Talk:COVID-19 misinformation/Archive 1

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I see that an IP editor created a BLP for this employee, which I have put up for AfD: Wikipedia:Articles for deletion/Zhou Peng (microbiologist). Britishfinance (talk) 12:59, 9 February 2020 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on

23:33, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

Move discussion in progress

There is a move discussion in progress on

23:48, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

Some misinformation turned true

1. The DEC 2019 info re the outbreak itself. 2. More cases than the official numbers. 3. Higher mortality rate (CFR) than the official 2%.

Point 1: E.g. Dr Li and his colleagues https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-china-51403795

Sample RS for Point 2 conspiracy:

Neil Ferguson, a public health expert at Imperial College in the UK, said his “best guess” was that there were 100,000 affected by the virus even though there were only 2,000 confirmed cases at the time. 

Coronavirus: 100,000 may already be infected, experts warn - The Guardian, Jan. 26, 2020

CFR reevaluation per Point 3, with e.g. a 6% to 11% CFR calculated as deaths / (deaths + recovered), see: https://www.worldometers.info/coronavirus/coronavirus-death-rate/

-> Let us mention that some misinformation, guesswork, scares, discrimination and conspiracy theories turn true and save many lives. (While some do not.)

Zezen (talk) 13:14, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

On (2): it is normal for there to be more actual cases than identified cases. That's not misinformation: that's how epidemiology works.

On (3): the latest and best mortality figures are around 2%. What you're illustrating is the dangers of

WP:OR! Bondegezou (talk

) 14:20, 20 February 2020 (UTC)

Re 3.

Is this also OR? Sorry for the ugly paste:

Severity range Method and data used Time to outcome distributions used CFR China: Epidemic currently in Hubei Parametric model fitted to publicly reported number of cases and deaths in Hubei as of 5th February, assuming exponential growth at rate 0.14/day. Onset-to-death estimated from 26 deaths in China; assume 5-day period from onset to report and 1-day period from death to report. 18% (95% credible interval: 11-81%)

Severity of 2019-novel coronavirus (nCoV) - Imperial College London https://www.imperial.ac.uk/media/imperial-college/medicine/sph/ide/gida-fellowships/Imperial-College-2019-nCoV-severity-10-02-2020.pdf Zezen (talk) 18:15, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

The Imperial study is arguing that mortality is lower than the 2-3% normally reported, not higher. Bondegezou (talk) 08:10, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

1. It is disputable whether some "misinformation" are actual misinformation or not.
2. Many section of this article have a western-centric point of view and failed to properly attribute the true origin of many ideas being presented.
3. Things like "QAnon proponents" in the article is illly defined.
4. The article failed to mention why some idea like the use of Traditional Chinese Medicine fall within the scope of the article.

C933103 (talk) 09:57, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

Be more specific in your criticisms. For isntance, you could place a "Confusing" template by the Qanon reference, if you don't find it sufficiently clear. TCM is included because ... it has never been shown to work for any condition. And so forth. IAmNitpicking (talk) 17:28, 21 February 2020 (UTC)

All Chinese official media are promoting the effectiveness of TCMs.... C933103 (talk) 14:03, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

I believe I misunderstood you, sorry, C933103. Well, be bold and add that information to the article yourself. IAmNitpicking (talk) 16:35, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

The word "Russia" does not appear anywhere in the article but it should.

Kate Ng (February 22, 2020). "US accuses Russia of huge coronavirus disinformation campaign". The Independent. Retrieved February 23, 2020.

The story is significant. Maybe you are one of those who distrust US official sources, and see Russia as a victim of false charges of computer hacking, maybe you believe Russia does not use bots on social media outlets to spread disinformation. Maybe you disagree with the many cases of Russian disinformation on Wikipedia itself (see

19:34, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

New paragraph added. -- GreenC 19:45, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

Ex-PCC billionaire MilesGuo, exiled to New York, USA, and notable for his pledge to fight the PCC years ago, is spreading outrageously absurd numbers on social medias. His maths do NOT even makes senses: he claims PCC has ordered enough mobile incinerators (1,000,000 units) to burn 30 bodies/day each, therefor tolling 30,000,000 capacity per day or the whole chinese population of 1,300,000,000 people in 40 days. This absurdity is already spreading online and would gain to be debunked here. Yug (talk) 00:46, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

The section dealing with Tom Cotton should probably be edited.

From a source in the article itself, he did not say it was even likely to be a bioweapon, just that the possibility hadn't been ruled out. I will quote from the source cited: "He claimed there are "at least four hypotheses about the origin of the virus," ranging from "the engineered-bio weapon hypothesis" to "natural," which Cotton calls "still the most likely but almost certainly not from the Wuhan food market." This means he considers it a possibility...and from the wording he considers natural origin a more likely possibility.

Source (from article): https://edition.cnn.com/2020/02/18/politics/coronavirus-cotton-fact-check/index.html

http://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/event201/scenario.html

Inter alia, the false news and how to combat them was discussed months before the outbreak. Recommended methods include "flooding" the media:

Governments will need to partner with traditional and social media companies to research and develop nimble approaches to countering misinformation. This will require developing the ability to flood media with fast, accurate, and consistent information...

, influencing private employers and even (trusted) "faith leaders". Technology should be used to "suppress false messages" in media and more.

http://www.centerforhealthsecurity.org/event201/recommendations.html

Interestingly, one of the important (and thus bolded) recommendations is that:

Travel and trade are essential to the global economy as well as to national and even local economies, and they should be maintained even in the face of a pandemic...

against "misguided" efforts of the local and national governements, such as:

... unjustified border measures, the closure of customer-facing businesses, import bans, and the cancellation of airline flights and international shipping.

-> Let us add it here.

Zezen (talk) 10:36, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

This all predates the coronavirus outbreak. It's about misinformation during pandemics generally, not about coronavirus. So I don't see a place for it on this article, but it could be valuable on other articles. Bondegezou (talk) 12:43, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

The WHO clearly refuses to call the COVID-19 outbreak a pandemic, yet a lot of false misinformation-spreaders online now call it this word. Can we add it to the list of misinformation? It's clearly not a pandemic.--Adûnâi (talk) 17:30, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

No. I would not characterise that as "fake news". The outbreak is certainly close to being a pandemic, and there isn't one definition of "pandemic" anyway, so that's more about an understandable disagreement rather than misinformation. Bondegezou (talk) 19:17, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

(The WHO has since declared it a pandemic.) 2A00:23C5:FE0B:700:8DDC:3D10:6C0C:28B (talk) 22:03, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

If that bat soup nonsense would keep people from eating protected animals, this type of conspiracy theory might actually prove beneficial... --87.150.0.161 (talk) 09:51, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

I agree with the sentiment, but most bats are not endangered. IAmNitpicking (talk) 14:11, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

1. Good idea to include this FoxBusiness.Com legitimate-sounding article? 2. Maybe in the Section 8.1 called, Vaccines existed? FOX after all is a notable, vetted source. 3. Could this link go in a new section, External Links, or would that section grow too quickly? 4. Lastly, ok to distill the webpage to a sentence or two and user it as a ref cite? Peace. -From Peter, a.k.a. Vid2vid (talk), updated 🖋 on 18:17, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

My concern is that the FoxBusiness article does not construe the company's claims as misinformation. Of course some sources will say there is not vaccine while other say there is one (or one under development), but this is more of a conflict between sources and not outright misinformation. SamHolt6 (talk) 19:42, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

Not sure -- @SamHolt6: -- I follow your strange language formation/grammar, but you seem to be saying that while dozens of companies come out of the woodwork claiming Vaccines in the works, the only ones that truly matter and are newsworthy will be (are) ones that have cleared FDA regulations and are approved for medical use. Yes? --From Peter, a.k.a. Vid2vid (his WP talk page), updated 🖋 on 05:31, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

In

) 21:08, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

@ArielGlenn: I looked over the source and while the article does mention Trump accusing the CDC of spreading information, the article clearly shows said accusation was made in 2014 during the Ebola outbreak. I will remove the effected content from this article shortly. SamHolt6 (talk) 21:51, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

Thanks for double-checking! -- ArielGlenn (talk) 22:03, 28 February 2020 (UTC)

This article has accreted all sorts of different and varied section, but what is it meant to be about? The article begins by talking about "conspiracy theories and misinformation spread online", with misinformation saying it covers "false rumors, insults and pranks, while examples of more deliberate disinformation include malicious content such as hoaxes, spearphishing and computational propaganda". Thus, I interpret this article as being about "fake news", but that it is not about mistakes, misunderstandings or debates where there isn't a clear falsehood versus truth.

I thus removed three sections, which C933103 has just returned. These are:

1. Not SARS

This reads: "On January 5, 2020, Chinese government Wuhan Health Commission have announced that the illness spreading in Wuhan at the time was not SARS,[53] however the virus causing the illness have later been identified as same species as the SARS coronavirus.[54]" However, this doesn't look like misinformation to me. This is about the subtleties of what "SARS" means. The outbreak is not of SARS, it's of Covid-19, but the virus, SARS-CoV-2, is closely related to SARS-CoV. I don't see why this should be here.

2. World Health Organization

"World Health Organization have erroneously listed Taiwan as part of China and refused to correct the presentation": this is nothing to do with misinformation about the 2019-20 coronavirus outbreak. This is about the long, ongoing debate about the status of Taiwan. I'm entirely supportive of recognising Taiwan's independence, but this isn't relevant here.

3. Effectiveness of face mask

"Since the start of the outbreak, there have been information circulating around the internet that face mask is ineffective and cannot offer protection against the virus." This section is plain wrong. Multiple reliable sources make clear that face masks are not recommended for healthy individuals. We cover face masks in the main outbreak article and in the Covid-19 article. There are subtle nuances around masks that can be discussed, but it's not misinformation. This section, as it stands, is violating

.

I support re-removing all three of these. Can I have comments from the community? More generally, would it be useful to hash out what sort of things this article is trying to cover, and what's the minimum notability required for coverage? Bondegezou (talk) 08:52, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

I think false rumor, hoax, propaganda are fitting content for the page according to information you have linked.

1. The outbreak is caused by SARS-CoV-2 virus. COVID-19 is just the disease name.
2. This is misinformation related to containment measure of the epidemic when WHO communicate about the disease. I guess we can discuss whether this should be covered by the article's scope or not.
3. It is exactly the "face masks are not recommended for healthy individuals." itself being misinformation. I feel like I was not writing very clearly in the section, but a few key reason behind that recommendations was "it haven't reaxh America yet", "it shouldn't supersed other preventive measure", "only N95 masks can block virus particles and surgical mask cannot" and such. It have already been reflected in not just the sources I have attached but also many other websites and media.

C933103 (talk) 09:38, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

Covid-19 is not SARS. They are different. They have different Wikipedia articles! Yes, the viruses are closely related, but that doesn't mean they are identical.

The status of Taiwan is disputed. Calling that misinformation is taking sides in that dispute, which is inappropriate under

WP:BALANCE

.

We have sections on masks that are supported by

WP:MEDRS. Bondegezou (talk

) 11:09, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

@Bondegezou

You misquote and thus misinform about misinformation itself.

For the record, the current WP "definition" (which we should not use here as per

), pacem Merriam-Webster in turn, reads:

Misinformation is false or inaccurate information.

It thus covers official (that is published by international organisations or governmental bodies) inaccurate information. I withhold my judgment which items from the list above should make it here, though.

I would add the following claims (sic!, not proofs yet) about such institutional misinformation though:

4. Iran, e.g.: https://www.jpost.com/Middle-East/Irans-government-and-media-lied-about-coronavirus-outbreak-riots-erupt-618431

and 5. China: https://foreignpolicy.com/2020/02/03/wuhan-coronavirus-coverup-lies-chinese-officials-xi-jinping/

Zezen (talk) 13:49, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

• Differentiating between false information meant to deceive (political, state sponsored disinformation) vs. unintentional or mistaken is one possible way to narrow the scope. -- GreenC 16:44, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

agree w/ GreenC, intentional is one thing, a legitimate mistake is another...IMO--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 19:10, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

I am happy that other Wikipedians have created "Misinformation by governmental officials" since my modest proposal, above.

Once again: let us add Iran there, inter alia.

Zezen (talk) 12:21, 2 March 2020 (UTC)

C933103, your own sentence: "In February 2020, Taiwan reported a large number of fake message on Facebook written in Simplified Chinese used by Mainland China or using Mainland China vocabulary that are trying to promote the idea that there are a large number of under-reported cases in Taiwan, and the Taiwanese government which is controlled by the a party against unification with China at the time is trying to cover up the information regarding the epidemic."

"the Taiwanese government which is controlled by the a party against unification with China" is nowhere mentioned in the original CNA source, ^[1] Your sentence is trying to imply the misinformation is a campaign that against Taiwan. However, the original CNA didn't claim either the posts are from mainland China, or there's a fight between unification and Independence here. In fact, the article mentions nothing about connection between the coronavirus misinformation and the China-Taiwan unification.

These are your original research and interpretation of the situation. On wikipeida, you are only allowed to paraphrasing the source, not interpret the source without reliable news media to interpret it. There's no source that you provided in the paragraph mentions the China-Taiwan dynamics. Your comment on the return "The government of Taiwan is indeed independent, no matter whether you think it should be the case or not" is also irrelevant here.

If you really want to report the misinformation as China's effort against Taiwan, find the source that contains every elements and arrangements first, instead of using your primary opinion. Also, English Wikipedia typically requires multiple sources in English for Wikipedia:Verifiability. Your large amount of direct translation without verifiability from Chinese Wikipedia article is not up-to the Wikiepdia standard. -Loned (talk) 17:43, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

"Misinformed claims" is VERY different from "Misleading claims" is also another claim of you to return my revision. Misinformed here means misinformation/false information. However, the government officials claims made by United States and China here are both not correct and false. You, as Wikipedia user, are not here to judge who is misinforming and who is misleading (unless you have a news article/research paper to prove it). All misinformation is misleading. In your revision: "One of the health officials who initially supported the claim, Wang Guangfa, was infected by a patient around 16 January" cannot be found in the that source following it. In the original article, the doctor is trying to defend himself in the interview, and he claimed that he got "flu" (流感) on 16th January. Basically, you are trying to interpret and summarized these sources instead of actually paraphrasing them. I think editing like this is unacceptable. -Loned (talk) 17:56, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

Your another edit: "On January 26, Chinese military news site Xilu published an article detailing how the virus was artificially combined by America to "precisely target Chinese people"". http://www.xilu.com/20200126/1000010001119697.html The link following it is dead. And the added sentence "the article have been removed after early February." is not provided by other source. There's no third-party verification on any of these news. I've also checked the original Chinese wikipedia page. The source reliability there is horrible. I suggest that before you translate Chinese into English, fix the Chinese version first. -Loned (talk) 18:43, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

All in all, what I'm trying to say is, Wikipedia is not a place for primary research, opinion and record for the news. Wikipedia users are only allowed to record and paraphrase information from news articles that is reliable. Your edit is not compatible with wikipedia standard in anyway, so I urge you to review your source and editing before publishing. -Loned (talk) 18:46, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

---

@Loned:

1. A quick google search can indicate additional sources showing that those rumors are specifically targeting the ruling DPP party in Taiwan. In Taiwan's political landscape, political camps are dividing along the line of support or against unification with China. So it is the most straightforward way to introduce the political background in this sentence. Additional sources can be supplied if you think that's necessary.
2. WP:NONENG
   . I am not sure why you think they are not up to Wikipedia standard when the standard say otherwise.
3. Misinofrmed: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/misinformed : wrongly or badly informed: such as: having wrong or inaccurate information about a topic; based on wrong or inaccurate information
4. Misleading: https://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/misleading : to lead in a wrong direction or into a mistaken action or belief often by deliberate deceit
5. The different between misinformed and misleading should be very clear here.
6. The Wang Guangfa part was not added by me. It was added by others who deem it is relevant. I have also recalled reading it in the news so source can be provided if you deemed relevant.
7. It is regrettable that you think my edits are primary researches, opinion or record for news when that seems to be a more fitting description after your attempted revision.

C933103 (talk) 21:47, 29 February 2020 (UTC)

---

@C933103:: It's not allowed on Wikipedia to interpret conclusion based on two irrelevant source, because this is the definition of original research. This is not wikia or some community project that you can make your own analysis in the article, you cannot just add "trivia" without a source that combine the background information and the subject matter together. Furthermore. You cannot do things like this:

Sentence: There are misinformation in Taiwan coming from mainland China, becasue Chinese government is the adversary of Taiwanese government[A][B][C].

Source A: CNA: There're misinformation posted on Taiwan facebook with simplified Chinese

Source B: Britannica encyclopedia: Simplified Chinese is used in mainland China

Source C: China is hostile to Taiwan, officials says

This is NOT ALLOWED in wikipedia, because you're doing conclusion on your own based on two facts. You must find a source, explicitly stating: "Taiwan government reported misinformation from mainland China because it features simplified Chinese, and Taiwanese official believe it is due to the conflict between the two governments."

"A quick google search can reveal..." doesn't even matter here. You cannot add additional information that is not concluded in the original source by original author, do you understand? I cannot post 1996 missile crisis news as source, and says: "there's misinformation campaign about virus in Taiwan Facebook coming from China, because there was missile crisis between the two nation in 1996" source [1][2] - And things like these are not right. -Loned (talk) 14:48, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

"The different between misinformed and misleading should be very clear here." - Yes. the definition on their is different, HOWEVER there's no conclusion in the source stating: "United States officials are misinformed about the situation." You are the one that concluded everything and put them arbitrarily by your own judgement.-Loned (talk) 14:52, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

"The Wang Guangfa part was not added by me. It was added by others who deem it is relevant. I have also recalled reading it in the news so source can be provided if you deemed relevant. It is regrettable that you think my edits are primary researches, opinion or record for news when that seems to be a more fitting description after your attempted revision."

Again, I'm following the Wikipedia editorial rules here. Of course, before you post anything, you need to provide it with relevant source. In fact you should do it before you post here. I spot the alternation, unverifiable claim in your editing. I welcome you to provide more sources to the article. -Loned (talk) 14:56, 1 March 2020 (UTC)

---

@Loned: YOU are the one making these assumption. My edit have never said those false information are related to China. My edit have never said anything about China's altitude on Taiwan either. I have never claimed geographic area where Simplified Chinese prevalent in my edit either. Please stop trying to mis-interpret my edits. And I also have not mentioned any causation between the situation of fake news written in simplified chinese vocabulary with the political situation in China. The description of the political party being against Chinese unification is simply say it is a Green camp government being attacked, as opposed to the blue camp, which is subdivided as supporting unification with China. C933103 (talk) 17:52, 4 March 2020 (UTC)

There is a move discussion in progress on

17:36, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

CaradhrasAiguo, please don't delete the work of other editors

Deleting Rubio's writing based on the judgment that he is a "far right extremist" seems POV to me... Rubio is a senior US senator on important committees, so his voice represents government position. I think you are editing based on your political position.

Also, I do read Chinese and the sources check out. Can you tell me which sentence doesn't match the source? Newslack (talk) 01:02, 8 March 2020 (UTC)

An article like this needs to only source statements and actions that already have recieved widespread coverage. This is true of all Wikipedia articles, but is an especially issue when dealing with conspiracy theories. Wikipedia should only cover conspiracy theories that are live theories, not push for more coverage those that have not yet gone live. For this reason I think we should only keep the mention of Igor Nikulin's actions if someone can create a reliably sourced article on Nikulin. If such cannot be done, than he is too minor an individual to have his actions mentioned in an article like this.John Pack Lambert (talk) 14:14, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

I broadly agree: we should be reporting broad trends rather than trying to detail individual bits of nonsense by non-notable people. Bondegezou (talk) 14:59, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

We have a section in the article entitled

. It is not appropriate here.

Firstly, this is not misinformation about coronavirus. It's a longstanding dispute that has impacted on the coronavirus response. Thus, it seems more relevant to

. The other issues on this page are obvious "fake news", whereas this is an ongoing and complex dispute which doesn't have an unambiguous right answer.

What do other editors think? Bondegezou (talk) 13:50, 6 March 2020 (UTC)

In the absence of any comment, I will

WP:BOLDly do this. Bondegezou (talk

) 15:37, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

1. I don't think those agencies ignoring facts and backing opinion of one side count as "run into difficulties over Taiwan's status"
2. The situation have longlasting impact outside of Taiwan, so I don't think it'd be appropriate to put them in Taiwan's article
3. This article is not just misinformation about the virus itself but also cover misinformation about the outbreak as indicated by the article title. So this is within scopr of the article.
4. The problem here is not about whether Taiwan should become part of China, which would be an opinion, instead it is about whether Taiwan is ruled by or part of the area controlled by the Chinese authority, which is a matter of fact. It have been reportd that judgement of multiple countries government outside Taiwan have been impaired by such fake information.

C933103 (talk) 23:46, 9 March 2020 (UTC)

Agreed that this doesnt belong on this page, we already have misinformation against Taiwan covered. Although rather confusingly its under "Size of the outbreak” which doesn’t seem right.

Horse Eye Jack (talk

) 02:21, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

@

WP:NPOV

.

To date, you appear to be the only editor pushing for this material to be included here. I will wait for other editors to chip in. Bondegezou (talk) 08:56, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

1. The "misinformation against Taiwan" section undee "size of outbreak" only cover that particular type of misinformation (outbreak size)
2. @Bondegezou: I am not the only editor who adds to or edit the related information, although other editors might not participate in discussion here.
3. They impacted how those other mentioned countries handle their entry restrictions which subsequently have implication on their diplomatic relationship with other countries, that have been noted although not specifically mentioned in some sources.
4. The point that those agencies have been ignoring fact is a point that most sources have covered, those agencies did not correct their information even after they have been pointed out and complained by various other entity. Again, the problematic content here is that they claim Taiwan to be under China control while it in fact is not, which is not something you can be classify as opinion. Example of opinion here would be whether China should control Taiwan, and this is not what the section is about. C933103 (talk) 16:56, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Then the solution would appear to be to make a general misinformation again Taiwan section, I think given the information we currently have a subsection under China’s subsection of the Misinformation by governments section would be most appropriate. Misinformation is different from being politically correct (even if correctness if determined by the greatest abuser of human rights on the planet) and ignoring facts is not the same as spreading misinformation even if they are often related. I also note that Taiwan's coronavirus related disputes with

Horse Eye Jack (talk

) 18:03, 10 March 2020 (UTC)

Only three of us have expressed an opinion here. We're 2:1 against keeping the material in its current place. The text is now preserved on another article (and is covered on two other articles). Therefore, I am removing the material from here again. C933103, I suggest you do not re-add unless you can show some support from others for your position. Bondegezou (talk) 15:04, 11 March 2020 (UTC)

Hello, just wanted to ask if it is ok to remove the part where it says RT posted/spread the fake video of a Chinese citizen eating a bat, since this was actually not published on RT, and the article in question, https://www.rt.com/news/478997-bat-soup-china-virus-wuhan/, mainly mentions snakes and does not even show anyone "biting into a bat" as this section falsely claimed, simply showing a video of bat soup. 74.83.223.215 (talk) 18:48, 7 March 2020 (UTC)

The RT article is clear in that they did in fact spread the misinformation. But we need not make

WP:OR

from the RT article ourselves in any case, because the material is cited to secondary sources.

In regards to what the video segment on RT depicts, the fix is to reword the text "biting into a bat". However, it is not necessary, because the exact wording in the Wiki article is "promoting a video" (not "posted" as you say) and thus the material is not incorrect (as the RT article itself describes what's in the whole video). --Cold Season (talk) 19:00, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

A

, and fake accounts online were part of an effort to “take advantage of a health crisis, where people are terrified worldwide, to try to advance their priorities.” A Global Engagement Center report last week revealed nearly 2 million tweets over a three-week period that pushed coronavirus-related conspiracies.

• https://www.washingtonpost.com/technology/2020/03/05/state-department-face-fresh-questions-senate-about-coronavirus-misinformation-online
• https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-03-05/coronavirus-is-fueling-nation-state-disinformation-campaigns

) 09:22, 12 March 2020 (UTC)

Don't see the point of making this anti-Russian as possible. The point of the article is pointing out how blaming Russia is a conspiracy theory.--Fruitloop11 (talk) 11:05, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

The articles are about

X1\ (talk

) 03:24, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

WikiProject COVID-19

I've created

) 16:42, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Traditional Chinese Medicine

Right now, the info under the section "Traditional Chinese Medicine" only states information that supports its use and nothing that disproves it like all the other things listed here. Is there any information out there that proves it false? If not, then the claims about traditional Chinese medicine probably shouldn't be listed on this article. Pikaryaa (talk) 02:50, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

The section needs a rework. I will at least trim some material that does not comport with

WP:MEDRS. - MrX 🖋

12:02, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Thank you for tending to this section, MrX. Could you also please simply remove the current first paragraph (using TCM + modern medicine together to treat severe cases) and the current third paragraph (allowing patients to practice taiji and qigong for their health)? These two in particular seem substantially different from other instances listed in the overall article. There's no claim in either paragraph of a "cure" for COVID. The first paragraph seems to be more about urging use of complementary care in addition to modern medical treatments for COVID (I'm relying on the OP's translation of the cited article, as I don't read Chinese). The third paragraph doesn't seem to be talking about treatments for COVID specifically at all - rather it seems to be about other practices being allowed at a treatment center, in support of overall health. In both cases, the paragraphs seem out of place within the overall article. (BTW, thank you to both MrX and Pikaryaa for inspiring me to register and make my very first contribution.)  :-) Weehatchet (talk) 09:04, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Dennis Prager spreading Covid misinformation

[2] is a blog, but maybe better sources will come up soon. --Hob Gadling (talk) 16:48, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

Rodney Howard-Browne

Megachurch pastor Rodney Howard-Browne is spreading conspiracy theories and telling his parishioners to keep coming to church and shaking hands because they are “revivalists, not pansies”. He has quite a few followers (and the ear of President Trump) so it’s worrisome. Antivaxxery and coronavirus denialism are a combination that could potentially kill a lot of people, so it’s definitely worth mentioning. [3] 97.116.51.145 (talk) 17:59, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

not real

article claims covid is not real: https://www.greenmedinfo.com/blog/does-2019-coronavirus-exist?utm_campaign=Daily%20Newsletter%3A%20Coronavirus%20-%20Cowdan%20-%20Fixed%20%28Ji2mSU%29&utm_medium=email&utm_source=Daily%20Newsletter&_ke=eyJrbF9lbWFpbCI6ICJsY2NoaWNvbGFAZ21haWwuY29tIiwgImtsX2NvbXBhbnlfaWQiOiAiSzJ2WEF5In0%3D — Preceding unsigned comment added by Pasheredsan (talk • contribs) 19:09, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

"holding your breath for more than 10 seconds is an effective test for the novel coronavirus"

Debunked by WHO https://factcheck.afp.com/world-health-organization-refutes-viral-claims-holding-your-breath-can-test-covid-19 — Preceding unsigned comment added by 68.193.86.98 (talk) 21:00, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

POV title

Oh my God! The title says "misinformation" while the content of the article includes accusations by politicians. What make what they are saying "misinformation"? Today the Chinese foreign minister spokesperson said that the U.S. army may be behind the coronavirus outbreak in Wahan. Now, where should I include this information? Here? In the "misinformation" article?! So it's automatically labelled misinformation? Anyone has an idea what is the best alternative neutral title?--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 02:38, 13 March 2020 (UTC)

This *is* the NPOV title. Misinformation is misinformation. The standard used, like everywhere else on Wikipedia, are what reliable sources report. Not all information or statements are created equally, and equally factual; it’s contrary to both the spirit and policy of Wikipedia to provide false balance. As far as your hypothetical, yes, this would be the place. If you think such an idea has validity, then I’m not sure what to say. Symmachus Auxiliarus (talk) 09:45, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

The title is obviously fine. We are not going to pretend that misinformation and conspiracy theories are something else. - MrX 🖋 12:12, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

Page just got moved from 'Misinformation' to 'conspiracy theories'. Not a fan. All conspiracy theories are a form of misinformation, but not all misinformation is a conspiracy theory. Much of what is covered here is non-conspiracy theory misinformation. Agricolae (talk) 07:43, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Agree with Agricolae - they are not all conspiracy theories (e.g. CT are a sub-set of the misinformation). This page was moved earlier yesterday and that move reverted but has been removed again without any discussion/agreement on the Talk Page. Pinging El_C who move protected the page. Britishfinance (talk) 09:57, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Agree with Britishfinance that we should go back to the misinformation title. Bondegezou (talk) 10:09, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

And adding that we don't need separate articles on "Misinformation" and on "Conspiracy Theories" (which was also reverted earlier), as the lines are too blurred. Britishfinance (talk) 10:11, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

• Reverted to status quo. If anyone thinks the title is wrong they can initiate a
  move request to see if there is consensus for that new title. Editors should not repeatedly move it to their preferred title without discussion and consensus. - MrX 🖋
  11:58, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

I see this page was moved for another time again this morning without consensus (and re-reverted by MrX) - perhaps El_C could consider giving it stronger protection against page moves as it causes quite an amount of disruption (a lot of pages link into this and my watchlist is filled with bots removing double re-directs). thanks' Britishfinance (talk) 11:32, 17 March 2020 (UTC)

Italian neighborhood singing hoax

Recently, a video of residents of a neighborhood in Naples, Italy singing football/soccer chants while under quarantine has gone viral on social media. However, "fan pages" of various celebrities have edited the video so that the neighborhood is singing popular songs. Several A-list celebrities including Madonna, Katy Perry, and Cheryl, have uploaded these videos to their social media accounts. Given how widespread the hoax was and that it tricked some of the most followed people on social media, I feel as if it would be appropriate to add this instance to the article.

(Painting17 (talk) 18:47, 17 March 2020 (UTC))

Is bat meat involved or not?

In the Diet section, the Eating Bats subsection mostly discusses a particular video of someone eating bat soup being falsely extrapolated to relate to the outbreak. The last sentence of the subsection states that "the spread of misinformation about eating bats is rooted in xenophobia toward Asians," presumably pertaining to that particular video, but implies that the notion the outbreak was caused by eating bats at all is misinformation. The very next subsection, Eating Meat, states that the initial infection did potentially come from bat or pangolin meat. Which is it? 192.24.117.203 (talk) 22:57, 14 March 2020 (UTC)

The jury is still out. It might have started by eating or contact with bat meat, but it might not. It might have been pangolin flesh. I'll look at the wording. Bondegezou (talk) 10:10, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

I think it should be edited to reflect that ambiguity, then, as opposed to giving two ides that conflict. Maybe remove that last sentence under Bats, it seems strangely worded as if addressing a different topic than the rest of the section anyways, and clarify under Meat that the bat/pangolin idea is a supported theory, but not just yet proven true? 192.24.117.203 (talk) 15:16, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

The ref (in the following section) states two things regarding bats:

• "Though the virus is believed to have originated in bats, there’s no evidence that meat-eating is linked to the coronavirus"
• "There is no treatment or vaccine for the virus, which scientists think originated in bats and may have hopped into an intermediary host animal before infecting people."

Therefore, it is

WP:OR and I've removed it from the following section. Nowhere does it supports supposed theories about consumption of it. --Cold Season (talk

) 01:18, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Computational methods

Beyond the traditional reporting on the correctness of popular claims (e.g.,

Fullfact.org), there are several ongoing efforts to provide computational (unsupervised) methods to verify claims about the coronavirus spread and effects. Some approaches, such as Juji, rely on a database of claims manually checked by humans and try to match new sentences against such corpus. Other approaches exploit machine learning to automatically check a claim against the official data sources (CoronaCheck). Finally, there exist resources with a list of websites reporting incorrect information about the virus, such as NewsGuard. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 84.97.131.38 (talk

) 13:23, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

CAS Key Laboratory of Special Pathogens and Biosafety

Should it be here? Or it is too real to be here? 2A00:1FA0:482C:1CE0:41AF:57A5:9C1C:2DF5 (talk) 14:33, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Title of the antisemitic section

Afternoon Wiki. I edited the antisemitic section as I found the use of the specific word Zionist to be potentially weighted and biased. I used the title "antisemitic" instead and this was left un-edited by anybody else for a few days. User:AtikaAtikawa has replaced "semitic" with "zionist" with no explanation.

Could I ask for some input here? This section is important but so is the title. Do we agree on "antiZionist" or "antisemitic"? doktorb _words^deeds 12:40, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

The section covers various claims. While some of these could possibly be seen as being specifically anti-Zionist, others are clearly best described as anti-Semitic, so I support using anti-Semitic in the title of the section. Bondegezou (talk) 16:48, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

I had originally titled it with "Zionist" only because the initial text relied on sources documenting people who were clever enough to avoid the J-word. I figured if I put "Jewish" or "antisemitic" in the title that someone might try to delete the section with the rationale that if the conspiracy theory doesn't explicitly say "Jewish" then it can't be antisemitic. Now that there are more sources documenting people explicitly saying "Jews" (sometimes in the same sentence as "Zionists") I don't think it matters as much. Einsof (talk) 02:07, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Geraldo Rivera - Hold your breath misinformation

Someone should reference Geraldo Rivera's misinformation about how to self-diagnose for COVID-19 - holding your breath for 10 seconds.

https://www.mediaite.com/tv/fox-friends-churns-out-insane-misinformation-on-coronavirus/ — Preceding unsigned comment added by 2600:8802:1400:6F2:4DCD:6631:AA10:9B3E (talk) 05:15, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

China much worse off than they're telling us

No source was provided but one person posting on a web site said a million were dead in Wuhan because they were isolated and no one was checking on them.

Another person on that site says 5 million dead and 40 million infected.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 15:48, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

We can only work with information from reliable sources. Bondegezou (talk) 16:44, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Reliable sources stating that there is misinformation.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 17:10, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

And I was proposing that these were topics to include, when sources were found.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 18:55, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

The problem is that as everyone knows here, China is not transparent, so we have only "official" figures, but the problem is circular, because that figures come from non transparent sources.

I just wish the person had said where he got the information, but then we need a reliable source stating that the source says that and is wrong.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 16:51, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Vchimpanzee, the claim that the numbers from China are dramatically underreported appears to be made by Guo Wengui then passed around on various unreliable websites. (In February, he was claiming that China was cremating coronavirus victims while they were still alive.) Schazjmd (talk) 17:35, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

I see. Have we found a way to include this in the article? Also, what I saw said crematoriums were going nonstop but I assumed the claim was the people had died.— Vchimpanzee • talk • contributions • 17:47, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Please find sources before posting an edit proposal to an article talk page. This is not a

discussion forum. - MrX 🖋

18:05, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

Nifty list of Trump admin false statements

See https://www.nytimes.com/2020/03/15/opinion/trump-coronavirus.html Zezen (talk) 11:19, 16 March 2020 (UTC)

That list should be accompanied by a parallel nifty list of true statements on the same issue made by other public figures at close to the same time, of course. —Blanchette (talk) 20:17, 20 March 2020 (UTC)

My God, It's Full of Stars!

talk

) 18:27, 19 March 2020 (UTC)

Your link is to a tweet that can't be seen unless you are a confirmed follower of ... whoever that is. IAmNitpicking (talk) 15:56, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

millions of phones gone/lost

why was it removed and why should it not be readdded — Preceding unsigned comment added by Baratiiman (talk • contribs) 16:50, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

This is likely not the first time, and it wont be the last time

There are many labs around the world which are working on such bioweapons with WHO having full knowledge of their existence. Within every single state or private owned lab that is set up to work on such things, the risk of leakage and contamination rises.

US Intelligence Director Clapper warned about this in 2016.

https://www.technologyreview.com/s/600774/top-us-intelligence-official-calls-gene-editing-a-wmd-threat/

(DNI's report downloadable in the link to their website)

Basically he said that there are many labs around the world working on genetically modified organisms, and the standards for regulation and safety of many of those were total unknowns. He stated that deliberate or intentional misuse of such organisms, even through accident, could make great damage to world at large.

He framed this in the form of "other countries' lacking regulations", however it does not need to mention that US is a pretty deregulated space itself, with US private corporations having been shown to be reckless and rapacious many times in the past with little regard for anything else than profit.

A virus is not technically something we consider a living organism, but its behavior is same with all other organisms: It propagates itself.

And once you get it out, there is no taking it back. Be it accident, be it intentional, be it a screw-up.

So Clapper's warning is also valid for viruses and any organism that can propagate itself. In near future, we will likely have to consider various nanomachine types in the same category as self-replicating nanomachines are sufficiently developed.

In this backdrop, the highly deregulated environment in US is a gigantic problem:

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/05/health/germs-fort-detrick-biohazard.html

This is Fort Detrick bioweapons lab which CDC had to get a court order to shut down last August (2019). This is why various countries in China and overseas, and some people in US are suspecting US to be the origin of the virus.

Having been following US corporate practice and last 20 years' environmental history, anyone can easily conclude that this incident with Fort Detrick lacking proper safety practices per already loose regulations is a pretty common practice in US, but in this case this is not an oil rig or a steel planet - its a bioweapons lab.

The amazing lack of proper safety measures, even more amazing callousness about them, and the incredible stubbornness on refusing to stop operations until CDC pulls out a court order, are inexplicable.

Its amazing how we treat nuclear weapons so seriously and we have international regulations, rules and organizations who oversee them, but we dont have anything notable for bioweapons or GMOs.

This should be a lesson for human civilization. Irresponsibility and callousness has limits. This may or may not be due to what happened in Fort Detrick in between May 2018 and August 2019, but the lesson still holds.— Preceding unsigned comment added by Unity100 (talk • contribs) 18:47, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

The conclusions of the first article you linked are not the ones you are proposing above. The second one is indeed about an incident, but not related to coronavirus. Using either for this article would be editor synthesis (

WP:SYNTH). —PaleoNeonate

– 21:03, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

Wikipedia bad form

Wikipedia is not supposed to be a news articles, or anything about judging how people react to certain situations, especially situations that are unfolding right now. The title of the article doesn't follow Wikipedia's standards. Wikipedia is not a soapbox. Wikipedia is not a forums. Wikipedia is not supposed to judge about information truthiness, it's only about consensus. If a majority of people believe something (including any conspiracy theory, true or false), then Wikipedia should report it, as per the neutrality principle.— Preceding unsigned comment added by 45.73.113.69 (talk) 19:15, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

Your comment seems self-contradictory:

WP:CITE). Thanks, —PaleoNeonate

– 21:06, 22 March 2020 (UTC)

With developing and controversial issues, today's information is tomorrow's misinformation and vice-versa. Wikipedia's editors seem to believe they are Snopes, apparently. A genuinely neutral article would minimally lead with a tentative title like "alleged misinformation". 2A00:23C5:94D7:7300:2C7D:8855:612A:D58E (talk) 11:33, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

Is there anything specific in this article you think should be labeled that way? Axedel (talk) 15:45, 23 March 2020 (UTC)

2015 experiment on chimeric virus

There is a theory about this 2015 experiment made in Wuhan laboratories:

• A SARS-like cluster of circulating bat coronaviruses shows potential for human emergence (published on Nature, 9 november 2015): "Using the SARS-CoV reverse genetics system, we generated and characterized a chimeric virus expressing the spike of bat coronavirus SHC014 in a mouse-adapted SARS-CoV backbone".
• A pneumonia outbreak associated with a new coronavirus of probable bat origin (Nature, 3 february 2020): "The sequences are almost identical and share 79.6% sequence identity to SARS-CoV. Furthermore, we show that 2019-nCoV is 96% identical at the whole-genome level to a bat coronavirus".

Can anyone expand it?--Holapaco77 (talk) 17:47, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

Are phrases like "falsely claimed" even necessary in this article?

Or is the former assumed. - Immigrant laborer (talk) 20:22, 25 March 2020 (UTC)

Methanol

Iranian media reported that nearly 500 people had died and over a thousand became ill due to

methanol poisoning in the belief that drinking the alcohol can kill the virus in the body.^[1]— Preceding unsigned comment added by 31.221.214.126 (talk

) 01:03, 28 March 2020 (UTC)

References

1. ^ "In Iran, False Belief a Poison Fights Virus Kills Hundreds". Associated Press. 27 March 2020. Archived from the original on 27 March 2020. Retrieved 27 March 2020 – via NY Times.

Discussion at

Talk:2019–20 coronavirus pandemic#Bloated misinformation section

 You are invited to join the discussion at

Talk:2019–20 coronavirus pandemic#Bloated misinformation section. Sdkb (talk

) 19:12, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Cratering pageviews

Any idea why that's happened recently? (See graph at the top of this page) Sdkb (talk) 19:13, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

I suspect the push from the two Wired articles just wore off. People read, shared, clicked, and now are on to other topics. Schazjmd (talk) 19:18, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

Ah, makes sense. It's still really pronounced. But this page is already linked from the lead of the main pandemic article, and that's the main place it really needs to be linked from. Sdkb (talk) 21:42, 30 March 2020 (UTC)

UV and heat might kill the virus

*UV-C light, chlorine, and high (over 56 °C) temperatures can be used to kill the coronavirus.[111]

All of the above claims have been disproven. For example, UV-C light, chlorine and high temperatures may cause skin irritation and burns if used on human skin. It is still unknown if temperatures above 56 °C can kill SARS-CoV 2.

My comments:

Talk:Coronavirus disease 2019#some stuff about UV rays to disinfect

:3. WHO says not to use UV on skin. WHO says nothing about whether things could be sterilized.

As for heat, one could safely assume that the virus would be killed if subjected to, say, 1000°C.

It'd seem easy to do the tests, and thus sources could be relatively easy to find.

DMBFFF (talk) 02:38, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

And 56 °C is currently the lab procedure used to kill the virus... That count as misinformation??? C933103 (talk) 09:36, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

My dispute is more of wording. The WHO (who are likely the source behind the cited source) is probably doing its job in advising against measures that could lead to UV radiation or heat burns, but missed the ball on inanimate objects often used, or surroundings often occupied, by humans. 56°C, eh? Very well, we can say up to 56°C (I doubt cold will kill it unless it's too cold to be practical). However what of 60°C (140°F), 70°C (158°F), or 80°C (176°F)—temperatures some plastics, pillows, mattresses, outer wear, baseball caps, and maybe masks might take. While I'd generally take WHO seriously and generally as factual, this is the same agency that listed homosexuality as a disorder until 1990 (here: Homosexuality#Psychology)—they are fallible, however rare and/or (generally) minor it might be. Also, I believe the WP article on the virus says bleach kills it. So yes WHO, don't wash your hands with bleach—at least not in high concentrations and without rinsing well with plain water (at least as per my experiences with using the chemical), but it will kill the virus.DMBFFF (talk) 16:28, 24 March 2020 (UTC)

I've removed it for now, as directly contradicting the source. No object to someone adding it back with more careful wording, but I don't think we should be misleading people into thinking that bleach, in any concentration, doesn't kill the virus, just because someone might try to wash their hands with it. Suffusion of Yellow (talk) 04:46, 26 March 2020 (UTC)

Agreed, and thanks. DMBFFF (talk) 16:03, 29 March 2020 (UTC)

The newer wording ``UV-C light, chlorine, and high (over 56 °C) temperatures can be used on humans to kill the coronavirus`` is still misleading since a cursory reading without the context of this discussion could (did in my own case until I checked the source material) lead the reader to believe these methods are ineffectual on the virus itself - perhaps the sentence could be expanded to explain that while effective on the virus is unsafe for human skin. — Preceding unsigned comment added by 14.203.182.179 (talk) 02:22, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

Richard Epstein

desperately needs an entry in the page.See here, with link to the primary source. Better secondary source here, probably more to come. I expect the Dunning-Kruger literature citing him as a prime example very soon. --Hob Gadling (talk) 05:46, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

Semi-protected edit request on 31 March 2020

This Misinformation related to the 2019–20 coronavirus pandemic has been answered. Set the |answered= or |ans= parameter to no to reactivate your request.

change "heath" to "health" 188.147.97.83 (talk) 11:40, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

 Done--SharʿabSalam▼ (talk) 12:06, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

Change the title/ Edit the bias out

The whiole page is full of bias and cannot be taken seriously. For example, in the section "vegetarian immunity" it is written that: "Some organizations, including PETA, and individuals made FALSE claims on social media that eating meat made people susceptible to the virus."

At the end a reference is made to an article by Business Insider where it is just said that:

"It’s true that scientists suspect that the virus originated in a Chinese wet market, where people coexist in cramped quarters alongside animals both alive and dead, but it’s not accurate to say the virus is linked to eating meat, as PETA UK has."

Business Insider is a news outlet and cannot decide what is true or false. Therefore the whole section is questionable, not providing any proof that meat eating doesn't help getting the virus. As there are no other references, this whole paragraph has no place in the "misinformation" section.

The common sense of the author is not a reliable source of information either.

The section about the American administration is also full of bias.

Please edit the whole page leaving out words like "false" or "misinformation". Make an alternative page called "Unproven theories".

Once again, a person's scope of knowledge is not a reliable source if information. Nobody is expecting Wikipedia to be a reliable source, that's the first thing university students are told but let's not abandon all standards. Ruiniel (talk) 14:33, 31 March 2020 (UTC)

i personally agree, Wikipedia is starting more and more to 'work' as it would be a 'reliable source' and with the innate right to 'debunk' anything is called 'cospiracy'. Some very 'skeptical' cannot simply image that it cannot be a case IF a wet fish market is neared by less than 300 meters from a bio-viral laboratory that actually work with bats, virus and so on. Dozens of 'incidents' in biolab already happened, as example smallpox, SARS, MARBURG viruses. So why the hell this time,despite the proximity with a such dangerous lab, there must be the wet market to do that epidemy? And why the hell the first infected with Covid was NOT involved in the market? This is an utter nonsense, and wikipedia cannot call cospiracy anything some editors don't like because they want to be 'debunkers'. Then they should go to metabunk, skeptical enquirer and so on, and not to report their biased opinions in wikipedia with articles so POV like this one.62.11.3.98 (talk) 00:37, 1 April 2020 (UTC)