Talk:COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom/Archive 5

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UK Action Plan

As i was explaining in the discussion above, this is a lot more complicated than some seem to believe. I have now reverted an edit to the article which attempted to claim the UK Action Plan published in March was only for England. [1] It was not. it was a UK Action Plan for the whole United Kingdom. As is very clearly the case from looking at the actual plan. [2] To put that this was just for England is factually inaccurate and misleading. And this is exactly why we have to take care before attempting to claim everything is England only. Its not that simple. RWB2020 (talk) 14:58, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Totally agree! I've supported changes to this page to make it a fairer representation of the UK as a whole during the crisis. Although we need to be careful as the UK government does have powers which effect all 4 nations as a whole. Lets not over edit this. If it effects the UK, its for the UK and if it effects Scotland, NI or Wales... its clearly for that respective nation. Jxseph14 (talk) 15:05, 22 May 2020 (UTC)
Indeed. This reflects the complex nature of the United Kingdom and the devolved settlement. We have to go with what is the reality of the situation and what the sources say, even if its not as clean and simple as some might like or might be the case in a federal system. The UK is not a federal state. Matt Hancock is not the "English Health Secretary", he is the UK Health Secretary as sources make clear, even though most of his responsibilities and most of his department's responsibilities now only deal with matters in England and there are devolved Health Secretaries in the devolved administrations. Some responsibilities remain UK wide. The second revert that i did reverted incorrect labelling of those as for England too. [3] The legislation its talking about Matt introducing, was not just for England, it had powers for the devolved administrations too. So exactly the same sort of problem with that edit made.
I want this article to clearly cover the whole UK, be clear about which Government took which actions and when. But some people are looking at this in a binary way of UK Government = stuff for England only. It just does not work like that. RWB2020 (talk) 15:14, 22 May 2020 (UTC)
I too want to be clear about which Government took which actions. RWB2020 made to 2 reverts. The first revert is good. However, the document recognises the respective roles and responsibilities of the UK government and devolved administrations in carrying out the Coronavirus Action Plan. This needs to be added, for clarity. I've now altered the wording to reflect the document.
Secondly, RWB2020's second revert reverts facts. What User:Birtig had written (The Department of Health and Social Care, for England,) clarified the issue. RWB2020's deletion of the word 'England' shows his bias and WP:POV against clarity, in what can become very muddy waters. I can accept RWB2020's revert on Matt Hancock, as his official title contains 'UK'. The third revert was deleting 'English' from the following sentence: Hancock introduce:::Re RWB2020's revert, the action plan was agreed by all 4 governments, and that needs to be stated. See:
principles: In preparing for, and responding to, a serious disease outbreak, the UK government and the devolved administrations aim to:...
the Health Protection (Coronavirus) Regulations 2020, and English hospitals set up drive-through screening. Now then, the document referred to (Health Protection (Coronavirus) Regulations 2020) is for England only. The Welsh counterpart (The Health Protection (Coronavirus Restrictions) (Wales) Regulations 2020) is here and for Scotland here etc. If these matters are too complex for you, RWB2020, then please don't revert correct edits. John Jones (talk) 17:39, 22 May 2020 (UTC)
On the first part, i have no problem with the additional bit of information you have included from it remaining in the article, that makes sense and helps clarify it. It perhaps does not need to be included word for word and couldbe shorted more to make the same point about the action plan, helping to explain the situation. But im ok with the entire wording remaining if that is preferred.
On the second point, my primary concern was stopping further alternations until we could discuss the changes on the talk page to ensure we get accurate changes. The problem is where for England was put in that case, so the revert was justified in that case too. The UK health Secretary and the DHSC should not be stated as "for England" in any way. Specific regulations and legislation that only applies to England can be put as for England yes, but it needs to be clearly worded. RWB2020 (talk) 18:04, 22 May 2020 (UTC)
I have added "for England" after the legislation/regulations at those two parts. RWB2020 (talk) 18:18, 22 May 2020 (UTC)
Apologies for any errors in my edits but I think you will now see the point: we will have less issues about arguing over correcting statements if we can ensure that all statements added are clear in the first place. Too many of the statements in this article imply that they are relevant to the whole UK when they are not. Regards Birtig (talk) 18:28, 22 May 2020 (UTC)
I do agree that parts of the article need improving and could be worded more clearly to explain properly which parts of the UK relevant legislation applies to. Specific legislation is clear about which parts apply to where and so this article should be too. I incorrectly thought one of your edits before was connected with the coronavirus act that did apply across the UK, rather than the earlier public health regulations for England only. So i fully accept its easy to make mistakes on these things as i did too. though where we put "for England" does matter, and its important it focuses on the legislation, which is where differences are binding, rather than about public announcements, briefings, the UK Health secretary, or the Department of Health and Social Care itself.
So there are certainly legitimate improvements to be made. But the way to improve has to be adding content for Wales/Scotland /NI where appropriate, and clarifying in terms of legislation where it applies. Sadly this has become more heated because of some of the radical suggestions on this talkpage about mass stripping content relating to England, or implying the PM only speaks for England etc. That has overshadowed things and made it harder to focus on the specific parts of the article that need improvements. RWB2020 (talk) 18:41, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

John Jones I think the inclusion of For England in that recent edit about the department in relation to the public health campaign is inappropriate. As said before, the department does not only act for England. The actual campaign it launched in February clearly says it was UK wide. [4] so i dont think England needs mentioning in that sentence at all. RWB2020 (talk) 20:09, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

Ah! Your second part does mention DHSC, which I didn't connect. I disagree with you, however. The Wikipedia article on Department of Health and Social Care does say, responsible for government policy on health and adult social care matters in England, along with a few elements of the same matters which are not otherwise devolved to the Scottish Government, Welsh Government or Northern Ireland Executive. It oversees the English National Health Service (NHS). So under which of these did their 'public health information campaign' come under? There are NO citations, no references, therefore as this is contentious, maybe we should delete the whole paragraph, or find whether the campaign was relevant to England only or all 4 nations. The link in the campaign doesn't link to the campaign; actually it goes to [[[Behavior change (public health)]], therefore should be removed. What campaign? Which elements are UK wide, and which elements are England only? Otherwise as it has a few elements only relevant to the 3 other governments, it should note England as this where the majority of its work lies. John Jones (talk) 09:56, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
I am not sure why there is such a long link to the behaviour change public health page. But the campaign itself is about the one launched in this announcement [5] and it very clearly on several occasions specifically says UK wide and for the UK. So their campaign was not limited to England only. The Department of Health and Social Care mainly focuses on England only matters, but it is a UK Government department with some responsibilities for the entire UK. Which is why its inappropriate to put "for England" in relation to it. If the campaign they launched was ONLY in England, then id have no problem with the article saying DHSC launched a public health campaign IN England. but the source clearly says UK so that is not necessary. RWB2020 (talk) 12:56, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

Clarifying which government (Template:Which)

There is great ambiguity in this article as to which government is refered to, and this problem has been mentioned several times on this Talk page. As was said elswhere, these need to be clarfied individually, and not en block. I was surprised, therefore, to see that User:Games of the world reverted the templates on around 20 of these problematic, vague instances. I've reverted his revert, and if someone would like to go through them 1 by 1, then please do so, but talk before hand. Wici Rhuthun 1 (talk) 09:14, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

@Wici Rhuthun 1: as this is an article about the UK, then the government would naturally be the UK government unless otherwise stated. I don't see anything ambiguous about that. And if it's about something the UK government is saying which only applies to a certain part of the UK then that should be made clear (e.g. the government announced ... for England). -- DeFacto (talk). 09:24, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
Strong NO! - as has been said elswhere on this Talkpage, this isn't an article about the UK!!! This is an article about a disease managed by the 4 governments of the UK. If the default is England, then I would expect this article to be retagged immediately as WP:BIAS and WP:NPOV. Comments - @John Jones:? - Wici Rhuthun 1 (talk) 09:37, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
@Wici Rhuthun 1: I think you must have misread what I wrote. I didn't suggest the default is England (why would I?) I said the government in an article about something in the UK would naturally be the UK government unless otherwise stated. The UK government governs the whole of the UK, which includes (in strict alphabetical order) England, Nothern Ireland, Scotland and Wales. If the 'government' being commented upon isn't the UK government, then of course it needs qualifying. And as I said, if what is being commented upon doesn't apply equally to the whole of the UK, then its scope should be fully qualified. And please do not shout, I think it detracts from the sincerity of your remarks. -- DeFacto (talk). 10:14, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
Strong NO! from me too! There is no default (or why not make Scotland the default?! Nothing should be taken for granted - for the sake of the reader! Let's start going through each one individually. John Jones (talk) 09:59, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
STRONG YES Stop being stupid! You know what the default is and it ain't England. Or shall we go around tagging the Welsh, Irish and Scottish pages with with the Scottish Gov etc. Games of the world (talk) 10:01, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
@John Jones: the default in this scope, which is "UK", is obviously UK, and any other should be clarified. -- DeFacto (talk). 10:23, 23 May 2020 (UTC)
As i have said before above, i have no problem with "UK Government" being put to clarify in places where clarity is needed as much as possible, but i agree that the default it would be about the UK Government when Government is mentioned, we just need to make sure that when anything relates to the devolved administrations it is clearly stated Scottish / Welsh / NI Governments. I think a possible reasonable position is in the first mention of Government in each section if it says UK Government, then the rest of the mentions say just government. If anywhere in the section it makes mention of any of the devolved administrations we should specifically say UK Government each time to avoid any confusion. I do feel mass tagging dozens of examples is excessive and unnecessary and it would have just been best to add UK Government on it instead, but Whilst i dont think putting UK Government on everything is necessary, its not something i am strongly against. I am far more concerned about any "for England" added inappropriately when related to announcements, UK Government departments or ministers. Because thats where mistakes get made. RWB2020 (talk) 13:05, 23 May 2020 (UTC)

The Cummings affair

I have tried to add copy on the Cummings affair in as fair and neutral way as possible, using the most authoritative source I can (The Times.) I was interrupted and promised I would add a source and further material at a later time. I have tried to avoid speculation but this also this means that there are questions unanswered. In trying to re-instate material that was deleted I was also going to discuss in the talk page. I can't do both at once. No doubt there will be things that other people object to but I will try to put both sides. Again I can't do both at once. I will say at this stage that it seems to me that who was driving is important to whether there is a breach of the rules as if someone who is too ill to drive is driving it makes the breach works. I take the point about the article being too long at present and that I was adding to it. Perhaps here I should refer to the article on Mr Cummings and put most of what I want to say there. Incidentally I am working from the print edition of the Times and will not insert URL links or any reference to the on line edition. .Spinney Hill (talk) 10:58, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 22 May 2020

There is a graph in the statistics section that has not been extended for several weeks. However the necessary numbers to extend it are already provided up to date in the two graphs immediately below. Ephasius (talk) 07:48, 22 May 2020 (UTC)

 Not done: it's not clear what changes you want to be made. Please mention the specific changes in a "change X to Y" format and provide a reliable source if appropriate. — Tartan357  (Talk) 16:46, 25 May 2020 (UTC)

Reported deaths

A sentence has been added to the lead section: "The number of deaths reported on death certificates was 46,370 by the three statutory authorities as at 15 May.[4]". The references for these are slightly obscure, as noted at User_talk:Chris55#COVID-19_pandemic_in_the_United_Kingdom. Does this sentence belong in the lead? Capewearer (talk) 10:36, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

Per MOS:LEAD, the lead should be an appropriately weighted summary of the rest the article and, ideally, all sourced content should already appear elsewhere in the article. -- DeFacto (talk). 10:43, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
Chris55 Thanks for adding the data to Template:COVID-19 pandemic data/United Kingdom medical cases. But that templated table isn't transcluded to the article, it's only ''{{see also|Template:COVID-19 pandemic data/United Kingdom medical cases}}'' in the Statistics section. So per MOS:LEAD that sentence should be in the Statistics section, not the lead. Any objections to me moving it there? Capewearer (talk) 11:12, 26 May 2020 (UTC)
The transcluded template was hastily cut from the article because it had an excessive number of references (Twitter every day???). I would hope that it is restored because I don't know of another case where templates aren't transcluded into the article. Given that it's not transcluded, it's that section that needs bolstering and I can do that. I've been raising the discrepancy between the government figures and the registration figures on the talk page for long enough. Chris55 (talk) 11:23, 26 May 2020 (UTC)

Article too long

This article is too long. Please consider whether to include minute details from one day to another, or whether this can be summarised more concisely. Thanks Crookesmoor (talk) 08:23, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

Agree certainly it does not need to have in the timeline section this day x that day y. I know we have graphs and perhaps this fills this need better than prose. Also have a look and see if anything is duplicated elsewhere in the article or if anything could be moved to a more appropriate section/article. Games of the world (talk) 10:54, 27 May 2020 (UTC)
I've condensed where possible and it's now down to 400,000 bytes. Suggest we keep at or below this level if possible. Crookesmoor (talk) 08:52, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

Timeline vs Statistics

The new version of the deaths per day bar char in the statistics section makes no sense to me. The timeline has 121 deaths for 25 May and 134 for 26 May, but the bar chart has the total for 25 May-26 May as 842. For 27 May the timeline has 412 but the bar chart has 1029. Why don't the figures match? Tigerboy1966  03:28, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

That was mentioned in a discussion above. Someone has been messing about with the article the last couple of days, and appears to have change the formatting in the statistics section without explanation, which caused the discrepancy (the numbers of deaths are for an earlier dates). I can try to fix it later if I have the time. Hzh (talk) 08:58, 28 May 2020 (UTC)
Thanks for taking the time to reply. I should have read the above before chipping in. Things seem to be back to normal now. Tigerboy1966  17:59, 28 May 2020 (UTC)

NHS Test and Trace

I've started an article for NHS Test and Trace which I thought should be a separate article to NHS COVID-19 so feel free to help. It could do with some expansion. If there's consensus to merge the two then feel free to do that instead. Cheers, This is Paul (talk) 17:05, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

Don't we already have that with the app article at the moment? Games of the world (talk) 18:08, 27 May 2020 (UTC)
I did initially think that, but they seem to be going ahead now without the app. This article has wider scope to focus on the broader organisation behind the app. Also see this from The Guardian, in particular: Ministers have been stressing more recently that on-the-ground tracing, involving local public health teams as well as call-centre staff, is more important. If we were to merge the two I would suggest NHS Track and Trace as the title. This is Paul (talk) 18:57, 27 May 2020 (UTC)
Good start, but there are a whole lot of issues with both testing and tracing that should also be briefly summarised in this main article per WP:SUMMARY with a link to the more detailed article. Sources for points yet to be covered follow, there are also issues in Scotland covered in today's Herald which I've yet to read. . dave souza, talk 13:00, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
  • Sabbagh, Dan; Marsh, Sarah; Murray, Jessica (27 May 2020). "England's coronavirus tracing plan 'beset by conflict and confusion'". the Guardian. Retrieved 31 May 2020.
  • Anonymous (30 May 2020). "Why I quit working on Boris Johnson's 'world-beating' test-and-tracing system". the Guardian. Retrieved 31 May 2020.
  • Lawrence, Felicity; Garside, Juliette; Pegg, David; Conn, David; Carrell, Severin; Davies, Harry (31 May 2020). "How a decade of privatisation and cuts exposed England to coronavirus". the Guardian. Retrieved 31 May 2020.

Controversy

Much of the controversy around the governments handling concerns whether they were were following the advice of their Scientific advisors or making up their own strategy. The government have always maintained that they have been following the scientific advice. The government has now released the minutes of the SAGE meetings (the governments scientific advisory commitee). It would be appropriate to include this fact and eliminate References which are now known to be incorrect, as well as diffrentiating difference of opinion in the science community. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.94.115.69 (talk) 12:26, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Split article?

As the article is still very long, would it be worth having a "COVID lockdown in the UK" article which sets out what was restricted and relaxed at the various stages of lockdown? Or would this just duplicate the "Timeline..." article? Crookesmoor (talk) 16:58, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

Consistently too low numbers

According to the Independent, and they refer to the NHS, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/health/coronavirus-news-live-uk-update-lockdown-latest-cases-deaths-boris-johnson-a9538126.html?page=2#liveblog the death toll as of 27 May was over 48,000. The much lower figures used in Wikipedia are obviously wrong and render a too positive impression about the actual state of the country. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 91.89.248.64 (talk) 14:10, 29 May 2020 (UTC)

See above. We know, this comment although made in good faith is not helping. Games of the world (talk) 17:11, 29 May 2020 (UTC)
Yes, there is a true problem with UK numbers.
The Guardian explains: Due to the wide variation in how Covid-19 deaths are counted, excess deaths are the most accurate way of quantifying the impact of the crisis in different countries. However, they do not indicate the number of people in a country who have died from Covid-19.
Introduction is misleading, because it is now well known the number of Official covid19 deaths is underestimated compared to the number of Official British deaths excess. As a source a Guardian article gives more details: https://www.theguardian.com/world/ng-interactive/2020/may/29/excess-deaths-uk-has-one-highest-levels-europe
A proper way to deal with this issue is to:
  • have a statistics section which explain there are two official sources for the number of deaths (one is covid other is deaths excess), both computed by the British authorities and communicated to international autorities (ECDC, WHO, etc.) This could be detailed:
  • have a summary which gives the official number of the day — a status quo rather than a good wikipedia practice — and an additional sentence to explain that this number of the day does not match the number of deaths excess, due to different methodologies. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 109.31.125.200 (talk) 19:15, 30 May 2020 (UTC)
Excess death is in no way an official count of COVID-19 deaths. There are problems with using excess death because we don't know what causes the excess deaths, for example, are people dying from other causes because they are not seeking treatment in hospital? Also the baseline is an average, some years you get more deaths due to other causes (e.g. flu), and you don't know what would have been the actual number of deaths this year. There can be a discussion in the article about excess death, but any figures based on that from that would involve a lot of suppositions and guesswork. Hzh 19:59, 30 May 2020 (UTC)
There are not just 2 ways of measuring deaths. There are at least 3. The other is by what is registered on death certificates. The lead has included this count recently which is currently 46,370. But this is the figure from 15th May because the ONS in particular works in a steady way that has not been speeded up during this crisis. The official government death toll has been increased by 4,547 since then so the number of deaths officially recorded up till 30 May is 50,917. The eventual ONS-based figure will probably be higher. Of course, as noted above there is an extra number of deaths which are currently unexplained but are in some way knock-on effects of the virus. Chris55 (talk) 09:04, 31 May 2020 (UTC)
The Financial Times is now publishing its data at github.com/Financial-Times/coronavirus-excess-mortality-data. That could be a suitable source for more realistic numbers.Cavrdg (talk) 18:51, 1 June 2020 (UTC)

The figures used in the UK (and elsewhere) are designed to give a rapid and reliable indication of the position on the curve; this is far more important than absolute deaths to emergency planners. The UK government was (and internally probably still is) using hospital deaths for people who had tested positive as this data is reliably availble from the NHS computer systems. It would appear that in order to counter criticisms from the press that they were trying to hide data, they later retrofitted data from outside the hospital system which arrives more slowly. Several other countries, such as France, also did this.

It seems to me that there is a bit too much pedantic discussion here. There will be no accurate peer reviewed study of the effect of Coronavirus for some time, and until such time as there is then just present the nominal government figures along with a note that the data is provisional and only indicative. I would certainly be cautious about some of the press articles and data as they often seem more concerned with sensationalism than accuracy.

I would also eliminate the use of 'death toll', i.e. absolute figures; all comparisons between different areas should be pro capita; saying an area has the highest 'death toll' because it has the highest absolute value is simply not a statement worthy of a serious publication. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 80.94.115.69 (talk) 12:46, 4 June 2020 (UTC)

I agree; we need an excess deaths graph similar to COVID-19_pandemic_in_France#INSEE_Death_statistics_(all_causes_of_death). In addition to this, a map of the excess deaths, based on the four countries, would graphically present the difference between last year's pre-COVID numbers and this year, in a very clear way. John Jones (talk) 15:05, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
Comparing this year and last is meaningless. The numbers fluctuate between years, if there is a serious flu epidemic this year, then the number would rise, so you can never tell what the actual number would be this year without COVID-19. Most people who do such comparison use an average of death over a number of preceding years. Hzh (talk) 01:59, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Numbers and figures

The numbers given in the charts and figures are not making any sense. Look in the various charts and figures and the ones in the Statistics section and you can see the discrepancies. For example the latest data give daily count for 26 May as just over 2,004, and a total of 265,227 - [6], but the top chart (the one in the timeline) shows total of 263,188. There is also a negative number in that chart for 20 May, but not the one in the Statistics section. The numbers for for the total cases in the statistics section also appear to have been abandoned, no update for three weeks. If there are reasons for the discrepancies, then they need to be explained clearly, but I don't see how they could be different since they used the same government source. Hzh (talk) 01:03, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

Hzh, I agree with you, and raised this issue on the Template talk:COVID-19 pandemic data/United Kingdom medical cases last night having tried to fill in the number of cases in the 4 countries. Not only are the headline numbers in the government websites some 15,000 ahead of those reported to the international sites (John Hopkins, ECDC) but The individual country figures may be behind by approaching 75,000. The government website warns that their total "Includes tests carried out by commercial partners which are not included in the 4 National totals" but is that all? Have the different departments stopped talking to each other? Chris55 (talk) 07:46, 27 May 2020 (UTC)
Ok, having looked at the numbers again, I'm grasping at why the Cumulative Total column in Confirmed Cases of the template table is in such a mess. (1) When the government finally added in confirmed figures outside hospitals this column wasn't updated. (2) The figures reported by the individual health authorities of the 4 countries don't include the results of testing centre and home tests because the reporting structure is totally different. I'm not terribly sure about these because I've been mainly keeping an eye on deaths rather than testing/confirmed cases. But it does seriously bring into question whether it's possible to separate out statistics for the 4 countries at all. Chris55 (talk) 09:49, 27 May 2020 (UTC)
I suspect the numbers got messed up because one or both sites did not update the number for nearly a day for a number of days, maybe starting 20 May. You can see the archived pages here - [7] and [8]. It might be necessary to check each archived link going back to 20 May, but I don't have the time to do that now. I may do it later if someone else hasn't done it yet. I can't say anything about other international websites since I don't use them. There may be archived pages for other countries as well. Hzh (talk) 10:31, 27 May 2020 (UTC)
I'm not sure about the figures for the individual nations, where are they used now? They seem to be have been removed. Hzh (talk) 17:47, 27 May 2020 (UTC)
I tried to fix the numbers, the total deaths figure now is given as what is given in government site (all deaths reported, not just hospital). The total number of cases is still a bit of a mess, I suspect it wasn't properly updated for a period, which led to the anomalous negative figure. The number of deaths in the timeline section seems to have been shifted by one day, someone might need to change that. I haven't looked at the four countries' figures, it's enough to give me a headache. May do it another time. Hzh (talk) 11:27, 30 May 2020 (UTC)
The graphs are in the statistics section are now seriously messed up. The numbers and dates no longer match up, and they are not the true daily figures. The latest dates gives the figures for many weeks ago. Can people explain what they are doing? Hzh (talk) 17:47, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

Yes, the graphs and data are seriously screwed. cheers, Michael C. Price talk 18:28, 27 May 2020 (UTC)

Let's start by removing the map of 'UK Cases' from the Infobox. Several reasons:
1. Today's announcement by Sir David Norgrov, chair of the UK Statistics Authority, who commented that The testing statistics still fall well short of its expectations. It is not surprising that given their inadequacy data on testing are so widely criticised and often mistrusted. FT. Mortality rates would be more accurate, but not perfect.
2. All testing is done at a 4-nation level, as is the counting, the diagnosis and the reporting. I've asked for the borders between Scotland and England, and the border between Wales and England should be visible. It isn't, and this makes the article very biased.
A rough brush would be better, and the only meaningful and accurate map would be the number of deaths per capita, per country. John Jones (talk) 14:43, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
@John Jones: please explain your rationale for how Sir David's comments on the testing statistics and your request for nation borders on the map leads you to the conclusion that "the only meaningful and accurate map would be the number of deaths per capita, per country". -- DeFacto (talk). 14:54, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
Norgrov's comments today, means we need to delete the Infobox now! It's fake news and has no place in an encyclopaedia! Let's do that first. Then, a more correct map should be created and we should discuss what type of map here, asap. Whichever type should show the 4 nations, otherwise, I will recommend changing the article's name to COVID-19 pandemic in the 4 nations of the UK. I would personally favour the more finite numbers of mortality rate, maybe compared to the past numbers, rather than cases, but would be open to any other science based maps, rather than political gerrymandering. John Jones (talk) 15:54, 2 June 2020 (UTC)
That's got nothing to do with what Defacto has said. Please can you answer the q instead of pushing a view? Testing is NOT the same as confirmed cases. Read what he said. He implies (from source/BBC say he said I'm sure other outlets are saying that) that the number of tests are inflated (also hard to follow and digest how one gets an amount of 200k of tests) and therefore the number of cases looks proportionately low, not that the amount of confirmed cases has anything wrong with its numbers, which is what the map shows, so why change the map (apart from aesthetics on boarders)? Games of the world (talk) 07:23, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
Confirmed by tests. As the testing is at fault, and the confirmed numbers are dependent on testing, then the confirmed numbers are wrong. Let me put it like this: if county X has 100 times more testing than county Y, then the number of confirmed cases will also be around 100 times more. This map shows nothing. Secondly, why borders? As the testing and confirmation of cases is done per country. But you know this, and I've said it a number of times. John Jones (talk) 07:35, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
No that's not answering the q. The number of people testing positive is NOT incorrect (that is what David says) therefore the map is correct as that is what is shows. What is incorrect is where people have 2 tests and someone says x number of tests took place and y were positive, inflating or deflating depending on view of the stats. Secondly I never questioned the boarder or insisted that we didn't have to have one. Games of the world (talk) 07:41, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Are you your brother's keeper? DeFacto, can fight his own battles to preserve the status quo. You refer to a Q? There was no question. He requested please explain your rationale, then went on to misquote what I had said. The confirmed numbers are dependent on testing, and testing has been proved to fall well short of its expectations (Norgrov). John Jones (talk) 11:38, 3 June 2020 (UTC)

Stop misquoting Norgov. He basically said as you have people having 2 tests its causing issues as people think 200K tests is 200K of people. Which is wrong. What he implies is this. You have a 100 tests. 25 test positive = 25%. When in fact it was 100 tests on 50 people and therefore the percentage would be higher at 50%. As he pointed out, the figure given in the actual people testing positive was not misleading. Only around the number of people having a test which leads to smaller percentages if you don't give an explanation and thus better looking figures. Therefore the map is not incorrect as per Norgov as those figures use ONS data and other things not just testing. "This presentation gives an artificially low impression of the proportion of tests returning a positive diagnosis." Thus would have nothing to do with our map. Games of the world (talk) 12:13, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
Games of the world, as you're blocked from editing the article, I would suggest you try to avoid giving the impression that you have come to the Talk page looking for a fight with John Jones. Deb (talk) 12:27, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
How am I giving the impression. I'm simply quoting what the dude says. Not my fault if he chooses to misquote and ignore it. Games of the world (talk) 12:49, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
One more such gibe and I will block you from the talk page as well. Deb (talk) 13:26, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
Stop making threats Debs. Games of the world (talk) 13:34, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
@John Jones: the current map shows confirmed cases. If it takes two tests (e.g. one for each nostril) to confirm a case, there is no implication that it would be counted as two confirmed cases - is there? And if that were the case, then the cases would be over counted, not under counted - wouldn't they? And the same testing regime is used for deaths too, so how, in your view, would the mapping of that be any better? -- DeFacto (talk). 14:42, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
Your point re two tests / nostrils is valid. However, my example is also valid: if county X has 100 times more testing than county Y, then the number of confirmed cases will also be around 100 times more. It only depicts the number of tests and cases, rather than the spread of COVID-19. In my example, county C (thousands of tests) may be a very dark color but could have less actual cases than a light colored county with only a handful of tests having been done. A better formula would be the number of cases divided by the number of people tested. Games of the world's point that the number of deaths is included in the total cases number may be correct, but needs referencing, and the sources of this image are still not clear. In ten years, the most important question regarding this horrible disease will be: how many people died? That paints a truer picture than the current map.
Lastly, no reasons have been given as to why the borders should not be placed, therefore let's get that bit done asap please. In the long term, we do need to substitute it with a better map. Maybe a simpler map showing the 4 NHS / Health agencies / countries would be better; inside each country we could have the number of deaths per 100K population. The other option is to have all 4 separate country maps - if you're 100% certain that these cases maps are watertight. John Jones (talk) 19:54, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
No one has an issue if you want to have a go at drawing the borders. Although I would say that a different colour scheme maybe needed as I think black (I assume) borders and deep purple might be a bit difficult to see. But it maybe OK with out having to alter the colour scheme at present. But again not a map designer so not sure why these colours were chosen this time. Games of the world (talk) 20:47, 3 June 2020 (UTC)
Very good. I've now uploaded the UK map with borders, which can be amended by @Ythlev: on a monthly basis (as he / she mentioned on this talkpage a few weeks ago). The color scheme is specified on the Wikiproject page here. The legend should also use fixed ranges with round numbers, as I suggested two weeks ago, and as agreed on the Wikiproject COVID-19 page here. John Jones (talk) 05:36, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
Look, I cannot update the map with the coloured map you put, and I am not going to waste time adding borders that have nothing to do with viruses. If you really want the borders, you must go to Github and add the borders to the template. If you don't know how, that's not my problem. Ythlev (talk) 18:37, 4 June 2020 (UTC)
Re: your revert: You've said in the past that one update every month is more than enough. Really odd that you're unwilling to add the borders! You know I can't. Secondly, of course this disease is dealt with by all 4 countries of the UK, separately, so borders DO needs to be shown. The UK does dont deal with COVID-19 in any way; the 4 governments do. Ther is no NHS UK; there is no Public Health UK etc etc. You added the borders earlier to the map, so why did you change your mind? Were you contacted by someone? Taking the borders seems to me to be a very political move. Lastly, don't revert the map-with-borders without giving valid and logical reasons on this Talk page. John Jones (talk) 14:43, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
100% certain that the borders add to the map. No reasons given why they shouldn't be included. COVID-19 is dealt with at a nation by nation basis, and the attempt to cover that up in this article seems to be Unionist driven, politically motivated and against all principals of Wikipedia. Cell Danwydd (talk) 15:37, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
The reason is because its a new file, Ythlev uses his own map with its specific image ID, changing it to another image creates the problem with updating the maps. Let Ythlev use his map and change his coding in GitHub. Although, adding borders isnt really neccessary, if they wnat to know where the borders people can look at United Kingdom.
Ythlev cannot update John Jones map and only can change theyre own but they have said you can add it in GitHub. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Jxseph14 (talk • contribs) 16:20, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
Some people need to drop it the whole cover up nonsense. It is not unionist or a cover up not to include the border. At this point I would ask, why are you on editing Cell? The fact that health is devolved has nothing to do with why that map should have borders. In addition, which goes against your point, is the ONS data includes England and Wales and I don't think that they explicitly break it down into regions when they are giving various bits of data at times (let's not whitewash it and pretend that's for England only as it is not). The reason for giving the map borders is because there is four nations and respecting that, like if one were to do a map for Europe, however as Joseph says it ain't the be all and end all, as technically the UK is a country in its own entity. But given other pages in the series, don't look at Canada (the maps weird as it has massive white sections), the map without nations borders is the same as other articles, broken down to county and state borders (which is what we have on the map). So in some respect it is uniformed approach, but as I said above, I really ain't going to argue over a minor point. JJ to be fair since you say you can't update the map apart from add a border and since Ythlev has made his point clear, perhaps the best thing to do for now would be to leave it alone until the deaths stop being counted and considered in this way and it is stable with a "final total" (can't believe I just said that in relation to this) and then add it in. If I see anyone else revert the map, I will ask an admin to step in. No one is right and no one is wrong in this situation. Games of the world (talk) 18:20, 5 June 2020 (UTC)
I never said one update per month is enough for the UK map. You know I can't. You obviously have way more free time than me. Figure it out. why did you change your mind? I switched from regions to districts, which is a different map. Ythlev (talk) 09:58, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Problem with statistics section

I think another country's graph has been pasted in - showing around 6000 cases and 1000 deaths per day currently whereas the correct numbers are more like 1500/100 79.64.157.123 (talk) 22:32, 7 June 2020 (UTC)

Are you reading it correctly? Check the dates of the numbers, some screens may be too small to read it properly. I made the graphs scrollable, but someone removed it without explanation, making it hard to see what the numbers are now. Hzh (talk) 10:40, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
I have now made it scrollable again, so check and see if you can read it correctly now. Hzh (talk) 11:10, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
I checked multiple times before posting, it was odd in that each point on the x axis claimed to be showing two days, and there was no option to scroll, but unless somehow the graph had become unlocked from the axis, I was reading it correctly, and the graph was wrong. It is now fine. 79.64.157.123 (talk) 14:04, 8 June 2020 (UTC)
It seems to have got messed up by something Capewearer did, and fixed in the next edit, so was only wrong for around 2 hours. Thanks to the fixer Yadsalohcin. 79.64.157.123 (talk) 14:09, 8 June 2020 (UTC)

Judging by the chart at the top of the page, the increase of confirmed cases between the 14th and 15th of June should be 968, yet the chart titled "New cases per day" at the bottom of the page states that the increase was 1056.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 79.67.15.194 (talk • contribs)

Covid UK page images showing empty roads

Hello, Please can you remove the images of the A1 and other images. They are not useful for this article.

If need be have a sub page on initial impressions after lockdown / reactions.

Sincerely it is of no use, take the example from France covid page. On this page people are looking for the latest details at first, then the procession over time. Then the origins. That's it.

Thank you for your time and effort. — Preceding unsigned comment added by DarrenChilton (talk • contribs) 17:51, 10 June 2020 (UTC)

reference 745 is a 404, this does not instill confidence in readers

From the "Graph of weekly England and Wales death data from the Office for National Statistics including COVID-19 deaths in 2020[745]" 745 points to https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/bulletins/deathsregisteredweeklyinenglandandwalesprovisional which is 404

Perhaps it should be: https://www.ons.gov.uk/peoplepopulationandcommunity/birthsdeathsandmarriages/deaths/datasets/weeklyprovisionalfiguresondeathsregisteredinenglandandwales — Preceding unsigned comment added by Porjes (talk • contribs) 06:27, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

 Fixed, thanks Porjes. Adrian J. Hunter(talk•contribs) 07:19, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

shorten and update data

https://www.theguardian.com/world/2020/jun/19/over-1000-deaths-day-uk-ministers-accused-downplaying-covid-19-peak poses the question - Why does the article show announcements from months ago that are lower than official updated figures say. Why not delete the April announcements and instead put the updated figures with some explaining text. I do not do this as there could be some reason I do not know why the Office for National Statistics figures are not used, and instead partisan, government wrong figures are used. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2001:14BB:52:1014:69C2:6BAC:F441:F189 (talk) 11:09, 20 June 2020 (UTC)

FT Update

"By 28 May, The Financial Times estimate of 'excess deaths', the increase over the figure expected for the time of year, had increased to 59,537 since 20 March.[598]"

It is almost a month later. This can be updated from here: https://www.ft.com/content/a26fbf7e-48f8-11ea-aeb3-955839e06441

where the figure is 65 700 and dated 12 June (so stable for a couple of weeks). — Preceding unsigned comment added by 37.219.112.233 (talk) 01:24, 24 June 2020 (UTC)

Last 15 days

Is it possible to amend the timeline graphic so it shows more than the last 15 days? It would be nice to be able to toggle between this, and all time. My phone shows all cases and deaths going back to the start, whereas on Explorer and Edge on my PC it will only show the last 15 days. Saxmund (talk) 08:11, 25 June 2020 (UTC)

I've just noticed you can toggle between different months. Not sure if this is a new feature or if (embarrassingly) I just didn't notice it before. But it's very useful.Saxmund (talk) 14:38, 27 June 2020 (UTC)

Can we trust the government's date for the start date of infection?

Talking and listening to many people in the UK, it appears many people had symptoms of Covid early in 2019, months before it was reported and recognised in China. Obviously the UK authorities did not want to spend money on dealing with a new illness at a time when there was a very weak minority government that was busy with domestic politics as well as Brexit. Any illnesses and deaths were most likely explained as MRSA or sepsis or just some virus doing its round, which were the in vogue explanations for deaths for many years. Scientists need to nail down where COVID-19 came from. 2A00:23C5:C102:9E00:2CF8:9ED7:44C5:77F5 (talk) 11:00, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Editors need to provide verification from reliable published sources for anything they want to add to the article, not their own speculations. Wikipedia is for article improvement, and is not a forum. . . .dave souza, talk 11:49, 30 June 2020 (UTC)

Numbers of cases

The number of cases has been adjusted downward to remove any duplicates, but is there a source where the adjusted daily and cumulative numbers may be found? Having a graph where the total numbers drop (twice now) does not look good, and it might be better to have the adjusted numbers. I see in Worldometer that the numbers in their graphs have been adjusted - [9], but I'm not sure where those numbers come from, anyone knows the url for its source? Hzh (talk) 10:54, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

I wonder about all that pillar stuff - is there any useful chart that does show proper numbers and distribution? ECDC has published a value of -18419 new cases for today - while the UK numbers name +576 new cases for yesterday, but do not have anything for today yet. I wonder whether they will fix former numbers backwards or leave it at this strange drop. --Traut (talk) 16:23, 3 July 2020 (UTC)
There seems to be something in here [10] under Time series documents, but I'm not sure if I understand what is given there. From what I observe, the numbers here in the graph for cumulative death in the UK are backdated - [11] (hover over the points in the curve for the number), unfortunately the total number of confirmed cases given here is only for England, which is not much use for the UK numbers. The number of daily confirmed cases in the UK are given here - [12], but I don't see a curve for cumulative numbers that has been adjusted, the one given there has not been adjusted. I suppose we can add up the daily numbers ourselves for the cumulative numbers, but that may be be a lot of work. Is there a free spreadsheet that can do a cumulative curve from the daily data? Hzh (talk) 12:32, 6 July 2020 (UTC)
Nevermind, I've just downloaded their daily UK cases data and did a sum in the spreadsheet, and the data appears not to have been adjusted since it gives a total of over 315,000, so it's no help. Hzh (talk) 13:24, 6 July 2020 (UTC)

Improve the page

Please remove the empty roads and images. This is useless information (it would be better to have a separate page "How the UK reacted to the covid-19 pandemic".

Here like ALL other countries you should have a section on latest details, and data history. DarrenChilton (talk) 10:51, 3 July 2020 (UTC)

Put back daily reporting, the weekly one is confusing and devalues this page. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 87.115.25.35 (talk) 08:31, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

#New deaths graph

This graph is currently recorded per day. Because fewer deaths are registered over weekends (resulting in large jumps from each Sunday to Monday), would it make more sense to show the graph per week (starting on Mondays?) Crookesmoor (talk) 14:25, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

No !! Wiki has been the only consistent comparator between countries. Changing the UK pages to weekly means it is different to every other country. It confuses people, leads to censorship of dailyreporting.
Please change this back to daily reporting of all numbers... wiki is a reliable consistent source if truth so far.. Changing to this weekly page, whilst row is daily is making people trust wiki less. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.198.121.166 (talk • contribs)
I agree with 146.198.121.166- please let's go back to the full detail on the daily cases- looking back over the last set of weekly sequences immediately gives the trend. Whereas if it's in 'weekly total' blocks, it's only when the latest week is complete that any trend can be estimated. So that's up to a week's delay rather than up-to-date every day.Yadsalohcin (talk) 21:30, 28 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Agree; I like the COVID-19 pandemic in Wales change to weekly figures, and with daily it is now getting harder to see if the general trend is rising/falling/steady. It fits better in the page. Not bothered which day of the week it starts, but I think it should cover the whole period from 6 March. Ânes-pur-sàng wiki 15:30, 13 July 2020 (UTC)
    • @Doregan: Any views? Crookesmoor (talk) 08:41, 14 July 2020 (UTC)
    • The cases graph is now by date of specimen (not date of reporting) so trends should be possible to determine. Doregan (talk) 19:36, 14 July 2020 (UTC)

I have changed the graphs to be weekly, going from Sunday to Saturday. I used the existing information, and added days together. I think this means that when the government announces its daily figures, deaths will go in the previous day, and positive tests in the current day. I thought I'd go ahead an create the graphs so we can see the difference. My personal opinion is its much more useful in weekly format. Happy for the standard week to be changed. I do think we should try and have a consistent week definition across country articles, as I think it would be useful to compare countries, e.g. contrast UK, Spain, Italy, Germany, France in the Europe page Jopal22 (talk) 10:12, 20 July 2020 (UTC)

Good idea to calculate per week. Traditionally, a week in Germany and China is starting on a Monday, Britain, Portugal, Japan... on a Sunday. It might be bettter to keep this in mind. -- Willi The Kid (talk) 16:33, 21 July 2020 (UTC)
  • Personally I'd far rather see the daily numbers. That way the information is always as up-to-date as possible. Doing it weekly means that the last point (bar) on the graph/chart can only ever be up-to-date one day per week.Yadsalohcin (talk) 07:49, 23 July 2020 (UTC)
No no no ! Bad idea, see above.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 146.198.121.166 (talk • contribs)


So I was WP:BOLD and changed to weekly but left the daily code in case people want to switch back. Personally I don't see how it is sustainable daily as the graph gets wider and wider, and the the figures jump around so it is hard to see a trend. Also now numbers are much smaller it is even harder to tell what is going on with daily numbers. Jopal22 (talk) 21:51, 28 July 2020 (UTC)

Death figures

Publication of death figures for the UK has been suspended on the source, and so the table is still showing the figure for 17 July. However, the government is still publishing daily figures at [13]. Dudley Miles (talk) 18:22, 22 July 2020 (UTC)

Because of the uneveness in reporting deaths on the day they happened (there is less reporting at weekends) weekly figures give a better ideaSpinney Hill (talk) 08:57, 25 July 2020 (UTC)
That is no reason to leave the daily table with figures up to 15 July and no deaths recorded thereafter. Also, the weekly chart is unreferenced and only shows people who have had a positive test, not those recorded on death certificates as dying of COVID. I am keeping Template:COVID-19 pandemic data updated with UK deaths, but I do not know how to fill in the missing dates in this article. Dudley Miles (talk) 09:23, 25 July 2020 (UTC)
A record of those recorded on death certificates as dying of COVID does not exist. Jopal22 (talk) 14:09, 25 July 2020 (UTC)
I do not understand the system but weekly figures including those recorded on death certificates are mentioned here, whereas the charts in this article say they are only for people with a positive test result. Dudley Miles (talk) 15:23, 25 July 2020 (UTC)

There is no perfect data for this but the issues are:

  • There is no data of people being "recorded on death certificates as dying of COVID".
  • There data we have is of people dying after a positive test result. They might not have died of COVID though, e.g. they might have been hit by a bus. This is the international standard though and used across country articles.
  • The data you link to includes those where COVID is mentioned on death certificates. This does not necessarily mean they died of COVID e.g. the death certificate could say "Some symptoms are consistent with COVID, but are certain it is the flu", and this would be included.
  • The data you link to is just for England and Wales and does not include Scotland and N.Ireland which is hard to come across.
  • Hence way I say the data you suggest doesn't exist, we don't have the data for the whole of the UK, and it does not confirm people died of COVID Jopal22 (talk) 15:35, 25 July 2020 (UTC)
Should have also said, ONS figures you link to are based on date of death instead of date reported. Hence when you update each day or week you have to update all previous weeks as well as the current one, which is a nightmare. Also ONS release data much less frequently and is less up to date. Jopal22 (talk) 15:51, 25 July 2020 (UTC)
The registration data for Scotland and Northern Ireland is rather more prompt than that of the ONS for England and Wales. It takes them a week less to compile the figures and there are far fewer subsequent revisions. (Of course their job is much less complicated.) The web references are in the lead paragraph. I've added a deaths by registration curve to the curves shown in the lockdown & lifting section. It's quite interesting because the numbers rise significantly earlier than the hospital figures used by the government. e.g. at lockdown on 26 March there were 135 deaths/day according to the goverment but 381 deaths/day according to the registering authorities. I don't know the reason for this, but it's possible that they were able to keep patients in hospital alive longer, as well as the inevitable delays in reporting. Chris55 (talk) 21:38, 30 July 2020 (UTC)

Median age of deaths

What is the median age of all deaths? What is the risk to die for a under 50-year-old british? — Preceding unsigned comment added by 188.101.84.88 (talk) 05:40, 1 August 2020 (UTC)

Figure 5 at [14] shows that the number of deaths for those under 65 is negligibly small. Mhkay (talk) 21:23, 9 August 2020 (UTC)
From the data used in those figures (deaths per 100,000 people in those age groups), you can surmise that the median figure is in the 80-84 age group.
5 people per 100,000 have died of COVID 19 in the under 65 age group... that's around 3,000 people. Catfish Jim and the soapdish 22:43, 9 August 2020 (UTC)

Regulations and Legislation - Proposed New Article

The section within the article on regulations and legislation is very short when in fact over 180 bits of primary and secondary legislation have been passed by the UK government in respect of the coronavirus pandemic. I'm proposing that a new article titles something like "United Kingdom legislation connected with the COVID-19 pandemic" is created which lists each item of legislation that has been passed (in table format) together with a one or two line explanation of the impact of the legislation. Any significant items of legislation (such as Coronavirus Act 2020) would continue to have their own more detailed pages. Would appreciate thoughts on this proposalTracland (talk) 10:34, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

Coincidently, I've just started working on such a page for all the local lockdown regulations in England. I'm not proposing to do Scotland, Wales and NI, though, nor all the other English legislation and regulations (financial, holiday, business etc). There are frequently several new regulations per day. MichaelMaggs (talk) 10:53, 8 August 2020 (UTC)
I find useful the Hansard Society's Coronavirus SIs Dashboard which at the moment lists 176 laid before Parliament (not the devolved places). The added value in the proposed article would be the brief explanations. We also have the template which lists the items that have articles. --Wire723 (talk) 11:29, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

Thanks both. Essentially what I was proposing would replicate that made by the Hansard society with a bit of detail on each item of legislation. Tracland (talk) 16:40, 8 August 2020 (UTC)

Draft Created - I've started work on a draft article (Draft:United Kingdom legislation connected with the COVID-19 pandemic) - would be great to receive input on this and for anyone who can to contribute towards this (otherwise its going to take me a long time to complete). Tracland (talk) 07:37, 12 August 2020 (UTC)
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