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Alleged under-counting of cases and deaths

This is a question I've often wondered myself. If China is to be believed, they have one of the lowest fatality rates in the world and were one of the most successful at handling the pandemic. Currently our article contradicts itself: it has two sections about this, and one says they under-counted (Alleged under-counting of cases and deaths), and the other says they didn't under-count (Accuracy of official statistics). Can we get a discussion going about what the best sources say about this? Preferably academic sources. Let's discuss, get a consensus, then make the article consistent. Then we should look into updating in some other places to be consistent too: Undercounting of COVID-19 pandemic deaths by country, Statistics of the COVID-19 pandemic in mainland China. Thanks. –Novem Linguae (talk) 16:47, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

To my knowledge, high-quality sources say that China contained the virus very successfully by mid-2020. Here's a study which used excess mortality data to assess whether deaths caused by COVID-19 went unreported in China outside of Wuhan, and did not find evidence for it: . —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 17:31, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

A source by PBS from earlier this year states that the speculation on China's death count is equally as probable (or at least comparable) to the speculation on Western country's death counts. There is no smoking gun pointing to a cover-up by China’s ruling Communist Party. But intentional or not, there is reason to believe that more people died of COVID-19 than the official tally, which stood at 3,312 at the end of Tuesday. The same applies to the 81,554 confirmed cases, now exceeded by the U.S., Italy and Spain. ––FormalDude 18:33, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

I would avoid speculation in the popular media, and stick to high-quality academic sources. There are actual scientific studies that answer these questions, such as those highlighted by Mx. Granger above. -Thucydides411 (talk) 20:38, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

Considering that it's only a particular outdated journalistic source and that "the speculation on Western country's death counts" is also not speculation (there are reliable up to date sources on statistics), this only has historical value. If used it should be put in its actual context of media confusion with sources about that, so probably not very useful for this article today, —PaleoNeonate – 08:59, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

@Novem Linguae: why should academic sources be preferred when Chinese academics are under government censorship on all COVID-19 related research? In a recent interview with Australia's ABC News, Dominic Dwyer says he is "intrinsically suspicious" of China's fatality rate, and many scientists were sceptical when China raised the death toll in Wuhan by exactly 50%. The NUDT documents leaked to Foreign Policy and 100Reporters also indicate the Chinese Government may be manipulating figures. Since China doesn't count asymptomatic cases, it's not surprising that the Economist estimates the real figures to be 17,000% higher than the official figures. LondonIP (talk) 03:15, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Academic sources tend to be better sources. This is supported by policy (WP:SOURCETYPES, WP:MEDRS) and it is also in my opinion the best way to cut through the political noise in this topic area. @Thucydides411, want to take a stab at answering this in more detail? You seem to have read the relevant academic documents. –Novem Linguae (talk) 03:26, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

And why would we trust academic sources from a country where the government have imposed gag orders on academics publishing on the specific subject of this page? The gag orders was revealed by published by CNN and AP, and we have other RS like Foreign Policy, ABC News and the New York Times that quote experts saying there may be some fuckery with China's figures. Are we going to throw out those reports in favour of academic works to paint a rosy picture of the Chinese government's response, or present both sets of sources in context of possible censorship on the latter? LondonIP (talk) 03:31, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

I'll let Thucydides answer this part. He's read the sources and seems confident in them. Not all academic papers on this topic are 100% Chinese, you know. Thucydides, what do you think of this argument that "all academic sources on this topic are tainted"? –Novem Linguae (talk) 03:39, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Highly respected scientific journals like The Lancet and The BMJ are clearly more reliable than news media speculation for epidemiological information. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 18:39, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Agreed. We trust their editorial process more as well. That is the essence of WP:BESTSOURCES. — Shibbolethink 22:02, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

@Novem Linguae and LondonIP: The NUDT documents leaked to Foreign Policy and 100Reporters also indicate the Chinese Government may be manipulating figures. No, the database does not indicate that. The database contains 640,000 "updates," not "cases," as the Foreign Policy article explains. Updates contain all sorts of information (not just new cases), and the Foreign Policy article explicitly states that the official numbers could be roughly accurate.

Since China doesn't count asymptomatic cases, it's not surprising that the Economist estimates the real figures to be 17,000% higher than the official figures. First of all, China does, in fact, count asymptomatic cases. I can even cite you the numbers from today: 15 asymptomatic cases, one of which is a domestically transmitted case in Wuxi, Jiangsu province, and the other 14 of which are imported cases in quarantine. As for the Economist's estimate, it's a black-box machine-learning model with incredibly wide error bars: it claims that China could have anywhere from -140 thousand (yes, negative 140 thousand) to 1.8 million excess deaths. The Economist is a popular magazine, and its machine-learning estimates are not peer-reviewed. Actual peer-reviewed scientific studies put the death toll at under 5,000 and the seroprevalence near zero outside Wuhan.

This brings me to my last point: no, we're not going to rule out peer-reviewed scientific research published in world-leading journals like The Lancet, Nature and The BMJ, simply because LondonIP doesn't trust Chinese scientists. I think the argument that LondonIP is making here is outrageous. -Thucydides411 (talk) 04:22, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

The Chinese government isn't a reliable source, whereas SCMP is. The could be roughly accurate quote contradicts many other statements in the article, including some in the paragraph you took it from. I would like to hear why you think Chinese academic sources should be preferred over regular reliable sources when CNN and AP have revealed Chinese academics are subject to gag orders on this subject. LondonIP (talk) 18:22, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

The WP:RSP mention for SCMP says (emphasis mine): In the 2020 RFC, there was consensus that the SCMP is generally reliable. However, in addition, there is a rough consensus that additional considerations may apply for the newspaper's coverage of certain topics, including the Chinese Communist Party and the SCMP's current owner, Alibaba. Editors may apply higher scrutiny when dealing with the SCMP's coverage of such topics. We have no such current consensus on scientific publications published by Chinese nationals academics. For now, I do not believe SCMP would trump scientific journal articles (especially secondary review ones), regardless of who published them. (edited 22:58, 30 December 2021 (UTC)) — Shibbolethink 22:05, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

@Shibbolethink: are you saying that a Chinese government website is a more reliable as a source than the South China Morning Post? Note that my comment citing SCMP was about China counting asymptomatic cases as part of its official case tally, and Thucydides411 hasn't provided any sources from academic journals contradicting this. Besides for the SCMP article, this article from the BBC says that as of Dec 2020, China doesn't count asymptomatic cases for its official case tally. Please please don't copy Thucydides411's claim about Chinese nationals, as what I said was in reference to Chinese academics and Chinese government censorship on academic publications on this subject in specific. LondonIP (talk) 22:46, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Oh I must have misunderstood. My apologies. I don't think we should cite either the SCMP or official government websites about death tallies, except where we are explicitly stating "This is the official tally." Then I think we should probably cite the official site. Otherwise I think we need to cite secondary independent sources. My apologies for using nationals instead of academics, I truly do mean "academics from mainland china" but I thought that is what you meant. I disagree, I think we can use publications from such persons. — Shibbolethink 22:57, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

I don't understand why you believe we can use Chinese academic publications when we know they must pass government censors, but you have made your position clear, and I won't respond further. If editors are not going to address the fact that the Chinese government censors Chinese scientists on COVID-19 research, we may need to have a policy discussion in RSN. LondonIP (talk) 20:06, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

I suggest you stop judging scientific articles by the nationalities of the authors. These are not "Chinese academic publications." They are publications in prestigious scientific journals like Nature, The BMJ and The Lancet. The nationalities of the authors are irrelevant, and suggesting that we start ruling out publications because of the authors' nationalities is truly outrageous. You really have to stop. -Thucydides411 (talk) 21:27, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

@LondonIP: as of Dec 2020, China doesn't count asymptomatic cases for its official case tally: China counts asymptomatic infections, and reports them separately from symptomatic cases (note that strictly speaking, an asymptomatic infection is not a case of CoVID-19, since CoVID-19 is the disease caused by infection with the SARS-CoV-2 virus). Above, I linked to the official daily count for 0-24 o'clock, 28 December 2021. As you can see, it counts asymptomatic infections:

31个省（自治区、直辖市）和新疆生产建设兵团报告新增无症状感染者15例，其中境外输入14例，本土1例（在江苏无锡市）；当日转为确诊病例7例（均为境外输入）；当日解除医学观察8例（均为境外输入）；尚在医学观察的无症状感染者496例（境外输入466例）。

This translates to:

31 provinces (autonomous regions and directly governed municipalities) and the Xinjiang Production and Construction Corps reported 15 new asymptomatic infections, of which 14 were imported from abroad and one was locally transmitted (in Wuxi, Jiangsu); 7 asymptomatic infections were converted to confirmed cases (all imported cases); 8 asymptomatic people were released from medical observation (all imported cases); 496 people with asymptomatic infection were still under observation (466 of which were imported cases).

That being said, I think we should definitely present both the official tallies and the results of scientific studies into excess pneumonia mortality and serology. We should make clear why these numbers are different: around the world, serology almost always gives much higher numbers than official counts, because not everyone who is infected with SARS-CoV-2 gets tested. The fraction of people who got tested early on in the pandemic, when testing was extremely limited, was even smaller.

Below, I've cited serological studies published in The Lancet Regional Health Western Pacific (this is the study referenced in the BBC article you linked to) and Nature. As far as I know, these are the best studies on the topic, and most of the authors are Chinese. We're not in a position to tell Nature that we know better, and that Chinese academics are unreliable. Top scientific journals with expert peer review have deemed this research to be worthy of publication in their pages. Also recall that Misplaced Pages is a global project, and a discriminatory sourcing policy that labels scientists of a particular nationality untrustworthy, regardless of where they publish, would be odious. -Thucydides411 (talk) 02:35, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Again you link to a Chinese government website and papers from Chinese academics, contradicting sources like the BBC, SCMP, and even Caixin. I did not reject Chinese academics because of their nationality, but because they are being censored by the Chinese government on what they can publish on COVID-19, as evidenced by CNN and AP reports. I checked the Lancet and Nature articles you cited, and neither of them state that China's tally includes asymptomatic cases, therefore your claim is WP:OR. LondonIP (talk) 19:44, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

Again you link to a Chinese government website: You claimed that the Chinese government doesn't count asymptomatic infections. The easiest way to prove that wrong is to link directly to the official daily tally published by the Chinese government, which reports asymptomatic infections. We're talking about what the Chinese government says, so quoting a Chinese government website is perfectly acceptable. In fact, that's the most direct way to see what the Chinese government is saying.

I checked the Lancet and Nature articles you cited, and neither of them state that China's tally includes asymptomatic cases, therefore your claim is WP:OR. This entire discussion about asymptomatic infections began with your WP:OR argument that The Economist's estimate of excess mortality is higher than China's official figures because of asymptomatic infections (again, note that The Economist is not a scientific publication, its estimate is not peer reviewed, and the estimate has enormous error bars that go down to negative 140 thousand - it's a machine-learning model that is crudely extrapolating from other countries with completely different policies to China). I pointed out that you're wrong about the counting of asymptomatic infections. They are counted and published. They're just published separately from cases, which are, by definition, symptomatic (this has to do with the distinction between the virus SARS-CoV-2 and the disease COVID-19). But I agree that we should keep away from any sort of WP:OR in the article, and I haven't included any. We should just summarize what the best scientific sources say. That's what I've tried to do in the article.

I did not reject Chinese academics because of their nationality: Yes, you did. However you justify it, what you're saying is that we cannot cite papers published by prestigious journals like Nature, The BMJ and The Lancet if the authors are Chinese. That's an outrageous thing to suggest, and I'm shocked that you're making this argument openly. -Thucydides411 (talk) 21:43, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

You claimed that the Chinese government doesn't count asymptomatic infections. No its not me that claims that. Its reliable sources like the SCMP, BBC, and even Caixin (which I wouldn't normally use for this topic, as they too are subject to the Chinese government censor on this subject).

The easiest way to prove that wrong is to link directly to the official daily tally published by the Chinese government. Not it most definitely is not. See WP:INDEPENDENT. This is a basic policy an editor with 18 years of experience like yourself should know.

This entire discussion about asymptomatic infections began with your WP:OR argument No, I have 1) provided three sources (ABC News, Foreign Policy, and the Economist) questioning the accuracy of China's official figures, and 2) provided three sources stating China doesn't include asymptomatic cases in its official case tally. Can you show me where any of your scholarly sources specifically state China does include asymptomatic cases in its official case tally? Please quote the exact text here.

what you're saying is that we cannot cite papers published by prestigious journals like Nature, The BMJ and The Lancet if the authors are Chinese. No, what I said was that Chinese academics are under government censorship on all COVID-19 related research. The Associated Press reports that under direct orders from President Xi Jinping, academics communication and publication of research has to be orchestrated like “a game of chess”, warning that those who publish without permission shall be held accountable . China has a dismal record on academic freedom, and many Chinese academics face harsh punitive measures when they step out of line . For these reasons, we would also not accept scholarship from Chinese academics on 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre or Traditional Chinese medicine where they contradict mainstream sources. LondonIP (talk) 01:48, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

If we're discussing whether the Chinese government says X, then an official Chinese government statement saying X is absolutely a reliable source for the fact that the Chinese government said X (the relevant policy is WP:ABOUTSELF). You've said that the Chinese government does not report asymptomatic cases. I've directly shown you that they do, by citing the official daily report. Here are the numbers from today, from the official daily report published by China's National Health Commission: 29 asymptomatic infections. The Chinese government classifies asymptomatic infections differently from cases (which are symptomatic), but it does count and publish them. In any case, this whole discussion is a bit of a sidetrack. I don't see how it will alter the text of the article.

we would also not accept scholarship from Chinese academics on 1989 Tiananmen Square protests and massacre or Traditional Chinese medicine where they contradict mainstream sources: We wouldn't accept scholarship that contradicts mainstream sources (except, possibly to illustrate a minority view, in line with WP:WEIGHT), regardless of the nationality of the scholars. If a Chinese scholar publishes an article on the Tiananmen Square protests in a respected, peer-reviewed journal, then we absolutely would be able to use that article as a source. When work by Chinese scientists passes peer review at internationally renowned scientific journals like The Lancet, Nature or The BMJ, there's no question that we can cite that work. Frankly, Misplaced Pages editors are not in a position to overrule the decisions made by these journals about what is and is not good scientific research. If you think research by Chinese scientists can't be trusted, then write to the editors of The Lancet and make your case. At Misplaced Pages, we are not about to start discriminating on the basis of nationality when it comes to sourcing. -Thucydides411 (talk) 02:28, 2 January 2022 (UTC)

The relevant policy is WP:ABOUTSELF. No it is not. That policy says: self-published sources should only be used if it is not self-serving or an exceptional claim, and since I provided three high-quality sources (BBC, SCMP and Caixin) saying China's official tally does not include asymptomatic cases, you should cite WP:SECONDARY RSs of the same quality that counter the claim per WP:BALANCE, or we will have delete it per WP:EXCEPTIONAL.

Frankly, Misplaced Pages editors are not in a position to overrule the decisions made by these journals about what is and is not good scientific research. At risk of repeating myself: Can you show me where any of your scholarly sources specifically state China does include asymptomatic cases in its official case tally? Please quote the exact text here. I couldn't find it, which is why I noted the WP:OR concern.

At Misplaced Pages, we are not about to start discriminating on the basis of nationality when it comes to sourcing. You have accused me of such xenophonia at least five times in this discussion. I have warned you against this on your talk page . Please stop it. LondonIP (talk) 00:07, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

you should cite WP:SECONDARY RSs of the same quality that counter the claim: You want me to find a secondary source that says that the Chinese government report I linked to says what it says? I don't see what the point of that would be. We can both read the Chinese government document and see that it includes asymptomatic infections. They're listed separately from symptomatic cases, as I've explained, but they are listed.

About sourcing, as long as you say that we should disregard peer-reviewed scientific literature in leading journals based on the nationality of the authors, I will object. If you view that as a personal attack, I don't see what I can do, other than ask you not to propose objectionable sourcing rules. -Thucydides411 (talk) 01:37, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

Yes, I am asking you to find a secondary source for the claim that China counts asymptomatic cases in its official case tally so that we can cite them in the proper context. I couldn't find anything specific in the Nature, The Lancet and The BMJ papers you keep on talking. Those papers aren't even about "Case and death count statistics" so we may have to find a new section for them. LondonIP (talk) 02:03, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

You're using the term "case" very imprecisely, which I think is the origin of the confusion. "Confirmed case" in China means a symptomatic infection. Asymptomatic infections are a second category that is also published. I've already shown you the official daily reports, which clearly include asymptomatic infections, so it's a bit silly to cite secondary sources that confirm that the official reports include the information that we can all see they include (e.g., there were 45 new asymptomatic infections yesterday: 35 imported cases; 10 indigenous cases, of which 9 in were in Henan, including 8 in Zhengzhou and 1 in Gushi county, and of which 1 in was in Jinhua, Zhejiang). However, since you insist, here are a few news articles that discuss the official asymptomatic infection numbers: . -Thucydides411 (talk) 18:32, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

I thought you were going to show me text from the Nature, The Lancet, The BMJ articles, since you kept on mentioning them in this discussion. None of those three or the three new sources you're now citing actually contradict the claim of the BBC, SCMP and Caixin; that China does not count asymptomatic cases in its official case tally. Therefore, it would be WP:OR to claim they do citing your sources, and the third source is not usable, per WP:XINHUA. LondonIP (talk) 00:01, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

If you would like to make an argument for a clinical distinction between "case" and "confirmed case" and how it relates to why China doesn't count asymptotic cases in its official tally, then please cite an independent source for that. LondonIP (talk) 00:34, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

I don't know what you're arguing for here. The whole discussion about asymptomatic infections was based on your talk-page claim that China does not count asymptomatic infections. I was only trying to correct that incorrect assertion. On a talk page, it is fully sufficient to link to the official statistics, which do, as a matter of fact, include asymptomatic infections (the 6 January numbers just came out a few hours ago: 45 new asymptomatic infections in China, of which 3 are locally transmitted). That already proves that asymptomatic infections are counted in China, but since you asked for other sources, I provided a few different news articles that discuss China's publication of daily asymptomatic infection counts. And for the record, per WP:XINHUA, Xinhua is reliable for most subjects, and it is certainly reliable for reporting the fact that China publishes a daily count of asymptomatic infections. Hey, Xinhua itself regularly republishes the daily count of asymptomatic infections, as do countless other news organizations both inside and outside China. It's simply a fact that China publishes a daily count of asymptomatic infections, so I don't see what the point of our entire discussion here is. -Thucydides411 (talk) 03:56, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

@Thucydides411: since this discussion is veering dangerously into gish galloping, let me help you understand what you're arguing about. The point that LondonIP argues is that China does not count asymptomatic cases in its official tally - as reported by the BBC, SCMP and Caixin - while you argue against that, claiming there are better sources saying otherwise. Since you haven't shown where your supposedly better sources contradict LIP's stellar sources, and since the Chinese government and Chinese State media sources you provided aren't reliable in the context of verifying China’s official case tally, this discussion has reached its end. Either you cite your sources, or the statistics section need a major rewrite to make it more NPOV. CutePeach (talk) 14:01, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

I'm not just providing better sources, I'm directly linking to the official tally, where you can see with your own eyes that asymptomatic infections are tallied.

The statistics section is already based on high-quality scientific literature, and is written in a NPOV manner. -Thucydides411 (talk) 14:11, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

I think this discussion may be getting a little bogged down. I've lost track of what the proposal is. If someone is proposing a change to the article, could they please clarify what that proposed change is? —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 16:20, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Trying to read this and from what I am understanding, the dispute is that if the sum of all cases ("official tally") includes asymptomatic cases or not? I believe it is pretty clear from the official government documents that asymptomatic cases are reported on a daily basis, but the question is that are these cases nicely summarized in the sum of all cases? Jumpytoo Talk 23:45, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

This is an accurate summary of the dispute. This article gives WP:UNDUE weight to what some RS say is the Chinese government's narrative and fudging of numbers. The link between China's supposedly low numbers and their so called Zero COVID strategy has been made by Novem Linguae in the #Zero-COVID section below, so we really need improve both articles as per WP:NPOV. To resolve the WP:OR concerns noted above, I propose we replace all WP:PRIMARY sources with high quality WP:SECONDARY sources. Chinese government and Chinese state media sources should not be used as per WP:ABOUTSELF and WP:EXCEPTIONAL. CutePeach (talk) 11:50, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

We've essentially already come to the conclusion that China has low numbers, so there's nothing supposed about it. ––FormalDude talk 12:02, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

(edit conflict) It seems fine to use government and state media sources for reported case numbers and the government's strategy for controlling COVID-19. We use similar sources in articles about COVID-19 in other countries. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 12:03, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

Mx. Granger and FormalDude, as Jumpytoo and I have summarized, the dispute here is whether we can use Chinese government sources to substantiate whether the Chinese government's official tally includes asymptomatic cases; ergo, whether we go with them or with the sources which say they do not. I have the same concern for Russia and Iran , and any other country where RS question the accuracy of statistics due to political censorship. CutePeach (talk) 13:09, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

My understanding is that the Chinese government publishes separate tallies of symptomatic and asymptomatic cases. That seems to be confirmed by some of the sources listed above, such as this one which notes asymptomatic cases being reclassified as symptomatic when the patients developed symptoms. Are there sources that contradict this? —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 13:25, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

That understanding would be WP:SYNTH. The Reuters report you referenced cites Chinese government "official data", so it cannot be used to negate the reports from the BBC, SCMP and Caixin that the Chinese government does not include asymptomatic cases in its official tally. So I ask you: do you have sources that contradict these stellar sources and put the claim that China does indeed count asymptomatic cases in its sum of all cases? If so, please provide them here, otherwise, this discussion is in danger of getting bogged down - again. CutePeach (talk) 13:48, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

It sounds like we're saying the same thing in different words. Asymptomatic cases are not included in the tally of confirmed cases, but they are included in the tally of asymptomatic cases. I think all the sources I've seen confirm this, including the SCMP, BBC, US News, and Xinhua sources linked above. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 13:58, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

I'm pleased we're trying to find common ground, but I do not see how you're saying the same thing. We have multiple RS saying China does not include asymptomatic cases in its official case tally, and that they are undercounting their cases, and no RS brought forward by you and Thucydides411 have been shown to contradict this. I do not consider the Chinese government or Chinese state media to be reliable, per WP:RSCONTEXT and WP:INDEPENDENT. Your arguments to redefine the meaning of a case or a tally are tedious at best. I am disappointed that neither of you, or Novem Linguae have addressed the AP new report about the Chinese government censoring Chinese scientists on anything COVID-19 related. Its almost as if you are avoiding the question. LondonIP (talk) 00:08, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

From looking at the two links LondonIP provided, I do not believe there is any dispute that China reports asymptomatic cases separately (to add, here is a official Chinese government article describing their reporting criteria). While yes conveniently China only reports the total of the symptomatic category on the daily briefings, I can't see how this translates to China hiding cases. The data is still there, and anyone who is interested in the count including asymptomatic can do the math.

However, we should make note of this distinction in the article (as an example edit, change official statistics showed 102,083 cumulative cases to official statistics showed 102,083 cumulative confirmed cases and add a footnote saying something like The government only classifies cases as "confirmed" when the patient has symptoms or signs of pneumonia. Cases which are asymptomatic are reported separately and are not counted in official tallies.) for clarity purposes.

I also don't see the argument that we can discount high quality academic sources because some of the authors are from Chinese institutions, especially since no one here has provided any good quality academic sources that claim an opposing view. I agree with Thucydides that we can't be the ones questioning The Lancet and BMJ's editorial policies (and if we are, this is then a discussion for WP:RSN). Jumpytoo Talk 03:15, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

@Jumpytoo: I agree that we could note the definition of "confirmed case", and note that it does not include asymptomatic infections, which are reported separately. By the way, "symptomatic" in China does not necessarily mean pneumonia. I think the threshold for classification as "symptomatic" is far lower. If you read the detailed case-by-case description that Chinese health agencies publish every day on the provincial level, most cases published on any given day are, in fact, listed as "mild". We should write something like the following: ... when the patient has symptoms or signs of COVID-19. -Thucydides411 (talk) 04:36, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Absolutely agree with @Jumpytoo and @Thucydides411 here. We should describe how the statistics are different from other countries, we should describe the controversy, but we should not allege the conspiracy, nor should we cast doubt on Chinese academic publications simply because they are from China. We are not peer reviewers, we are not journal editors. We trust these people to do their jobs. We do not have high quality academic sources describing any reason to discount chinese academic publications. So we should not do so.— Shibbolethink 12:24, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

@Jumpytoo: looking at the two links LIP provided and also this SCMP article , I see it clearly stated that China does not count asymptomatic cases in its official case tally, and I have not seen anyone provide any sources - good quality or otherwise - that claim an opposing view. I also don't see where it was argued that high quality academic sources should be discounted only because the authors were from Chinese institutions, so that must be an error on your part. I like your suggestion to distinguish how China counts cases but I would like to see it cited to secondary sources. CutePeach (talk) 12:53, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Arbitrary break

Expanding on what Mx. Granger wrote above, there are several scientific studies of both excess mortality and seroprevalence (i.e., the percentage of people who have been infected) in China. In particular, The BMJ published a scientific study of excess mortality in China: . Some of the key findings:

• 4573 excess pneumonia deaths in Wuhan: In Wuhan city (13 districts), 5954 additional (4573 pneumonia) deaths occurred in 2020 compared with 2019
• Outside of Wuhan, there was no measurable increase in pneumonia deaths: In other parts of Hubei province (19 DSP areas), the observed mortality rates from pneumonia and chronic respiratory diseases were non-significantly 28% and 23% lower than the predicted rates, despite excess deaths from covid-19 related pneumonia. Outside Hubei (583 DSP areas), the observed total mortality rate was non-significantly lower than the predicted rate (675 v 715 per 100 000), with significantly lower death rates from pneumonia (0.53, 0.46 to 0.63)

The initial outbreak in China was heavily concentrated in Wuhan and the surrounding cities. It had a measurable impact on mortality there. However, outside of that immediate area, there were actually fewer pneumonia deaths than normal, probably because the lockdown measures stopped flu transmission as well. The small number of COVID-19 deaths outside of Wuhan were more than offset by the large decrease in flu deaths.

There are also several studies on seroprevalence, which paint the same picture as the excess mortality figures. For example, a study published in The Lancet Regional Health Western Pacific finds that the initial outbreak was heavily concentrated in Wuhan:

• Wuhan had the highest weighted seroprevalence (4.43%, 95% confidence interval 95%CI 3.48%-5.62%), followed by Hubei-ex-Wuhan (0.44%, 95%CI 0.26%-0.76%), and the other provinces (<0.1%).
• The low overall extent of infection and steep gradient of seropositivity from Wuhan to the outer provinces provide evidence supporting the success of containment of the first wave of COVID-19 in China. SARS-CoV-2 infection was largely asymptomatic, emphasizing the importance of active case finding and physical distancing. Virtually the entire population of China remains susceptible to SARS-CoV-2; vaccination will be needed for long-term protection.

Other studies, such as this one in Nature, have similar findings.

Since the initial outbreak was contained, China has not had a major outbreak on anywhere near the same scale as what happened in Wuhan. China had one serious outbreak (i.e., the first outbreak in Wuhan) that was concentrated in one province (and within the province, concentrated in one city), which peaked in early February 2020 and completely ended in April 2020. Since then, the country has followed a zero-COVID strategy (which you can read about in this scientific paper, for example), like New Zealand and Australia did for much of the pandemic. That's why the death figures are so low, in comparison to other countries that have pursued a very different strategy (mitigation). -Thucydides411 (talk) 21:03, 26 December 2021 (UTC)

• Here's a study from Nature that found "successful control in China was achieved through reducing the contact rates among people in the general population and increasing the rate of detection and quarantine of the infectious cases."

Looking at all the sources shown in this section, I think this paints a picture that the scientific consensus is China's death and case counts are likely not inflated and their government was largely able to mitigate the effects of the pandemic. If others agree, the next step is how do we go about making that clear in the article? ––FormalDude 00:24, 27 December 2021 (UTC)

@FormalDude: there are certainly scientists who don't think there is any cover-up of figures, but there isn't a scientific consensus, and scientists aren't the only relevant experts for this subject. Scientists do not have psychic powers, so if the figures are being censored, and basing our position on their opinions would present a WP:WEIGHT problem. There is a broad consensus among all relevant experts that the reported figures from the early outbreak were wrong, and even the Chinese CDC have admitted that and adjusted those figures, but there is more ambiguity with more recent figures. China is the only country that doesn't count asymptomatic cases, which is reportedly part of a propaganda campaign to make the government look good. LondonIP (talk) 03:27, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Note that China does, in fact, report asymptomatic cases. There were 15 today.

the reported figures from the early outbreak were wrong: Define "wrong." Did China detect every case early on? Definitely not. No country even came close to detecting every case early on. Testing was extremely limited, and many (probably most) people with mild symptoms never even got tested. But thanks to seroprevalence studies (which I have cited above), we now have good estimates of the total number of infections.

even the Chinese CDC have admitted that and adjusted those figures: The China CDC didn't "admit" any sort of cover-up. In the first wave in Wuhan, when testing was limited, there were people who died without ever having a positive test. Those cases were investigated after-the-fact, and the CoVID-19 death toll was adjusted upwards accordingly. Similar adjustments occurred early on in US states. -Thucydides411 (talk) 04:53, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

Making Accuracy of COVID statistics more NPOV

What changes can we make to this section to come closer to a neutrally written article? Thucydides411 has an issue with the due weight, and has tagged the section for fringe viewpoints. There's at least some objection to that, including partially from myself. I'm open to any ideas though for removing or adding content, so long as they're well justified and sourced. ––FormalDude 06:33, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

We appear to have a consensus above that China is not fudging their statistics. Therefore I agree with the fringe tag. The section should probably be re-written with several paragraphs at the beginning stating how they are not fudging their statistics, with citations, then a paragraph or two at the end about how they have been accused of fudging their statistics but that this does not agree with the scientific consensus. –Novem Linguae (talk) 06:57, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

I would prefer moving the claims of fudging to the "International Reactions" subsection, since they mainly come from the US and UK governments. Alternatively, we could rename the subsection "Case count and death toll", and refocus it on the official numbers and scientific results about mortality and seroprevalence. -Thucydides411 (talk) 14:00, 29 December 2021 (UTC)

This would seem to be a step in the right direction. It's certainly fine to mention that some have expressed concerns without unduely promoting speculation or accusations. —PaleoNeonate – 12:16, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

I would agree with such a move. If these claims are in RSes, which I believe they are (and not just SCMP etc), then they are WP:DUE. But they should be placed in the context of the countries making the claims, and attributed to those governments. We could have a subsection 'Case count and death toll' and I would agree it should be based in official sources and scientific papers. Not on aspersions cast by other governments. — Shibbolethink 22:08, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

@Shibbolethink and PaleoNeonate: the claim that fudging claims come only from US and UK governments is false. The claims come from Foreign Policy, BBC and SCMP and other well reputed media organisations. LondonIP (talk) 01:53, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

Some outlets may have claimed it too, but these should still be directly attributed to those making the claims and the governmental claims are the potentionally notable ones. (Also note, these claims are already featured in the article, so not sure what your proposal is) Xoltered (talk) 02:24, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

The way we figure out how to treat claims on[REDACTED] is based on the nature of the sources which make those claims. We go with the version of the story which is described in our best available sources. In this case, those sources do not support the fudging claims. News agencies may have described the controversy. We should also describe the controversy. Some journalists may have alleged there was malfeasance. But that does not trump our academic sources. We should not put in wiki-voice claims that are not present in our best available sources. — Shibbolethink 12:26, 16 January 2022 (UTC)

@Shibbolethink: I was originally not opposed to moving the contents of the Accuracy of COVID statistics section to the International Reactions section, but when zero COVID was cited to "settle the question" directly below, it became clear what was afoot. Please show where "best available sources" refute The Times, CNN and AP and the many other RS clearly alleging undercounting of infections and fatalities. Please quote the exact text here. LondonIP (talk) 01:53, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

I don't believe anyone is saying that the best available sources (academic research publication reviews) "refute" the lower quality news sources. That is a straw man argument, and besides, it is quite difficult (if not impossible) to prove a negative. Rather, I have said the undercounting claims are not present in these academic sources, which take the chinese government counts at face value and do not question their authenticity any more than any other government's. See: — Shibbolethink 01:59, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

I don't believe anyone is saying that the best available sources (academic research publication reviews) "refute" the lower quality news sources. What? You obviously haven't read any of the many posts in the three discussions claiming exactly that. LondonIP (talk) 02:48, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

@Novem Linguae: I would not characterise the above discussion as a consensus that China is not fudging their statistics, and you didn't answer my question about the Chinese government's reported gagging academics publishing on this subject. I am not opposed to Thucydides411's idea to move the section, but I think it is more suited for the Censorship and Propaganda section. LondonIP (talk) 18:30, 30 December 2021 (UTC)

Moving it to the "Censorship and Propaganda" section would imply that the accusations about much higher death tolls are correct. Yet those accusations are at odds with the results of scientific studies on the subject (see the above talk page section). Scientifically speaking, the accusations represent a WP:FRINGE view. -Thucydides411 (talk) 02:46, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

@Thucydides411: I'd like Novem Linguae to reply here as they he deferred to you when I have asked them the Chinese government's censorship policy. Consensus has to be based on policy, not a counting of heads. As for the Censorship and Propaganda section, not all the claims there are stated as matter of fact. LondonIP (talk) 20:02, 1 January 2022 (UTC)

I've moved a portion of the section to International reactions. Please feel free to tweak my edit. ––FormalDude 03:32, 31 December 2021 (UTC)

Zero-COVID

Alright, with the creation of the well-sourced zero-COVID article, I think this question is settled. China has half a dozen neighbors that did exactly the same thing (strict lockdowns in order to achieve zero COVID cases). The occam's razor here is that if a half dozen other nearby countries succeeded at it, there's no reason to believe that China wouldn't too. So absent extraordinary evidence to the contrary, I think we can move forward with changing this and other articles to reflect China's zero-COVID policy and the very low COVID case numbers it achieved and still achieves. And we can assume that these accusations of statistics fudging are simply political accusations. –Novem Linguae (talk) 03:13, 6 January 2022 (UTC)

Your zero-COVID article is a good start but I don't think it settles the question about the accuracy of China's official statistics. There is considerable disagreement between scientists on what exactly Zero-Covid is and if it is achievable or even advisable. Some scientists say it is aspirational and only achievable in a defined geographical area and only for a period of time. Vietnam, Singapore and Australia have given up on it and New Zealand has been able to keep infections and fatalities low due to its extreme isolation, travel restrictions and border control. Most scientists agree that SARS-COV-2 will continue circulating in the population just like influenza and herpes, and will not ever be fully eradicated. Most scientists also agree that vaccination is the most important measure for lowering the case fatality rate, and lower transmission rates by having less susceptible individuals. LondonIP (talk) 00:10, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

@LondonIP: My understanding is the COVID-19 pandemic in Western Australia still saw a zero-COVID strategy, despite the rest of the country abandoning it. ––FormalDude 09:54, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

@FormalDude. Good info. Can you do me a favor and look into this more, and if western Australia is still doing zero-COVID, add it to the lead of zero-COVID with a source? This will affect our DYK hook's factual accuracy. DYK hook currently says only China, Hong Kong, and Taiwan are still doing zero-COVID. –Novem Linguae (talk) 16:39, 7 January 2022 (UTC)

Done. ––FormalDude 01:07, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

@FormalDude: more than 90% of Australia's cases were around Sydney and Melbourne, so it made no sense for them to keep up with it, as the BBC explains . I don't understand how China's Zero COVID propaganda proves that China isn't fudging its statistics, as Novem Linguae argues above - with an occam's razor. Looking at Zero-COVID#Views on the zero-COVID strategy, the only support it has left is from Chinese government scientist Zhong Nanshan, ​​who has promulgated lots of other disinformation and outright lies on behalf of his superiors. In light of Chinese censorship and propaganda on this subject, we should cite more credible advocates like ​​Deepti Gurdasani, and not use them for propaganda purposes. CutePeach (talk) 12:38, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

@CutePeach: I did not say the Zero COVID strategy proves China's statistics. See my previous comment: Looking at all the sources shown in this section, I think this paints a picture that the scientific consensus is China's death and case counts are likely not inflated and their government was largely able to mitigate the effects of the pandemic. The sources in the Case and death count statistics section are highly reliable and accurate. ––FormalDude talk 12:48, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

FormalDude I didn't say you made that point. It was Novem Linguae's point, and I disagree with the reliability of the sources in the statistics section. The main problem here is source bias, as we do not mention any sources questioning China's statistics. We need to work together to make this section more NPOV by adding more high-quality secondary sources. CutePeach (talk) 13:52, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

@CutePeach: Zhong Nanshan is a scientist who is internationally highly recognized. I'll remind you that WP:BLP applies to talk pages too. When you make unsubstantiated allegations against living persons, you're skating on thin ice.

As FormalDude points out, the sourcing for the statistics section is very strong. Most of the sources are from peer-reviewed scientific literature. The view that China's death tolls are far higher than reported are WP:FRINGE at this point (and have been so for a long time). -Thucydides411 (talk) 14:38, 8 January 2022 (UTC)

This is the Zhong Nanshan who promoted Traditional Chinese Medicine to treat COVID-19 and said that the virus may have originated outside of China , so disinformation and outright lies is quite accurate. Anyway, we already have your comments above, so repeating them in every page section is WP:BLUDGEON. It looks like this section is about zero-COVID and how it relates to China's dubious statistics, so please stay on point. LondonIP (talk) 00:16, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Just going on publication and citation statistics alone, Zhong Nanshan is an extremely high-impact scientist, and is widely regarded as an expert both on the original SARS (he was very prominent in the development of treatments and public health response to SARS back in 2002-2004) and in SARS-CoV-2 (he's been on some of the major papers describing the virus - he's the corresponding author on this article, which has been cited a whopping 12,650 times as of the time of my writing). He's published many very highly cited scientific papers in leading journals (you can see a list here).

said that the virus may have originated outside of China: This is a mainstream scientific view. The closest known virus to SARS-CoV-2 was found in Laos. The 2nd closest virus was found in Yunnan province, China. Nobody knows yet where the reservoir for the virus is or where the spillover occurred. The idea that either could be in Southeast Asia is not far-fetched at all.

Anyways, Zhong Nanshan's views on the zero-COVID policy are highly relevant. -Thucydides411 (talk) 04:30, 9 January 2022 (UTC)

Please don't warn other editors of WP:BLP violations when the allegations are well substantiated. Despite his academic achievements, Zhong's promotion of TCM as a COVID-19 treatment, in line with Chinese government policy, makes him unsuitable for any statements of fact on this subject. There is no evidence that the virus spilled over to humans in Laos, though there are RS reporting that the Wuhan Institute of Virology conducted research on coronaviruses from Laos, which is more relevant for the COVID lab leak and investigations pages. LondonIP (talk) 23:44, 10 January 2022 (UTC)

@LondonIP: That's a really strong take. I would ask for input from others at WP:RSN before ruling him out as "unsuitable for any statements of fact on this subject." ––FormalDude talk 09:15, 12 January 2022 (UTC)

@FormalDude: did you not read the AP report about the direct order from Xi Jinping restricting scientists from publishing their COVID data and research? When we have multiple reliable sources questioning the effectiveness of China's Zero COVID policy, Zhong Nanshan's views do not WP:BALANCE the WP:NPOV concern. Just like his views on the efficacy of Traditional Chinese Medicine as a COVID treatment, hs views should only be cited per WP:OPINION, not WP:BALANCE. I hope we can agree on this much. LondonIP (talk) 00:29, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

Zhong Nanshan is one of the foremost experts in the world on SARS and SARS-CoV-2, and his views on the zero-CoVID policy have been very widely reported. As for reliable sources, a "reliable source" is not necessarily reliable for all subjects. The NY Times has decent news reporting on many subjects, but when it comes to epidemiology or public health, The BMJ is a far more authoritative source. The BMJ is a scientific journal with peer review and scientific editors, and the papers are written by specialists in the given field. NY Times articles are written by non-experts, do not undergo peer review, and the editors do not have the same scientific background. Basically, if you want an analysis of the effectiveness of a public health strategy, go to the experts, not the pundits. The scientific literature has largely considered China's elimination strategy to have been a success, based on my reading. There's even an entire issue of The BMJ on this subject: "The world can learn from China's response to the pandemic, say experts". -Thucydides411 (talk) 03:59, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

He is not an independent WP:RS because he will only say what CCP wants him to and they are known for promoting false science. Fact that you can't understand this is ridiculous. TolWol56 (talk) 04:48, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

BLP applies on talk pages. These sorts of unsupported attacks on living persons are not acceptable on talk pages. Zhong Nanshan is actually extremely famous in China for his courageous statements during the original SARS outbreak, and he's a highly cited research scientist who publishes in top-tier international journals. -Thucydides411 (talk) 16:11, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Zhong was speaking at a Oct. 13 ceremony in Guangzhou to launch a Baiyunshan banlangen project.

Ah, so he was just promoting it to make money off of it and to get grants from the companies that make it. That's pretty darn scummy. As far as I can tell, he's also done no actual research on banlangen and SARS or at least has never published anything about it. So that was just him blatantly lying. All he has is his 2015 study involving banlangen and influenza, where it just notes in it in a single sentence that the Chinese government claims it works against SARS. But that has nothing to do with Zhong actually researching it. So, all of that (his statement and any claimed research regarding it) is questionable at best. A top scientist just being a liar like that doesn't seem like a good thing. Silverseren 07:57, 13 January 2022 (UTC)

Making Accuracy of COVID statistics more RS

There is a very long discussion above about NPOV, a policy which means representing fairly, proportionately, and, as far as possible, without editorial bias, all the significant views that have been published by reliable sources on a topic.

So here I have attempted to list all reliable sources questioning the accuracy of China's statistics so that we may see how to represent all the all the significant views as fairly and proportionately as possible, without editorial bias.

Important note: these RS question different statistics, including infection and death rates, case-fatality rates, and the methodology used to compile official case tallies. ScrumptiousFood (talk) 16:37, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

RS questioning the accuracy of China's statistics

1. ​​PLOS: Analysis of the real number of infected people by COVID-19: A system dynamics approach
2. Foreign Policy: Leaked Chinese Virus Database Covers 230 Cities, 640,000 Updates
3. CTV: True toll of Wuhan infections may be nearly 10 times official number, Chinese researchers say
4. RFA: Pension Figures From China's Hubei Spark Doubts Over Virus Deaths
5. Bloomberg: Urns in Wuhan Prompt New Questions of Virus’s Toll
6. Time: China Says It's Beating Coronavirus. But Can We Believe Its Numbers?
7. BBC: Coronavirus: Europe 'wary of confronting China over deaths'
8. Economist: Covid-19 deaths in Wuhan seem far higher than the official count
9. Hindustan Times: What can explain the mystery of China’s Covid-19 numbers?
10. New Scientist: How is China beating covid-19 and are the reported numbers reliable?
11. Business Insider: Wuhan, the pandemic's first epicenter, may have had 10 times as many COVID-19 cases as were reported, a study from China's CDC suggests
12. Australian Broadcasting Corporation: Coronavirus cases in Wuhan may be far higher than thought, according to China CDC study
13. Bloomberg: Wuhan’s Covid Cases May Have Been 10 Times Higher, Study Shows
14. CNN: The Wuhan files
15. Data fog: Why some countries’ coronavirus numbers do not add up
16. Australian Broadcasting Corporation: China's coronavirus death toll is curiously low. Can we believe the numbers?
17. Washington Post: A new report adds to the evidence of a coronavirus coverup in China (Editorial Board Opinion)
18. CNBC: China coronavirus case numbers can’t be compared to elsewhere, economist says
19. Business Insider: Experts are questioning China's reported coronavirus case and death counts. Here's why it's so important to get the data right.
20. Financial Times: China accused of under-reporting coronavirus outbreak
21. Boston Herald: Chinese government lying about coronavirus could impact U.S. business ties: Experts
22. China's Coronavirus Battle is Waning. Its Propaganda Fight Is Not.

— Preceding .unsigned comment added by ScrumptiousFood (talk • contribs) 16:38, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Wow, I just decided to go through this list, and here is what i found. I have to say, in summary, I am flabbergasted that you appear to be using this to defend the notion that China deliberately under-reported data, when these sources do not show that. And when they do, it is from right wing policy think tanks and pundits, or other non-epidemiologists. Where are the epidemiologists?

— Shibbolethink 16:16, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

@Shibbolethink: I don't know why you are so "flabbergasted" about a "notion" not "shown" by my sources when all I said is that they question the accuracy of China's statistics. Since this is political in nature, epidemiologists and statisticians cannot be the only relevant experts, but there are a few critical comments from scientists you missed, like Dwyer on China's CFR in the ABC article. We do not need to use all these sources and quoted experts, but the number of RS questioning the accuracy of China's statistics clearly show the topic surpasses the threshold for covering it on the page. There are some errors in your point-by-point analysis, but I just wanted to get this main point of the way, as neither of us have the facts. ScrumptiousFood (talk) 14:32, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

I only see one scientific source in that list: source #1, from PLOS One. The rest of the sources are news articles.

For questions of epidemiology or public health, news articles are of little value. They're written by non-experts and don't go through any rigorous scientific editing or peer-review. We don't have to rely on these sorts of low-quality sources, because an array of scientific studies have established the level and geographic distribution of infections and excess deaths in China:

• The Lancet Regional Health Western Pacific: "Antibody seroprevalence in the epicenter Wuhan, Hubei, and six selected provinces after containment of the first epidemic wave of COVID-19 in China"
• Nature Medicine: "Seroprevalence of immunoglobulin M and G antibodies against SARS-CoV-2 in China"
• The Lancet Microbe: "Seroprevalence of SARS-CoV-2 in Hong Kong and in residents evacuated from Hubei province, China: a multicohort study"
• mSphere: "SARS-CoV-2 Antibody Seroprevalence in Wuhan, China, from 23 April to 24 May 2020"
• JAMA Network Open: "Seropositive Prevalence of Antibodies Against SARS-CoV-2 in Wuhan, China"
• The BMJ: "Excess mortality in Wuhan city and other parts of China during the three months of the covid-19 outbreak: findings from nationwide mortality registries"
• PLOS ONE: "Analysis of the real number of infected people by COVID-19: A system dynamics approach" (this is source #1 above, and its findings are consistent with those of the other scientific studies listed here)

Most of these scientific sources are already discussed in the article. -Thucydides411 (talk) 20:27, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

I just want to add that the Radio Free Asia article linked above ("Pension Figures From China's Hubei Spark Doubts Over Virus Deaths") makes such absurd claims that their publication of this article calls all of their reporting on this subject into doubt (if the fact that they're US government media with an explicit mandate to advance US foreign policy isn't enough to convince one to view them with caution). The death toll of 150k that it proposes is basically impossible, unless you assume that everyone in Wuhan was infected (and that the virus was far more deadly there than elsewhere). This is contradicted by every study on seroprevalence, including among people evacuated from Wuhan to Hong Kong. It's not even a small difference: we're talking about a difference of 50x from every scientific estimate of the number of infections and deaths. -Thucydides411 (talk) 20:37, 18 January 2022 (UTC)

Indeed, it appears we are still having the exact same discussion, speculation from popular media does not mean we should disregard nearly all scientific literature, which disagrees. Xoltered (talk) 00:30, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

• The Accuracy of COVID statistics should be restored with citations to these sources for the article to be NPOV. These are high-quality RSs and unless they are putting claims directly contradicted by high-quality scientific sources, I see no problem with using them with WP:INTEXT attribution. The WP:INDEPENDENT concern should be discussed further on WP:RS/N. CutePeach (talk) 15:51, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

They are in contradiction with the scientific sources, how many different pages will you make the same, repeatedly responded to point on? As discussed above, there are reliable, peer-reviewed scientific sources which show china's statistics are as accurate as any other country's. Xoltered (talk) 16:42, 19 January 2022 (UTC)

• Thank you ScrumptiousFood. These are high quality reliable sources offering a significant viewpoint which should be represented, per WP:NPOV. The Accuracy of COVID statistics should be restored section should be restored to cite these sources. LondonIP (talk) 02:12, 20 January 2022 (UTC)
• To evaluate the sources provided by Scrumptious:

Overall, while I do see a little bit of possibly usable data + the unusual reporting criteria which definitely needs to be added eventually (haven't found time for a deep dive on it), I don't see any reason why we can't just use the scientific data which pretty much says the same thing as the popular media but less WP:BIASED. Jumpytoo Talk 03:58, 20 January 2022 (UTC)

• Yeaaaah, these news organizations are not reliable for analysis of epidemiological data. Not unless the sources are written by experts, which many of these do not appear to be... — Shibbolethink 20:12, 21 January 2022 (UTC)
• Just like to add that (1) while some the media sources are described as high-quality RS, the scientific studies are even higher quality RS. (2) Most of the news articles just end up saying something along the lines of: China says A & B, but here are facts X & Y. What they do not analyse is whether & how X or Y is related to A or B. Anybody can say something like, for example: Johnson insists his policy regarding migrants is working, but there are hundreds more migrants to the UK this year, or that according to our interviews, 1 or 2 persons has been affected greatly. This kind of juxtaposition is not really analysis, just the casting of doubt. I remember back then stories coming out about how many mobile phone numbers were allowed to expire in China and suggesting that many more people must have died from COVID, instead of also explaining that due to the lockdowns, many small businesses were shut without renewing their phone contracts. If news outlets are reporting straight facts, then I think some of them could be considered RS; but if they're trying to reach some sort of new conclusion, then I wouldn't automatically consider them to be reliable. GeorgiaDC (talk) 23:04, 23 January 2022 (UTC)
• These sources are reliable enough for the statement and more reliable than CCP-controlled studies that are being pushed against them. I also agree that the content should be restored since it is backed by these high-quality WP:RS. TolWol56 (talk) 15:41, 27 January 2022 (UTC)
• If I'm reading the room right, we have a consensus here to restore the accuracy section with content some of the above sources. With that, we can then end the dispute, or request a close of the RfC in RS/N. LondonIP (talk) 01:31, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

  I entirely disagree that such a consensus exists. Several editors above (myself included) have gone point by point and described how these sources do not support the claims that ScrumptiousFood is making. If you restore this content, you will be doing so without consensus, and I will happily revert (within any applicable limits and with BRD consideration) until such a consensus is clear, or an RfC is definitive. — Shibbolethink 02:01, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

  I entirely disagree with your breakdown of the sources, and I could add another twenty sources to the list, all alleging that the Chinese government deliberately undercounted cases. One source even quotes officials from the Chinese CDC itself making the allegation, so I will ask you again to either provide sources that refute these claims, or read this discussion as a rough consensus to restore the section. This should not have been removed to International Reactions, to bury it as an accusation of the US and UK governments, when it came from one of their own. LondonIP (talk) 03:01, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

  Have you ever heard of the term "False dichotomy" ?You just asked what amounts to: 'either prove me wrong in exactly the way I want you to do it, or do exactly what I say.' I'm going to do neither, and wait for either A) a neutral 3rd party to assess the consensus in these many pending RfCs etc. or B) for a more clear consensus to develop, as there is no time limit on "finishing" the project. A consensus to restore or keep the status quo will develop based on the number of editors involved and the standing edit war revert limits. You can keep reverting to restore your preferred language if you like, but by my estimation, there are more editors who are in agreement that this text does not belong in the article in its current state than who think it should be restored. — Shibbolethink 04:20, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

  Shibbolethink, please strike your comment openly advocating for edit warring . There is a rough consensus here and on the China Pandemic page that sources questioning the accuracy of China's statistics are WP:DUE for inclusion. The RFC on RSN is relevant only as so much as if Chinese academic publications refute claims from these sources, which is not the case here. The Times is an excellent source and the quote from the Chinese CDC health official really settles the matter. CutePeach (talk) 15:20, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

  Where do I openly advocate for edit warring? I simply stated this was what he can try to do, but it isn't sustainable so we shouldn't do it. By my reading, I advocate against this. — Shibbolethink 20:57, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

  @Shibbolethink: your comment A consensus to restore or keep the status quo will develop based on the number of editors involved and the standing edit war revert limits openly advocates edit warring and reads as an invitation for others to revert and support your position. It is also not based on policy, as this article had a section on allegations of undercounting, which was removed by FormalDude, and that is this incredibly long discussion is about. WP:NOCONSENSUS says a lack of consensus commonly results in retaining the version of the article as it was prior to the proposal or bold edit, which looks like the case here and on the COVID-19 page page. CutePeach (talk) 15:56, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

  I'm sorry for the confusion, but no I don't believe my comment reads that way at all. I was saying that part of the reason for the revert limits is to reduce edit warring, and that it also instills a de facto consensus because people cannot revert indefinitely. This is, of course, not the goal, and we should discuss here. It appears from the participants here that there is not consensus to restore your preferred version of the page. — Shibbolethink 23:38, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

  I'm here from RSN. After reading this discussion as well as the discussion on COVID-19 pandemic in mainland China, I see a consensus is to restore the section deleted from both pages, and update it with newer and hopefully better sources. To replace older sources with newer sources, editors must ensure that they are of equal quality in terms of WP:SOURCETYPES, and resolve discrepancies based on sourcing and attribution policies. As experienced editors, both you and ProcrastinatingReader are aware of the extreme caution WP:SCHOLARSHIP advises with primary sources, and the error of analyzing Lin et al to delete an early report from the CIA about a political cover-up corroborated by later sources. Trump is reported to have dismissed the intelligence report about China downplaying the outbreak , believing Xi who told him that China had it under control , and Lin et al says nothing of it. Pious Brother (talk) 06:54, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

• I see a consensus is to restore the section: I don't see anything remotely approaching such a consensus. I see a minority of editors arguing for that, without any strong argument why the accusations are not already adequately covered in the existing sections.

  delete an early report from the CIA about a political cover-up corroborated by later sources: The accusations exist, but they are not "corroborated". The US government's accusations are already described in the article. However, presenting them as fact would be a violation of WP:V.

  As for sources, you seem to be arguing that speculative news/magazine articles written by non-experts 2 years ago are more reliable than the mainstream scientific literature. -Thucydides411 (talk) 08:07, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

  You have been warned of WP:NOFORUM. Any further interpretation of primary sources to supersede secondary sources will be reported in the appropriate venue. Pious Brother (talk) 08:26, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

  I don't see @Thucydides411 interpreting any PRIMARY sources to supersede secondary ones. — Shibbolethink 10:28, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

  Indeed, I haven't. I've been relying on the highest-quality available sources, such as background discussions in a public health journal (The Lancet Public Health) of the reasons for slow case confirmation in Wuhan in January-February 2020 (mainly the scarcity of PCR testing capacity). The article I've been discussing is a secondary source for this information (it also contains mathematical modeling, which is the original research contribution of the article, but that's separate from the background discussion in the article). Now, some editors are trying to rule out these highest-quality sources and insist that we rely only on speculative articles in popular media.

  The reason is clear: the highest-quality sources do not support the claims they are trying to insert in Wikivoice. We already discuss the accusations of undercounting or hiding cases in detail (maybe at too great a length). Putting them in Wikivoice or giving them even more space in the article would not be justified by the sources. -Thucydides411 (talk) 11:06, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

• Personally I would expect some scientific publications for the claims. There's no good reason not to require it. There are studies in medical journals discussing the later outbreak in India and the underreporting of cases there, for example. If there is a serious dispute as to China's COVID numbers early in the pandemic, it should be a dispute that exists in scientific sources. If it only exists in media sources and commentaries, then maybe a clear mention is worthwhile, but it can't be left as an ambiguous statement or appear to be made in wikivoice. Just my 2c. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 15:55, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

  In regards to Chinese_government_response_to_COVID-19#Accuracy_of_COVID_statistics I think the section as-exists is inappropriate. Specifically, citing to sources published in early 2020 is a problem. There was a lot of crap flying around then, on many issues related to COVID-19, much of it completely wrong in hindsight. If this is a real dispute it should be covered in newer sources. Use of older sources may be appropriate if the issue is confirmed in newer appropriate sources. See WP:AGEMATTERS. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 16:00, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

@ProcrastinatingReader: WP:AGEMATTERS pertains to scientific and academic fields. Can you show where newer sources refute these older sources? I haven't seen any. CutePeach (talk) 16:14, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

This is a scientific and academic field. Epidemiology. — Shibbolethink 20:58, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

This is also politics. Misplaced Pages has never restricted sourcing on political controversies to WP:SCHOLARSHIP and we're not going to do it just for Chinese politics. CutePeach (talk) 15:24, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

Yeah, we should avoid relying on early 2020 speculative sources for this. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 17:40, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

• @ProcrastinatingReader: Personally I would expect some scientific publications for the claims. Why do you expect to see scientific publications for what are political claims? Since when do we require scientific papers to cover what science cannot see? What is censored cannot be seen. CutePeach (talk) 16:21, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

I would like see ProcrastinatingReader's answers to these questions before restoring the section. Is WP:AGEMATTERS applicable to politics, and are there newer sources that have superceded these sources? I would like to check these sources. ScrumptiousFood (talk) 18:15, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

Replying to both pings: It doesn't necessarily need to be new sources clearly refuting old sources. (Sometimes that isn't even possible.) It can just be a lack of discussion in newer sources, which was the fate of many 'controversies' early in the pandemic. That said, I would argue that later analyses of data that supports the numbers published by the Chinese government (such as Lin et al w.r.t. HKers/Taiwanese resident in the mainland) are, in effect, refutations of the political ideas. I'd also say that, even if we assume Bloomberg had accurate data and sources regarding the conclusions of US intelligence, given the nature of intelligence collection it's not exactly sound to think that the immediate conclusion of intelligence agencies at the time is still their conclusion now. Doubly so when we're dealing with 'unnamed intelligence sources'.

Analysis can still be done on reliable data and see if more questionable numbers still make sense in light of that (c.f. Lin et al). This is an issue with a political aspect but that doesn't make the judgement of truth solely (or even primarily) a political issue. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 22:01, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

My thoughts exactly. The onus is on those seeking to insert this disputed content to show how it is the prevailing view of our best sources. At this point, I feel they have failed to meet that bar. Especially given that this is red flag content. Misplaced Pages tends to look down on anonymous sources, though there is no specific prohibition on them. The PAGs, however, explicitly discourage use of first-hand reporting, which this qualifies as. — Shibbolethink 09:09, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

@ProcrastinatingReader: your interpretation of a WP:PRIMARY source to refute and delete a slew of secondary sources goes against policy and the consensus in the RSN discussion. The Lyn et al paper uses terminology like "probably", "suggests" and "hypothesis", so it is not good for any statements of fact, and certainly doesn't supersede statements from heads of state , Chinese government officials , US intelligence officials , and leaked documents . There is absolutely nothing - ZERO - in Lyn et al that refutes the veracity of these sources. Since the accuracy section was in the article at its start , the WP:ONUS is on those of you wishing to remove it to provide sources that actually supersede its sources. Since this dispute effects is taking place over three pages , we may need to hold an RFC on a noticeboard like WP:NPOV/N - asking the question: Should allegations that China undercounted infections and deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic be included with attribution? CutePeach (talk) 15:00, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

Should allegations that China undercounted infections and deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic be included with attribution isn't really the area under dispute here. The allegations were made widely and so it would be a disservice not to mention them in some way. The disagreement seems to be on exactly how they're mentioned. Specifically, my comments above were made in the context of the section whose veracity depended entirely on the ~ April 2020 comments of unnamed intelligence officials who apparently spoke to Bloomberg, which obviously isn't appropriate. Further, I see an issue with using sources dated in early 2020 for a laundry list of reasons (c.f. WP:CONTEXTMATTERS). I would like to see more current sources that discuss the issue more holistically from a more detached POV. Recall that we aren't a newspaper and should look for these kinds of more detached sources for reliable and holistic discussion of the issue. ProcrastinatingReader (talk) 16:58, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

Should allegations that China undercounted infections and deaths during the COVID-19 pandemic be included with attribution isn't really the area under dispute here. That's just not true. I can show you 20 diffs from the monstrous discussion above where editors oppose the inclusion of these allegations, even with attribution. Your deletion of the section and its contents would be one of them, and the reason you gave is not based on policy (no newer sources dispute them), and certainly did not justify the deletion (WP:POVDELETION). This discussion is now so long that no uninvolved editor would be able to make heads to tail of it and I agree this should go to ARBCOM, but it should be bundled with the strange case of COVID-19 cover-up and how it got deleted (possibly also with a WP:DRV). The Times article I added (which you deleted) is just one of many which clearly states in the voice of the publisher that there was a cover-up. LondonIP (talk) 18:42, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

Chinese government officials: In the articles you've linked, I don't see any quotes from Chinese government officials saying that the numbers were being faked. In the WSJ article, I see one quote from a China CDC official complaining that local hospitals in Wuhan weren't using a national tracking system for cases of pneumonia with unknown etiology. In the Times (UK) article, I see complaints about the case definition being too strict. What they're discussing is the requirement for patients to have a positive PCR test in order to be counted as a confirmed case. That's a requirement that exists pretty much everywhere in the world. The only place I know of that ever waived that requirement was Hubei province, China. During the height of the outbreak, in February 2020, PCR testing capacity was seriously overstretched, so the China CDC allowed patients without PCR tests to be counted as confirmed cases (the issue is discussed in this scientific article). This is the "clinically diagnosed" category that the Times (UK) mentions. In other words, China specifically widened the case definition beyond the definition that pretty much every other country uses, so that it could count more cases. -Thucydides411 (talk) 18:20, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

They're in the article, but not quoted. Even CDC staff and public health officials said the standards for confirming cases were so abnormal that they were convinced that testing was being blocked and the case count suppressed . Your interpretation of this claim is OR, as usual. Cite your sources for your claims. WP:SOAPBOXING is relevant. LondonIP (talk) 18:51, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

Cite your sources for your claims. I just cited a scientific article about this very subject. Here it is again: "Effect of changing case definitions for COVID-19 on the epidemic curve and transmission parameters in mainland China: a modelling study", by Tsang et al. (2020) in The Lancet Public Health. What Tsang et al. explain - but what the Times (UK) article does not clearly explain - is that diagnoses were delayed because the case definition early on required a positive PCR test (just like it does pretty much everywhere). This is why the case definition was loosened in Hubei province in February 2020, to allow diagnosis without a PCR test. As Tsang et al. explain, after the acute testing shortage was overcome, the case definition was tightened again, to require a positive PCR test. This wasn't some sort of conspiracy. There simply wasn't the necessary testing capacity to keep up in Wuhan in early February 2020, and as Tsang et al. explain, this motivated a number of changes to the case definition as the epidemic progressed. I'm not just making this up. This is all widely known by people who followed the events and who read the scientific literature on the Wuhan outbreak. -Thucydides411 (talk) 00:48, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

For WP:SCHOLARSHIP, we prefer secondary sources, especially if you are trying to resolve discrepancies between them and secondary sources. Please do not give novel interpretations of primary sources. WP:NOTFORUM. Pious Brother (talk) 07:19, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

Tsang et al. is a secondary source for the information I'm discussing. The mathematical modeling section of the paper is WP:PRIMARY, but the background discussion on the case definitions in China is WP:SECONDARY. It's a far superior secondary source to a newspaper article (such as the one we're discussing in the Times), because it's written by experts who understand what cases definitions mean, why they're changed, etc. -Thucydides411 (talk) 08:07, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

• I would also agree that as is, the section is not suitable for the mainspace. It currently is just about the U.S government (which I believe no one disagrees that they do not like China) accusing China of fake stats, with some random quote from the Chinese CDC to make the section seem legitimate. There are legitimate concerns regarding how China's reporting of asymptomatic cases which could be used as a basis for a revamped section however. Jumpytoo Talk 20:19, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

Why do you keep repeating that the allegations are just from governments? They are not just from the US government, or the British government or Chinese governments officials. The claims are also made by reliable sources like CNN, The Times with leaked documents and confidential sources. I agree to revamping the section, with a chronological order of claims, starting with the CIA report LIP added. CutePeach (talk) 15:07, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

Then why were such sources not used in the section? In the most recent attempt, to quote the entire section: According to Bloomberg News, a classified report to the White House in March 2020, the US intelligence community concluded that China concealed the extent of the outbreak and under-reported both total cases and deaths. The New York Times reported that the CIA warned the White House since early February that China had "vastly understated its coronavirus infections" and could not be relied upon by the United States. The Chinese government rejected the allegations, saying the US wanted to shift blame for their own delayed response to the outbreak. The Times reported that China CDC staff and public health officials said that "the standards for confirming cases were so abnormal that they were convinced that testing was being blocked and the case count suppressed."

The section currently solely describes statements by 2 US government sources, and 1 Chinese government source. No independent analysis by journalists, and no analysis by scientific sources. It has been 2 years since the pandemic started. If there is such a coverup, there should be plenty of sources across a wide timeline in both media and academic to support this. I suggest what I mentioned earlier to revamp the section with a wide range of WP:BESTSOURCES on the basis of the asymptomatic case issue, and put it on the talk page first for review and to achieve a consensus. Jumpytoo Talk 04:53, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

The section you are referring to was a revamp of an earlier section, and both of them were deleted for dubious reasons. For the third revamp, which secondary sources from the deleted sections and the list cited above do you propose to include with what claims? I propose this article from FT about what Xi knew. Pious Brother (talk) 07:05, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

• Restore the section or open an RFC. There was no consensus to remove it and no consensus means restoring it — Preceding unsigned comment added by Faiqaqazi844 (talk • contribs) 10:55, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

WP:V

This revert flies in the face of WP:V. In particular, it restores a verifiably-false sentence to the lead. In particular, as I explained in my edit summary , the statement On 8 January 2020, a new coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2) was identified by Chinese scientists as the cause of the symptoms. is simply not true. The virus had been identified by January 5 at the latest. See the NPR source in my edit.. There was a later announcement of the earlier identification, and a still later release of the viral sequence. Adoring nanny (talk) 16:34, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

I would say regardless of how/if the lead should be changed....your edit introduced too much detail into the lead, which instead should be a very brief summary. It also editorialized and inserted POV criticism into the lead where not supported by the sources, and if it were, it would need to be done in an NPOV manner.But as to your original question here, sequencing a virus is not actually enough to identify it as the cause of a disease. This is something people get wrong a lot, and especially about viruses. It was a big problem with the Mojiang Mine conspiracy as well. You can't just sequence a virus in somebody who's sick and say "This is the cause!" because people have all kinds of viruses circulating under the radar all the time! Often, they're clinically silent, and sometimes they're persistent! You have to do a few other things to show it's really the cause of the illness: collectively, called "Rivers' criteria." These were fulfilled for SARS-CoV-2 later on. At the time, they were ANNOUNCING a virus that they believed to be the cause. it took the full publication of all the findings from Shi zhengli and George Gao's labs to really get to the "confirmation". — Shibbolethink 16:52, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

Do you have a source that isn't YouTube? Would make it easier to support this suggested change. –Novem Linguae (talk) 16:54, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

@Novem Linguae: https://www.pbs.org/wgbh/frontline/film/chinas-covid-secrets/transcript/ ––FormalDude talk 16:56, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

@FormalDude: @Novem Linguae: The transcript is pretty good, and I use it myself at times. However, it unfortunately does not contain all of the information in the video. For example, see the messages reproduced on screen in the sequence from 12:27-14:10. The messages do not appear in the transcript. However, from the transcript, one does get the gist, namely that on December 26, 2019, Vision Medicals knew they had a fragment of a SARS bat-like Coronavirus. Adoring nanny (talk) 18:03, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

I wrote a more NPOV version imo, but I think even my version should still be trimmed down. I think it's important we use the most up to date sources however, as you'll note that Zhang Yongzhen publicly disputes the version of events described above — Shibbolethink 17:20, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

I've removed the claim that Zhang was "in direct opposition" to the order. We need to be careful to follow WP:BLP here. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 17:28, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

Heard you loud and clear, and completely agree. I've now written it as "Unbeknownst to Yongzhen" is that better? — Shibbolethink 17:31, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

It is funny, as an aside, to consider that, if Zongzhen had just received the samples in the mail like 2-3 days earlier, this entire thing would probably never have become an international controversy or fodder for hawkish posturing about government cover ups. Because Yongzhen's submission would have happened before the order from the NHC. — Shibbolethink 17:33, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

Too many changes for me to keep up with at the moment. I may have time for a deep dive later. I will say that the Frontline at a minimum strongly implies, if not outright says, that Zhang was aware of the order. I'd encourage other editors to check that part of the source. Definitely don't say that he was unaware. Adoring nanny (talk) 17:37, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

Some experts dispute the characterization you had in your original edit. Frankly we probably need a whole section on this. See below:

And, in fact, Zhang insists he first uploaded the genome to the U.S. National Center for Biotechnology Information (NCBI) on Jan. 5—an assertion corroborated by the submission date listed on the U.S government institution’s Genbank....(Approached by TIME, Holmes deferred to Zhang’s version of events.)

It’s difficult to know what conclusions to draw. Dr. Dale Fisher, head of infectious diseases at Singapore’s National University Hospital, says he doesn’t think that any delay by the Chinese authorities was malicious. “It was more like appropriate verification,” he says. Fisher traveled to China as part of a World Health Organization (WHO) delegation in early February and says outbreak settings are always confusing and chaotic with people unsure what to believe.

— Shibbolethink 17:46, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

Thanks, that is better, though it may still need work. I'll try to take a closer look at this later. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 17:44, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

is there any way you could provide the quote from Yongzhen that shows he was unaware of the order/notice? I can't find that but I also haven't looked very hard... The edit about it on Yongzhen's wiki page uses this source: which doesn't precisely say that, but does say that it was an order for local labs, and Yongzhen's lab was in Shanghai, not Wuhan. It says this: Holmes says the team had held off because of the government order, but Zhang says he wasn’t aware of the edict at the time but it also says Holmes disputed this to Nature, and he of course did not dispute in the Time piece as I described above. So I've just attributed to Zhang. We do need to put this somewhere in the body, per WP:LEAD — Shibbolethink 17:46, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

I agree, with multiple sources saying different things, it is probably a complicated question. Being aware of only one such source, I probably oversimplified it in my WP:IMPERFECT first attempt. I'll try to get back to this when I have more time. Adoring nanny (talk) 18:06, 26 January 2022 (UTC)

@Shibbolethink: I looked at the current version of the article and at the Time and nature sources. The part about Zhang, I think, is confusing in one respect. The submission to GenBank was a release of the sequence beyond China. However, it did not, in and of itself, make the sequence public, because their review process takes time. The public release of the sequence was on 11 January. That's the key date the lead needs to contain. According to Time, that's what "sent shockwaves through the global scientific community." So I think that's the most important date to have in the lead.

I don't think the article needs to attack Zhang. I realize my earlier version probably appeared that way, which can simply be considered a mistake on my part. That said, I think the lead does need to say that the Government forbade the publication of the sequence, as this portion was a Government response, so it's part of the article topic. I also think it needs to say that the public release was on 11 January, and that this was not done by the Government.

Both Frontline and Time go into the fact that after the public release, Zhang's lab was closed for "rectification". I think we should mention this in the body but not in the lead. I'll hold off on any article editing for the moment. But those are my thoughts. Adoring nanny (talk) 03:31, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

I agree with the Jan 11th date, my only qualm is that if we include only this date, it looks as though Zhang kept the sequence out of public view, when in fact he did not. If we have to pick one of these dates (and I think we should, for the sake of brevity), then I think we should pick Jan 5. The same day he got the sequence, he submitted it to GenBank. I think that's a very important part as well. Re: the rectification mention in the body, yes, I would agree it needs to be mentioned there. And it should be contextualized with Zhang's statements about it being taken out of context, that it was more about meeting biosafety concerns, and not punishment. He was pretty clear about this in the Time article! — Shibbolethink 18:41, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

For once I am in more-or-less complete agreement with User:Shibbolethink. I would only add that the article is about the Chinese Government, not about Zhang. It looks to me like the Chinese Government was striving to keep the sequence out of view, while Zhang was striving to get it released. We should not make it look like Zhang was trying to hide anything. His attempts to get it into public view don't really need to be in the lead, but they also could be, depending on how one juggles all the considerations here. How one does all of that with brevity I don't know. I may make an attempt. If it fails on any of the multiple criteria we are trying to fulfill, it's probably out of the difficulty of fulfilling all of them, not out of any fundamental disagreement. Adoring nanny (talk) 18:47, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

the article is about the Chinese Government, not about Zhang my only thing about this is that, even in non-BLP articles, we cannot write something that would be a BLP issue. We cannot, for instance, say that the first time the sequence was "released" was Jan 11, because that would be incorrect and would also not be fair to Zhang as a BLP. — Shibbolethink 18:49, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

Well, lol. I thought we understood each other on this one. It was first publicly released on Jan. 11. I don't have any problem with including the earlier non-public release, though it runs into brevity issues as we then need to make clear that the earlier release was not a public release. Having been reverted, I'm not going to try again right now. But I don't object if you want to. To me, the key point that does need to be included is that the public release was on Jan. 11. I also don't mind saying that Zhang sequenced it on Jan. 5. The sources are clear on that. But I would not say that Jan. 5 was the first time it was sequenced. The NHC order seems to imply that this might have happened by Jan. 3, and this (possibly opinion) piece also has an earlier date. So there is confusion about what date was first. I still think we are pretty close. Adoring nanny (talk) 00:11, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

I would consider the idea of earlier than Jan 3 complete sequencing to be WP:OR given only those sources. — Shibbolethink 00:27, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

I'm not trying to push the Jan. 3 date. We could sidestep all of that by saying that Zhang sequenced it on Jan. 5, but not taking any position on the question of whether or not Zhang was first. Adoring nanny (talk) 00:47, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

The details of how the first genome was published, the lab that published it, etc. are too much for the lede. The lede should just briefly mention that a novel coronavirus was publicly identified by the China CDC as the causative agent on 9 January 2020, and that the sequence was published by Zhang Yongzhen on 11 January. The rest of the details (many of which are in dispute) can be covered in a subsection in the body. -Thucydides411 (talk)

Well Thucydes, I would tell you that he submitted it on Jan 5. I suppose if we say "released to the media" on Jan 11, that is still a fair and accurate statement. — Shibbolethink 18:44, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

I agree that this is too much detail for the lead, though I'm not sure how best to summarize. It might be simplest to just say "January 2020" in the lead and discuss the complexity around the exact dates in the body. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 18:50, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

@Shibbolethink and Mx. Granger: How about writing fully sequenced and published in early January 2020 in the lede, and leaving the details to the body? -Thucydides411 (talk) 04:15, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Yes that would be fine with me. — Shibbolethink 12:35, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

For me, that does not work. The fact is that the Government of China withheld this critical information for approximately 1-2 weeks, depending on which portion of the genome we are talking about. The thesis of the FRONTLINE documentary I keep linking to is that the Chinese Government hurt the world's chances of containing the virus by this type of action. We shouldn't gloss over it, especially not in the lead. Adoring nanny (talk) 19:20, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Frontline is not in a position to make that sort of determination. It's popular media: a TV show produced by non-experts. There are much stronger sources out there, such as the scientific literature on the epidemiology of the pandemic. Here's an editorial in The BMJ, commenting on China's response to the initial outbreak:

Just how effective the outbreak seems to have been contained is astonishing.

Later in the same article:

the success of the interventions demonstrates that strict and rapid response to an emerging epidemic can halt the spread of a new virus.

A news article in The Lancet leads off with this:

While the world is struggling to control COVID-19, China has managed to control the pandemic rapidly and effectively. How was that possible?

The article also quotes several experts, who say things like the following:

“The speed of China's response was the crucial factor”, explains Gregory Poland, director of the Vaccine Research Group at the Mayo Clinic (Rochester, Minnesota, USA). “They moved very quickly to stop transmission. Other countries, even though they had much longer to prepare for the arrival of the virus, delayed their response and that meant they lost control”.

I don't see why we should be using popular media to characterize the Chinese government's response to COVID-19 at all. Popular media sources are low quality for information about epidemiology or public health. The main thing that popular media sources have to add on these subjects, beyond what the scientific sources already tell us, are various political and nationalistic biases (of the type you'd expect to find, say, in coverage of China in American popular media).

If we have to resort to popular media to cover some aspects of this subject, I would be very cautious and steer clear of relying on them to make any claims about epidemiology (e.g., whether or not the virus would have spread out of China had the Chinese government responded any differently), the efficacy of public health measures, etc. -Thucydides411 (talk) 12:34, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Frontline and popular media are perfectly fine for this determination. They have high editorial standards and they fact check their claims. Without better sources refuting these RS, there is no reason we wouldn't use them. ScrumptiousFood (talk) 16:22, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

When it comes to scientific questions (such as the epidemiological questions we're discussing here), popular media is terrible, and generally has extremely poor editorial standards. Scientific journals are far superior for these sorts of questions: the papers are written by experts, there's expert peer review, and the editors themselves are usually experienced scientists in a relevant field. I would read Bloomberg for news about the stock market, but God help me if I ever resort to relying on them for their epidemiological claims. -Thucydides411 (talk) 22:19, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

That looks reasonable to me ("fully sequenced and published in early January 2020") as a concise summary that accurately reflects the sources. We can go into more detail in the body. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 20:17, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

• The details relating to how the first genome was published are arguably very WP:DUE for the lead. While this wouldn't compliment the CCP's narrative of events, the closure of the lab that first published the sequence was widely reported , and Zhang Yongzhen cannot be used as an WP:INDEPENDENT source to dispute these reports - given what we know of Xi's "game of chess". It's really not clear which lab was first to sequence the virus and publish it, given all the censorship of COVID-19 data - but it is a very important matter on the subject of government response to a disease outbreak. CutePeach (talk) 14:27, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

  He's not an independent source, but he is an RSOPINION, so his version of events should be covered. It would also be a BLP violation to show the view you're expressing but not Zhang's view. The view and facts expressed in the article that quotes him are RS-worthy, and help us understand the consensus version of events as well. These sources (e.g. Time) show there is disagreement also among experts about whether the lab closure was "punishment." — Shibbolethink 16:26, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

  My point was that the details of how the genome was first published are due in the lead, and since it was the government that issued the gag order on COVID-19 data and shut down Zhang's COVID-19 research, there is no BLP violation here (remember this?). I have no objection to using Zhang's response in his own bio, but I would object to using him as an independent source to challenge or refute a report from a secondary source in this page. Most respondents to my RFC on RSN agree Chinese academics are not WP:INDEPENDENT sources to be used in such a manner due to the COVID-19 gag order foisted upon them by the Chinese government. CutePeach (talk) 14:25, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

• Most respondents to my RFC on RSN agree Chinese academics are not WP:INDEPENDENT sources This is mathematically not true. As of right now, by pure tally, most respondents to the RFC have said that your question is loaded and overly broad, and should be closed with no action. Be careful drawing consensus about unclosed threads, and recognize that majority=/=conclusion. AKA don't count your chickens before they hatch.
• remember this? This is irrelevant, as we are talking about besmirching the reputation of an individual (Zhang), not an organization. We can't go around saying bad things about people (that his lab was closed because he was being punished) and not publishing what that person said about it in RSes (that it was not punishment).
• I would object to using him as an independent source to challenge or refute a report from a secondary source Well, then it's a good thing we'd be using a secondary independent RS (the Time article) to present his view, not his own self-published ideas.

— Shibbolethink 14:31, 30 January 2022 (UTC)

My RFC vote was that Chinese academics are not independent on censored subjects and this is one of those subjects. True or not, I do not think we should object to using Zhang's response in Time and Nature magazine, as they are part of the narrative of events. It is only a problem if his response is used to omit the reports about the closure of his lab for "rectification" and omission of his contribution from the "official narrative" . His response to the western press could have been directed by the 中宣部, and there is no way he would have been allowed to talk without their approval, so we have to exercise caution. CP can withdraw their RFC and focus it to this question if this dispute becomes protracted. ScrumptiousFood (talk) 17:33, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

• It is well known that Chinese President Xi Jinping’s regime censored early reports that a new, deadly coronavirus had emerged in Wuhan and hid evidence of human-to-human transmission, thereby enabling a local outbreak to become a global calamity. What remains to be determined is whether COVID-19 emerged naturally in wildlife or was leaked from a lab — namely, the Wuhan Institute of Virology (WIV) . ← all of this is due in the lead imo. Maybe not in the first paragraph, and maybe not with this source, but perhaps in the second or third paragraph with two or three of the many sources covering these details. ScrumptiousFood (talk) 06:59, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

That's an opinion piece. The claims made in that passage are extremely dubious, at best, and are not due in the article, let alone the lede. -Thucydides411 (talk) 10:17, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Which claims did you find dubious? ScrumptiousFood (talk) 10:39, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Every claim in that passage. The outbreak was announced within 3 days of the first suspicious test results, a novel virus was identified as the cause within less than two weeks, clear evidence of human-to-human transmission did not emerge until mid-January, and the lab-leak hypothesis is a scientifically fringe conspiracy theory. -Thucydides411 (talk) 12:04, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

Which sources claim:

1. The outbreak was announced within 3 days of the first suspicious test results
2. The novel virus was identified as the cause within less than two weeks
3. Clear evidence of human-to-human transmission did not emerge until mid-January
4. The lab-leak hypothesis is a scientifically fringe conspiracy theory

If editors agree your sources are good, we can use them to balance the claims made in RS like SCMP and Caixin . ScrumptiousFood (talk) 12:57, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

The fact that the first test results were delivered on 27 December 2019 and that public health authorities in Wuhan first began announcing the outbreak on 30 December is widely known (this is covered in the Caixin articles you linked, for example). The virus was first isolated on 3 January 2020, and the China CDC held a meeting with the US CDC on that same day, informing them about the discovery of a novel coronavirus. Top US government officials apparently concluded from the meeting that the outbreak was "a very big deal" (there's a news article about this meeting here). The novel coronavirus was publicly announced as the cause of the pneumonia cases on 7 January 2020 (as discussed by the WHO here). As for human-to-human transmission, most of the cases that were known about early on were linked to the Huanan seafood market. There was speculation, but the first clearly identified cases of human-to-human transmission were in mid-January 2020. I'm not going to go into the lab-leak conspiracy theory, because this has been covered endlessly elsewhere on Misplaced Pages, and I don't want to rehash that conversation.

we can use them to balance the claims made in RS: You're asserting that these sources back up your claims, but as I've pointed out, they confirm the timeline I'm explaining to you. Wide-ranging claims of a cover-up simply do not match up with the well documented timeline: the outbreak was announced 3 days after the first test results, the Chinese government informed the US government on 3 January 2020 of the novel coronavirus, etc. -Thucydides411 (talk) 22:49, 1 February 2022 (UTC)

Opinion pieces generally aren't reliable for statements of fact, per WP:RSOPINION. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 21:40, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

"hide information about" in the opening sentence.

I recently changed the opening sentence to read During the COVID-19 pandemic in mainland China, the government of China and the ruling Chinese Communist Party (CCP) took various actions to prevent the spread of and to hide information about COVID-19. The part about hiding information was my addition. It has since been removed at least twice, and re-added at least once, with the result that it is no longer in the article.

I think it belongs. This article was started in part to contain information in the now-redirected article China COVID-19 cover-up allegations. The community felt that it was better to have the information in that article presented in this one instead. Fine. But if so, then this article should actually present the information from that article. Otherwise, it's not really a merge-and-redirect, which was the intent.

Furthermore, considerable portions of the article pertain to China's ongoing attempts to hide information. Some of these have now been deleted, and some of those deletions are questionable, which is an issue I will take up separately. That said, we still have a section on Early censorship and police responses, and a lengthy section on censorship and propaganda. Considerable portions of other sections, including the section on Xi's actions, Xinjiang, and virus origin investigations, also pertain to hiding of information. So per MOS:LEAD, it belongs. Adoring nanny (talk) 00:47, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

The intent of the merge and redirect was to have a broader article about the Chinese government response to COVID-19, rather than one more narrowly focused on a particular point of view.

It seems to me that the main instance of "hiding information about COVID-19" that this article actually covers is the warning to Dr. Li Wenliang in the first days by local police not to post information on Weixin. This was in the days after the health authorities in Wuhan publicly announced the outbreak. Boiling this down to "hid information about COVID-19" is very partial, because the government also took many steps to spread information about the outbreak, and because it conflates actions taken by local officials with national government actions.

I don't know what is meant by hiding information about Xinjiang: data on cases in Xinjiang is published just like data on cases from all other provinces. This data is actually very granular, often down to the level of the neighborhood, age and gender of each person who tests positive, along with a list of the places they've recently visited. This is a typical example of such a report. I know we currently make a statement in the article about information from Xinjiang being uncertain. The statement is sourced to an article in an American popular magazine that couches the statement as a claim made by a human rights activist. We can't put such a claim in Wikivoice, much less use it as the basis for a Wikivoice claim in the opening sentence of the article.

In addition to that, I don't see why "Chinese Communist Party (CCP)" was added to the opening sentence. It has become fashionable in the US (particularly since Pompeo became Secretary of State, I believe) to constantly inject "Chinese Communist Party" or "CCP" (or both) into every discussion of the Chinese government, usually in a sinister tone of voice. On Misplaced Pages, it just does not come across as neutral writing. We're discussing the actions of the Chinese government. I think everyone knows which party rules China, and that can be mentioned in the body of the article where relevant.

Stepping back for a moment, I've actually felt for a while that the entire opening sentence is superfluous. I don't see what it adds to the article. Yes, just like almost all governments, the Chinese government took steps to prevent or slow the spread of the virus. I would be in favor of removing the first sentence entirely. If we do feel the need to include some pithy opening sentence to frame the topic, it should focus on the most prominent aspect of China's governmental response to COVID-19, which is the Zero-COVID policy. That is the policy that has dominated China's pandemic response over the last two years, and which continues to dominate it. -Thucydides411 (talk) 02:00, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

I'd be OK with that, provided we bring back the cover-up article for cover-up-related information. Of course, that would take a community decision. We might want to retitle this article in such a case. Adoring nanny (talk) 21:33, 27 January 2022 (UTC)

That would be a WP:POVFORK. Misplaced Pages is supposed to cover topics of encyclopedic value in a balanced way, and creating articles that specifically cover (or even promote) specific points of view on current events is not in line with that mission. -Thucydides411 (talk) 02:08, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Indeed we already cover information regarding this and creating seperate article for it should not be done as previous consensus indicates. Xoltered (talk) 03:33, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Fine, but the decision was "Merge and redirect", not "Merge then delete". If we don't want to revisit the existing "Merge and redirect" consensus, our opening sentence should remain consistent with both that consensus. And it should definitely remain consistent with WP:LEAD. Adoring nanny (talk) 12:32, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Why not put it as a separate sentence later on in the LEAD? Perhaps even as a partial attribution: Some commentators (e.g XYZ) have decried the actions of the Chinese government as intended to cover up the disease early on. — Shibbolethink 12:34, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

The "hide information about" does not need attribution. And I think it's parallel with the Government's attempts to fight the disease. This article was intended to encompass both topics. The phrase "Government response to" supports that, and I think the choice of title was deliberately made to do so. In light of that, I think it would be inappropriate to have the lead favor one aspect of the "government response" over the other. Both are aspects of the Gov't response, and the sourcing for both is overwhelming. Adoring nanny (talk) 12:39, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

@Shibbolethink: The lede already has almost an entire paragraph dedicated to criticism of the Chinese government censorship:

Some have criticised the censorship of information that might be unfavorable for local officials. Observers have attributed this to a culture of institutional censorship affecting the country's press and Internet. The government censored whistleblowers, journalists and social media posts about the outbreak. During the beginning of the pandemic, the Chinese government made efforts to clamp down on discussion and hide reporting about it. Efforts to fund and control research into the virus's origins and to promote fringe theories about the virus have continued up to the present.

I actually think this subject might have too much weight in the lede, at the moment. This paragraph also contains somewhat inaccurate statements, particularly when it says, the Chinese government made efforts to clamp down on discussion and hide reporting about it. This seems to imply that the Chinese government tried to hide the existence of the outbreak, which is not true. The outbreak was announced in official news channels, including CCTV (state media), on 31 December 2019. What is true is that various levels of government tried to control the release of information for various reasons (e.g., avoiding causing panic, preventing preliminary/uncertain information from coming out). This paragraph needs some rewriting to make it clearer that existence of the outbreak was not kept secret, but that there were some efforts to control release of information. -Thucydides411 (talk) 14:30, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Yeah.... I have no idea why this is not enough. I think this is a perfect proportionality to the coverage in our sources, agree it may almost be too much. It's basically 50ish% of the lead at this point, but not 50ish% of the sources. — Shibbolethink 16:14, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

The problem here is MOS:FIRST. The Chinese Govt response has had two main components. Other than the very beginning, one has been COVID zero. The other is information hiding. Both should be set out right at the start, before going into detail. Adoring nanny (talk) 12:10, 29 January 2022 (UTC)

I think this is a perfect proportionality to the coverage in our sources ← There are many sources that have yet to be added to the page, like this critical report by Tom Mitchell of Financial Times this revelational report by Nick Walsh of CNN or this report by the staff of the BBC . The lead of the article on the Chinese government's response to what it perceived as an overpopulation crisis in the 1970s is also largely critical, and there is no two ways about it. ScrumptiousFood (talk) 16:14, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

status quo ante

Could someone please take a look at the history and decide what they think is an appropriate stable version of the opening sentence to use while discussion about it is ongoing. Adoring nanny (talk) 12:43, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Here's the timeline I'm seeing:

1. Thucydides411 comment: If we do feel the need to include some pithy opening sentence to frame the topic, it should focus on the most prominent aspect of China's governmental response to COVID-19, which is the Zero-COVID policy. That is the policy that has dominated China's pandemic response over the last two years, and which continues to dominate it.

2. Adoring nanny comment: I'd be OK with that

3. Xoltered edit: added specificity to the first sentence by talking about zero-covid (as suggested on talk page)

So it seems you agreed to this? At least, it was proposed on the talk page. ––FormalDude talk 13:01, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

NO. The "Provided" in my answer was the critical part, and no one seems to be agreeing to it that I can see. For example, have you changed your mind on the delete/redirect of the cover-up article? Adoring nanny (talk) 13:57, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

the delete/redirect of the cover up article is settled consensus at this point, it should not be revisited unless something substantial changes in the sources, or a significant amount of time passes. Certainly it is too early to revisit at this point. — Shibbolethink 16:22, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

We all agree on starting with zero-covid but Adoring Nanny continues to try to undo the previous consensus regarding the cover-up article and related phrasing in this article. Xoltered (talk) 14:01, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

No, please don't misconstrue my proposal of two linked changes as an agreement to do one of the changes without the other. I did not and do not agree with that. So the "we all" part of the above is simply not true. This is similar to the situation between me and another user elsewhere on this page. He thinks certain changes could be done, provided they are linked. I did some of the changes he wanted, but not all of them to his satisfaction. I have therefore not tried to push any change to the status quo ante prior to consensus, as it has not been reached. Adoring nanny (talk) 14:07, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

Oh, i see, i thought you were supportive of that since you said "I don't mind having covid zero early in the lead." in your edit summary but i suppose not. Xoltered (talk) 14:10, 28 January 2022 (UTC)

There is no good status quo for this article or the lead. It will not be possible to have a well written neutral article or lead unless we restrict primary sources and rely exclusively on independent secondary sources. I removed the zero COVID from the lead because that term wasn't used till much later in 2021. The zero COVID page is also using too many primary sources and is very unbalanced. ScrumptiousFood (talk) 17:27, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

It may not have always been called Zero-Covid, but thats what their strategy is called now, including their initial strategy. Xoltered (talk) 20:38, 31 January 2022 (UTC)

draft of the first paragraph

I am starting a draft of the first paragraph. It is a recent version which I wrote but was of course promptly reverted. I invite other users to contribute. I am particularly interested in contributions from people who disagree with me a lot but are among the cooler heads of contributors here.

User:Adoring nanny/sandbox/cgr is the draft

Despite the fact that I wrote it, I think this initial version is frankly terrible. In particular, the sentences after the first two do not connect will with the first two at all. That said, I think it does at least conform to MOS:FIRST.

I do have one request for contributors to the draft. Please let me have the "last word" on reverts for now, both on the draft and its talk page. I will use this to keep the discussion on track, not to push my own POV. In other words, if I think your edit is on track towards trying to get some kind of consensus, then I will leave it even if I disagree. It's my sandbox, but I do want to work towards consensus among people with diverse views. The way the editing and discussion of the article itself are going, I don't think that is likely to happen there at the moment. If you think I am abusing this, you can let me know at User talk:Adoring nanny/sandbox/cgr/adoringnannysucks. Adoring nanny (talk) 05:04, 2 February 2022 (UTC)

Discussion of article content should really go here, on the article talk page. -Thucydides411 (talk) 09:20, 6 February 2022 (UTC)

In general I agree with that. But it wasn't working here at that particular moment. An invitation for further contributions. If there aren't any, I'm likely to put it into the article for editors to do with as they see fit. Adoring nanny (talk) 10:13, 8 February 2022 (UTC)

Now that we need admin approval for any change to the article, I'll renew my call to other editors to come work on the draft of the first paragraph. It's still WP:IMPERFECT. Adoring nanny (talk) 18:04, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

This is a great idea. Can you give a high level idea of the scope for this draft? Pious Brother (talk) 07:23, 15 February 2022 (UTC)

POV tag

@CutePeach and Thucydides411: Please stop edit-warring over the POV tag. CutePeach, since you added the tag, it would be helpful if you could discuss your concerns here on the talk page. Most of the discussions above have not had new comments in more than a week. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 16:41, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

The tag really has to be substantiated here on the talk page or removed. As it is, I see no basis for adding it. I see a talk page without any major active discussions. The only "issue" I see, if it can be called that, is a suggestion from a few weeks ago that we add scientifically discredited speculation from two years ago in the popular media about much higher death tolls in China, which is a non-starter. We're obviously not going to include long-ago discredited conspiracy theories in the article.

If there are actual neutrality issues in the article, they should be raised here. Tagging the page without actually raising concrete concerns on the talk page is inappropriate. -Thucydides411 (talk) 18:23, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

I believe it is called "drive-by" tagging. It must be supported by consensus here on the talk page. If there is no consensus to support there being an NPOV issue, then the tag is removed. That's the process outlined in the PAG. — Shibbolethink 19:01, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

@Shibbolethink: I agree with you about WP:DRIVEBY. However, I don't think you need a consensus to tag. What you do need is an explained POV issue that makes sense. I don't think USER:CutePeach has provided one yet. However, I have got to say that I think I have provided one in my MOS:FIRST issue. I don't like tagging things because it's ugly and annoying. For that reason, I've held off. But I'm getting close on this one. The article should follow MOS:FIRST and it doesn't. It's that simple. Adoring nanny (talk) 00:17, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

I don't really see what part of MOS:FIRST supports your argument here. — Shibbolethink 02:03, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

Why are you arguing about a POV tag instead of trying to resolve the dispute? Let's resolve the dispute in the alleged under-counting and then we can remove the tag. See Template:POV#When_to_remove. Francesco espo (talk) 23:48, 10 February 2022 (UTC)

Because no one quite knows what the "dispute" is. Is the "dispute" the fact that we aren't giving more weight to 2-year-old, scientifically discredited speculation from popular media? The death toll and level of infection in China are very well established by numerous scientific studies. A consensus developed in previous discussions that we should give more weight to the scientific view, so I'm at a loss as to what the "dispute" is here. -Thucydides411 (talk) 00:53, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

The death toll and level of infection in China are very well established by numerous scientific studies. This is the dispute, which is why there is 50k word discussion above and a 100k word discussion on RSN. Please don't act dumb.

A consensus developed… No it has not and you know it. CutePeach (talk) 13:34, 12 February 2022 (UTC)

This is the dispute: It's not in dispute at all in the scientific literature, and repeated attempts to insert discredited conspiracy theories from two years ago are getting tiresome and, frankly, disruptive at this point. -Thucydides411 (talk) 15:09, 12 February 2022 (UTC)

It would seem you are having some trouble reading the room. Perhaps a formal close of the RFC on RSN would clarify doubts. LondonIP (talk) 00:58, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

I think it certainly would. But be careful what you wish for. RfC closes are definitive for some time, and it may not come out the way you think. — Shibbolethink 02:04, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

My opinion -- the Covid-zero absolutely belongs in the lead. It has unquestionably been a part of China's response, and sources have documented it extensively. I don't think that removing it is helpful. The same is true of misinformation, secrecy, and censorship. All four components have been well-documented by sources and are exclusively covered in the body, and they absolutely belong in the lead, including (per MOS:FIRST) the first sentence, or a sentence very close to the first one, if the length of that sentence is a problem, which seems to be the case. However, if we can't agree on both of those elements, then I think there is a dispute, and in that case we do need a tag. I would be interested to hear what the other participants in this discussion think of that. Pinging all participants in this discussion @CutePeach, Mx. Granger, Francesco espo, Thucydides411, and Shibbolethink:. If I missed anyone, others should feel free to add. Adoring nanny (talk) 17:09, 12 February 2022 (UTC)

In my opinion, zero COVID belongs in the lead, but not in the first paragraph. The Chinese government's response and its zero COVID strategy (by that term) isn't found in RS till late 2021, as noted also by ScrumptiousFood . The zero COVID term was coined by the Independent SAGE in the UK and only adopted by China in late 2021 to explain its fantastically low infection and fatality count , which is also being promoted on Misplaced Pages with the same rational. Any mention of zero COVID as part of the Chinese government's response should be properly sourced without any SYNTH. LondonIP (talk) 01:45, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

Though the term "zero-COVID" may not have been coined until 2021, the goal of eliminating all COVID-19 transmission is the defining feature of China's COVID-19 response, and has been since early in the pandemic. It should be a core focus of the lead. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 07:53, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

Covid zero is just the term coined for Covid-19. The process has always been called...Find, Test, Trace, Isolate and Support" or (FTTIS)" as seen in academic publications. This problem of group tagging and same vague argument is spilling over into related articles, talks pages and a DYK nomination.--Moxy- 19:31, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

Yes, it appears to be a rather strict set of POV editing to remove any mention of this strategy or its similar mentions. — Shibbolethink 21:02, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

Comment with the latest attempt I made to fix the lead, and the subsequent revert, I am reluctantly shifting my position. I'm afraid I now support the tag. I've explained quite clearly why the current lead is POV, and neither discussion nor a couple of edits are helping. I don't like to do this, and I hope we can find a consensus and get rid of the tag soon. Adoring nanny (talk) 19:51, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

first paragraph

I think the first paragraph needs something like the following:

The government of China has also responded to the pandemic with censorship, secrecy, and misinformation.

It's a part of the Chinese Government's response to the pandemic and is well documented by sources. Furthermore, per MOS:FIRST and WP:LEAD, these topics, which are heavily covered in the body, should be in the lead -- and the first sentence. The move to later in the first paragraph was a suggestion at my draft. While MOS:FIRST suggests it shouldn't be moved like that, failing to do so makes the first sentence unreasonably long, so I'm OK with it. Adoring nanny (talk) 11:18, 11 February 2022 (UTC)

• Agreed, but disinformation would be more accurate. CutePeach (talk) 13:36, 12 February 2022 (UTC)

• There was just a discussion on this in the above thread, "hide information about" in the opening sentence. Opening up a new section on the exact same topic is confusing. As you can see above, several editors objected to very :similar wording to what you've proposed here. I can just repeat what I said above:

• The allegations of secrecy, misinformation and censorship are already discussed later in the lede. If anything, they have too much weight in the lede.
• The zero-COVID policy is the major element of China's response to COVID-19, overshadowing all other aspects of the response by a large margin. This is a major policy that China has followed over the last two years, which has received massive attention in both the media and the scientific literature, and which is very different from how most countries responded to the pandemic.

I'll just add one more consideration:

• The focus on censorship, secrecy and misinformation is very one-sided and misleading. As has been very well documented in the media, Chinese authorities publicly announced the outbreak in Wuhan within days of the first patients being identified, the China CDC briefed the US government days later, on 3 January 2020, and announced that a novel coronavirus was responsible on 7 January, and Chinese scientists published the genetic sequence of the virus on 10 January. Most of this is before the first known death due to COVID-19, on 9 January. There were also some instances of secrecy and censorship, such as local authorities in Wuhan reprimanding the doctor Li Wenliang for sharing preliminary information on social media, but this is only part of the story. The other side of it is that a lot of information about the outbreak and the virus was rapidly discovered and published. Boiling this all down to a statement that "China has also responded with censorship, secrecy and misinformation" is not WP:NPOV.

The issue of censorship, secrecy and misinformation is already covered later on in the lede. That part of the lede could be worked on, but this material is not DUE for the first paragraph of the lede, and it should be represented in a neutral manner. -Thucydides411 (talk) 15:30, 12 February 2022 (UTC)

Not sure what is the relevance of an editor's opinion that Covid-zero was "the major element of China's response". In any case, sources don't treat it that way. Adoring nanny (talk) 16:48, 12 February 2022 (UTC)

• While I definitely the censorship/misinformation is appropriate for the lede, it feels clunky/jarring to put it in the first paragraph? Especially since it doesn't get touched upon again until 7 paragraphs later. I think in general, the lede has way too much timeline information that should be trimmed. Using U.S. federal government response to the COVID-19 pandemic as a reference, what I'm thinking of for the full lede that would give an more appropriate summary to the main topics would be:

• Paragraph 1: Describe the zero-COVID strategy, and how China applied it in the initial Wuhan outbreak (a merger of the current lede paragraph 1, 3, 4)
• Paragraph 2: Describe how China continues to apply zero-COVID to this day (the current lede paragraph 5)
• Paragraph 3: Describe the censorship/misinformation (the current lede paragraph 7)

Jumpytoo Talk 21:11, 12 February 2022 (UTC)

@Jumpytoo: The problem with that is it runs afoul of MOS:FIRST. It could work if you inserted a paragraph 0 before all of the above that mentioned both Covid-zero and censorship/misinformation/secrecy. Adoring nanny (talk) 00:14, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

you keep citing MOS:FIRST, but could you please quote which part of that MOS entry you are referring to? — Shibbolethink 02:06, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

The first sentence should tell the nonspecialist reader what or who the subject is, and often when or where.

Covid zero is a part of the response. It is not the response. Adoring nanny (talk) 11:51, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

It is the primary constituent part of the response. — Shibbolethink 21:02, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

If such a paragraph 0 could be made that flows well, then that could work, but I just currently can't see how the proposed sentence can be added to the current version of the lede without it being clunky & making the lede feel disorganized. Might be time to start a rewrite of the lede? It sort of gives the vibe the article hasn't been updated since 2020. Jumpytoo Talk 07:29, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

And to be clear, I value a lede that's flows better than one that checks the MOS:FIRST boxes. Jumpytoo Talk 08:02, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

It's already clunky. I worked on a 1st paragraph with input from other users at User:Adoring nanny/sandbox/cgr. It still has room for improvement, but I think it's better than what we currently have. I tried putting it into the article but was of course promptly reverted. Adoring nanny (talk) 11:58, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

Hmm, thinking about it more making a sentence about reactions that describes the praise for the zero-COVID response and the criticism for the lack of transparency and spread of misinformation could be a suitable paragraph 0, as it gives a smoother ride towards the transparency/misinformation stuff. For example (very rough though): Aspects of the response have been controversial among scientists and media. The zero-COVID approach has been praised as contributing towards an effective response, but there is also criticism on the government's lack of transparency and spread of misinformation. Thoughts?

And as an aside, do you have a better source for the misinformation part? I'm not comfortable to solely sourcing it to a article based off what Trump-era U.S officials said. I did a skim on Google Scholar and there might be some academic studies that could be used to support it, but I haven't looked deeply at them. Jumpytoo Talk 19:55, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

A source for the word "misinformation"? I'd have to look. A source for misinformation as a concept? More like a lake full of them. Rather than overwhelm you with the firehose, here is a documentary, together with its transcript, that summarizes the Dec.-Jan. 2019-2020 portion the case extremely well. If you want more, as in open up a fire hydrant more, feel free to ask. Adoring nanny (talk) 20:18, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

• I agree that there's too much timeline in the lede. In addition to your suggested paragraphs, I would add in one extra paragraph about the economic effects of the policies, vaccines (development & production, exports, the domestic vaccination program), and medical products exports (based on the current paragraph 6).

  In the paragraph on censorship/misinformation, I would ensure the presentation is more balanced and accurate than it presently is. It goes on at length about censorship and promotion of fringe theories, but does not mention the other side of the coin, which is very well documented (e.g., the rapid announcement of the outbreak, announcement of the virus as the causative agent, publication of the genome, publication of fundamental early research into the virus, etc.). Overly broad statements like, the Chinese government made efforts to clamp down on discussion and hide reporting about it would give the casual reader the impression that the Chinese government tried to keep the virus and the outbreak a secret, which is just incorrect. Both were publicized by the government very early on. As is well documented, the government tried to control the flow of information (i.e., by reprimanding Dr. Li Wenliang for sharing information on social media), but it also carried on its own messaging campaign that acknowledged the outbreak (e.g., announcing the outbreak on national television on 31 December 2019). -Thucydides411 (talk) 21:51, 12 February 2022 (UTC)

@Thucydides411: You keep saying the announcement was "rapid". But it's just not true. They knew they had a novel coronavirus by December 26. They announced one on January 8. Per

So let me tell you what international law requires. If the government knows about a novel infection that meets the criteria within the International Health Regulations, and a novel coronavirus by definition meets those criteria of a potential public health emergency of international concern, the government is obliged by law to report that to the World Health Organization within 24 hours.

So it was reportable. The failure to report clearly was a violation of the International Health Regulations.

Adoring nanny (talk) 00:10, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

I agree that the censorship and misinformation probably merit mention in the lead, but not in the first sentence. The comparison to U.S. federal government response to the COVID-19 pandemic is useful. User:Jumpytoo's suggested structure sounds fine to me. —Mx. Granger (talk · contribs) 07:50, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

• I just read MOS:FIRST and I agree with Adoring nanny. Well done to Shibbolethink for finding a source that mentions zero COVID as part of Chinas response, but we also have sources saying zero COVID may just be part or a censorship and propaganda campaign, so we need to include those per WP:NPOV. China's claims to having zero deaths over two years is a truly WP:EXTRAORDINARY claim, and must be WP:BALANCED accordingly. CutePeach (talk) 16:25, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

  Do we have extraordinary evidence (BESTSOURCES?) to support the claim here that "zero COVID may just be part or a censorship and propaganda campaign"? Random news outlets which have no specialist expertise do not overrule quality academic literature. — Shibbolethink 21:04, 13 February 2022 (UTC)

  Actually the onus is on those making the extraordinary claim and China's claim of having zero deaths since April 17 2020 - per China CDC and NHC - is the extraordinary claim here. Defending a nation of 1.4B against a respiratory virus with international lock downs and disinfectants is pure WP:FRINGE/PS - and the fact we are even having this discussion is a reminder of why we needed the RFC on RSN. This source shared by SF shared , explains exactly why the CCP is supposedly still pursuing this policy, and the author is an expert in public health in China. This source shared by LIP quotes Dwyer on his suspicion about China’s fatality rate being 50 times lower than Australia, and there are other sources questioning China's statistics from other angles. If you are going engage in WP:TAGTEAMING and edit warring, we may have no choice but to request an ArbCom case and work this out in a workshop similar to this one . CutePeach (talk) 15:35, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

  having zero deaths since April 17 2020 - per China CDC and NHC: China has recorded two deaths since that date, actually.

  Defending a nation of 1.4B against a respiratory virus with international lock downs and disinfectants is pure WP:FRINGE/PS: What? It's pretty much universally acknowledged that China has pursued a zero-COVID strategy, and has had virtually zero community spread of the virus since April 2020. If this is what you're disputing, then I'm sorry, but you're not operating on the basis of reality.

  This source] shared by SF shared, explains exactly why the CCP is supposedly still pursuing this policy: Do you realize that the source you're highlighting here directly contradicts your basic assumptions about zero-COVID not working in China? The author (Yanzhong Huang) is arguing that China's zero-COVID strategy has been so successful at preventing infection that virtually nobody in China has natural immunity (i.e., they only have vaccine-induced immunity, because they haven't been exposed to the virus). You can't simultaneously argue that China's claims of having virtually zero infections are a lie, and then go on to tout articles that explicitly argue that China has been so successful at preventing community transmission that virtually nobody in the country has natural immunity. Which is it? -Thucydides411 (talk) 17:44, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

  China has recorded two deaths since that date I think this captures the problem with this page perfectly, so that even those editors pretending to be impartial would not be able to block an ARMCOM case. LondonIP (talk) 19:01, 14 February 2022 (UTC)

4. "China's COVID secrets - Transcript". PBS. 2 February 2021. Retrieved 2 February 2022.
5. Wong, Edward; Rosenberg, Matthew; Barnes, Julian E. (22 April 2020). "Chinese Agents Helped Spread Messages That Sowed Virus Panic in U.S., Officials Say". The New York Times. Archived from the original on 4 April 2021. Retrieved 8 February 2021.

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