommon terms are essential, they should be placed in context, linked and briefly defined. The subject should be placed in a context familiar to a normal reader.

My main objection to your over-simplified/satirical lead is that there is loss of information and/or inaccuracies. If there are two ways of saying the same thing without loss of information, is is better to say it in the simpler way. By the way, an incubation period of one to fourteen days does not mean, "After getting it, these effects may last for one to fourteen days." I made an edit to clarify what incubation period means to avoid exactly this misunderstanding. Your error supports the importance of explaining what terms mean, and that linking to the concept is not enough. The reader may misunderstand what is said and not click on the link to read more, because they already made up their mind that they understood what was being said. TechnophilicHippie (talk) 23:42, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

"Where uncommon terms are essential, they should be placed in context, linked and briefly defined." Is the word "asymptomatic" really that uncommon that we need to define what it is in the lead? I find ARDS, septic shock, and blood clots to be a harder terminology. Asymptomatic is one of the most general terminologies I can think of. Just look at the many pandemic articles and you can spot so many "hard" words there. We don't nessecarily have to make ALL medical terms simple— I love making things a little difficult, that way the readers can learn new things and the Wikipedia article can have more influence to his education. GeraldWL 00:17, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

• Oops, I didn't realize there was this discussion when I just tried to edit the lead. Thanks, Tenryuu, for the pointer. I don't feel qualified to wade too deeply into this, but my main request would be to try to make the lead flow a little more smoothly than it currently does with the parentheticals. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 22:43, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
• Right now I think the point of contention is how much we want readers to click to other articles. I personally would prefer to use more concise wording (less is more!); just the wikilink should be fine, especially if readers have enabled "Navigational popups". I think we're extending a lot of leeway in comparison to similar articles as it is. I can see where TechnophilicHippie is going with wikilinking a definition of the term, but if the term is used further down I think it should be explicitly mentioned as soon as possible. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 23:17, 30 October 2020 (UTC)

This is a medical article, and it has a specific set of writing guidelines for technical words - see WP:MEDMOS#Technical terminology. I suggest the editors take time to look it over again if it's been a while. "Encyclopedic writing will naturally teach the reader new words and help them build confidence with harder ones. While this can be done explicitly, with definitions in parenthesis for example, the most natural way to achieve this is to use the idiomatic words, the "proper" words for something, in context. Good writing will allow the reader to pick up enough of the meaning from this context... When mentioning technical terms for the first time, also provide a short plain-English explanation if possible. If the concept is too elaborate for this, wikilink to other articles (or Wiktionary entries)." MartinezMD (talk) 01:16, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

WP:MEDMOS#Technical terminology: "Is it a term a doctor will have to use with their patient when talking about this subject, or just something only doctors would say or write among themselves?" It is not a term a doctor will have to use with their patient, since a doctor does not ask their patient, "When did you become symptomatic?" It is a term doctors would say and write among themselves.

MOS:JARGON: "Do not introduce new and specialized words simply to teach them to the reader when more common alternatives will do."

TechnophilicHippie (talk) 16:11, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

TechnophilicHippie, how is "asymptomatic" "new and specialized" in a unique way? It's one of the easiest medical term I could think of, besides disease and virus. GeraldWL 17:14, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

Ok, it seems like WP:MEDMOS is being interpreted differently and that there are currently two prevailing stances of how terminology should be addressed:

• Use only wikilinks for terminology and have the article written such that context will inform the reader.
• Simplify all terminology and do not use them if possible to allow the reader to stay on this page.

On one hand, some of us on here may be influenced by our knowledge of terminology; I personally had no problem understanding that the prefix "a-" means "without", and combining it with "symptomatic" means "without symptoms". That does not mean that my peers necessarily will, so I can see where TechnophilicHippie is coming from. On the other hand, a lot of writing (and reader fatigue) can be reduced if the specialised terms are used, and the reader can follow along the article with a general understanding per MartinezMD. I think there's a case to be made here to ignore "some" rules, as the subject is currently prevalent worldwide and knowledge about the disease can affect how it spreads.

Some questions we should probably ask ourselves and come up with answers we can agree upon:

• Who should this article be intended for? The more specific, the better. Is it intended for those who graduated high school or had dabbled a little in post-secondary education? Would the reader be more likely to be hurried while reading this or calmer?
• What's our goal to the reader? What (at the very least) do we want them to take away from this article, and at what point?

I might bring this to WT:COVID-19 for more input, or we could try polling random (active) Wikipedians to take a look at the current article and get their thoughts on it. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 21:41, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure I see a dilemma here. We are following medmos as far as I can tell. In the lead we use plain language explanation and introduce the term as required. In subsequent uses, we are using the term alone. Is someone suggesting removing it? MartinezMD (talk) 21:55, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

This is in regards to the revision that spawned this thread. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 22:19, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

I consider asymptomatic a relatively generic term (since its use has expanded outside medicine), and able to be inferred from context, but you can make an argument it isn't. We just seem to be making a tempest in a teapot lol. So back to my current point, is someone arguing against the current phrasing? Because otherwise this section is moot, no? And to avoid continuing an already very long discussion, I wouldn't oppose reverting back to your phrasing. I just don't want to see every relatively direct term (like pandemic for example) require a definition. MartinezMD (talk) 23:21, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

My understanding is that Gerald Waldo Luis wants to remove the current short explanation of "asymptomatic" based on his edit history and comments here. TechnophilicHippie (talk) 00:57, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

Tenryuu, to clarify, earlier this month, my elderly mother, who lives by herself, informed me that she went to the hair salon to get a haircut. She told me that it was safe, because they used disposable gowns. I had a call with her to establish a baseline of mutual understanding about COVID-19, asking, "Do you agree that COVID-19 can be spread by people who are asymptomatic?", to which she replied, "What does that mean?" (She is knows that the "a" prefix means "without", but she never heard of the word "symptomatic".) I also found out that she thinks a virus is a very small animal that needs food and water, and she thought that the coronavirus doesn't survive very long on surfaces due to starvation from lack of food. My attempt to explain what a virus is wasn't very clear, including saying things like "it's not alive, but it's not dead", and showing her a picture of a bacteriophage. However, I could easily explain that "asymptomatic means they don't have any symptoms". She is regularly on Facebook and knows what Wikipedia is, but her Facebook friends also seem to have zero understanding of science and a very poor understanding of COVID-19. She is still a lot more educated than the elderly parents of my peers, who believe a lot of harmful pseudoscientific misinformation from social media. My point is that Wikipedia is not for "our peers" (people who are similar to us), but for "everyone" (or as general an audience as possible without information loss). I can do nothing but wikilink to virus, but the short explanation of asymptomatic was supposed to be an easy win. TechnophilicHippie (talk)

Wikipedia solves this by linking to asymptomatic. When I don't understand a certain term, I go to the article it is wikilinked to and read the first sentence. I'm all of having articles accessible, but other than serving nothing to disabled individuals, a short explanation in a summary is annoying to a lot of people. Similar to how citation overkill may be benefitial to fact-checkers, but it looks ugly and annoying to many. How hard it is to click that link? Similar to direct interaction: you say "asymptomatic." She doesn't understand and she asks you. Then you explain it to her. Reading a medicine-related article requires initiative-- if you wanna fact-check a stance, you go to the citation, the citation doesn't go to you. Everyone has different levels of knowledge; don't expect an article to fit to everyone's level of knowledge. GeraldWL 12:12, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

Who is the lead intended for?

MOS:LEAD:

The average Wikipedia visit is a few minutes long.[1] The lead is the first thing most people will read upon arriving at an article, and may be the only portion of the article that they read. It gives the basics in a nutshell and cultivates interest in reading on—though not by teasing the reader or hinting at what follows. It should be written in a clear, accessible style with a neutral point of view.

MOS:INTRO:

It is even more important here than in the rest of the article that the text be accessible. Editors should avoid lengthy paragraphs and overly specific descriptions – greater detail is saved for the body of the article. Consideration should be given to creating interest in the article, but do not hint at startling facts without describing them. In general, introduce useful abbreviations, but avoid difficult-to-understand terminology and symbols. Mathematical equations and formulas should be avoided when they conflict with the goal of making the lead section accessible to as broad an audience as possible. Where uncommon terms are essential, they should be placed in context, linked and briefly defined.

A very tiny minority of the readers are doctors or medical students, and the vast majority of the readers are people who are not doctors or medical students. The lead should be accessible to the general reader (without a medical or science education), especially when it comes to concepts that would allow people to make more educated decisions in their day-to-day lives, such as, "Should we hold a birthday party to celebrate my mom's 80th birthday, as long as nobody is coughing or has a fever?" and "Is it safe to go to the hair salon, since they said they use disposable capes, they disinfect their tools after each use, and they wash their hands frequently?"

The purpose of the article should be to give the reader a basic understanding of COVID-19, not to get them to say on Wikipedia or click on Wikilinks, and not to teach them new vocabulary. TechnophilicHippie (talk) 19:38, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

WP:MEDMOS applies here as a specific guideline as opposed to a general article. That being said, what part of the lead, as it currently stands, do you think is a problem? MartinezMD (talk) 20:18, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

My understanding is that Gerald Waldo Luis wants to remove the current short explanation of "asymptomatic" based on his edit history (proto-edit war with me) and comments here. TechnophilicHippie (talk) 00:57, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

Yes. Because if you're to explain that, you gotta explain ARDS, storms, clots, rRT-PCR, and vaccines—literally all medical terminologies.GeraldWL 04:24, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

I already responded to that point in this talk page, but to someone else instead. Basically, the average person cannot do anything with the knowledge about what ARDS is, in that it won't affect their day-to-day decision-making. However, by knowing how SARS-CoV-2 is transmitted, they can make smarter day-to-day life decisions. Can knowing what ARDS is change the average person's behaviour? Probably not. Can knowing how SARS-CoV-2 spreads change the average person's behaviour? Definitely. TechnophilicHippie (talk) 04:44, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

That doesn't seem to be a good reasoning. Rationally knowing what ARDS is can affect day-to-day decisions, because you know how severe it is. Asymptomatic is just another word, like atypical or amoral. The lead is small enough to teach primary kids about simple prefixes. Besides, we prob shouldn't make this article a decision maker. Wikipedia is not a medical advisor. GeraldWL 11:51, 1 November 2020 (UTC)

The COVID-19 pandemic is caused by SARS-CoV-2 virus transmission among humans

The problem with the statement that SARS-CoV-2 is "responsible for an ongoing pandemic" is that it is an oversimplification of the causal factors that led to and sustain the pandemic. If an infected person goes to an isolated area with 200 people an infects everyone, they are also "responsible" for perpetuating the pandemic. It is not the case that "well, it's a virus, so nothing could have been done, it's the virus' fault."

SARS-CoV-2 circulated in bats before there was a pandemic, so the pandemic is caused by the virus transmission among humans, not by the virus' pre-pandemic existence.

TechnophilicHippie (talk) 19:38, 31 October 2020 (UTC)

Note, the structure of the lead sentence implies that COVID-19 is responsible for the pandemic (with SARS-CoV-2 being the virus causing the disease). On the one hand, I think this might be splitting hairs about the definition of 'responsible', and whether or not the pandemic would have occurred regardless of human action or inaction. On the other hand, I think your concerns over those who do split those hairs is reasonable, and there's surely an alternate wording that would convey the same information (that there's currently a pandemic of COVID-19 among humans). Bakkster Man (talk) 14:52, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

China Blocked WHO Investigation

New York Times reported today China blocked WHO from investigating source of virus origin, plus nine months and more than 1.1 million deaths later, there is still no transparent, independent investigation into the source of the virus. Can you please include this information in the article. Here is the source https://www.nytimes.com/2020/11/02/world/who-china-coronavirus.html . Thank you. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.165.229.58 (talk) 17:48, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

Even if we did, it's not going to be in this article, as this article is focused on the actual disease and not the pandemic that arose because of it. Your article would be looked at more over at COVID-19 pandemic. —Tenryuu 🐲 ( 💬 • 📝 ) 18:04, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

Statin and COVID

https://www.nature.com/articles/s41392-020-00292-7.pdf — Preceding unsigned comment added by 95.233.119.28 (talk) 17:53, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

While this is an interesting development for sure, there is no rush to cover this "breaking news" here on Wikipedia, and it is virtually required to wait for coverage in secondary reviews/guidelines before we add it - except in very specific and special circumstances, which this isn't in my opinion. If/when the results are compared with other studies, and/or confirmed in whole or part by repeated studies, they will be covered with reviews/meta-analyses/guidelines and at that point the evidence is considered "solid enough" for Wikipedia. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 17:59, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 2 November 2020

I would like to update some of the given information so it's all up to date. 38.123.7.252 (talk) 19:10, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. - or at a minimum please specify which information you want changed as well as what reliable sources you are basing your desired changes on. -bɜ:ʳkənhɪmez (User/say hi!) 19:12, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

Unfortunately, you cannot be permitted based on IP address alone, so you need to specify the changes, or create an account that is old enough and with enough edits. (I believe it is about 4 days. I forgot how many edits are required, but a reasonable number.) TechnophilicHippie (talk) 19:29, 2 November 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 2 November 2020 (2)

I would like to update some information in this article. 38.123.7.252 (talk) 19:18, 2 November 2020 (UTC)