Talk:COVID-19 pandemic in the United Kingdom

Is this caused by the pandemic or failure to stop the pandemic (which would require some economic disruption but perhaps less severe than that once the pandemic has arrived and then the virus spread widely across the country)

"The pandemic was widely disruptive to the economy of the United Kingdom" Or was the failure of the UK to have adequate border controls to stop the virus coming in, that then meant the Government had to close down the economy on a widespread scale, widely disruptive to the economy of the United Kingdom instead? "Due to failure of the Government to take action, the pandemic was widely disruptive..."? ("Yes but we are an international travel hub and couldn't have had border controls and they only delay the virus not stop it altogether..." I dispute this - as New Zealand showed, the delay could be very substantial indeed and the claim we couldn't have put border controls there is also nonsense IMO as we could have done anything if we had wanted to - it was claimed for a long time prior to the pandemic that working from home was impossible and couldn't be done (when they wanted to stop disabled people from having option to do so and not make arguably reasonable adjustments). It proved perfectly possible, once the Government let the virus in through failure to take measures to stop it doing so for a substantial period indeed, and then had to have people in the country working from home. So it clearly can be done, once the situation forces it, and the claim it couldn't is shown to have been an excuse.) Not edited the actual article, because I know some of what I say will be controversial and not necessarily neutral point of view. But, then, so is claiming the pandemic was widely disruptive to the economy to me.

aspaa (talk) 22:41, 5 June 2022 (UTC)

Sourcing of Covid statistics

Arcahaeoindris, can you help me understand the meaning of the tags you have plastered the 'International comparisons' section with. If we can't use these secondary sources, are we supposed to draw our own conclusions from the primary source (the Lancet study) and support them with cites to that primary source? Most of the Wiki articles related to Covid that I've seen use RS news media to support assertions about the pandemic - do they all fall foul of Wiki sourcing policy? -- DeFacto (talk). 10:00, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Hi @DeFacto:, thanks for taking this here. Please see WP:MEDPOP, which outlines the issues with using popular press coverage as sources for COVID-19 topics nicely. Popular press can certainly be used to summarise policy changes or announcements, but does not uphold a high enough standard for actual medical information such as excess deaths. Therefore content like this needs to be supported by the Lancet article itself, or a WP:MEDRS. Hope this helps. Arcahaeoindris (talk) 10:07, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Thanks @Arcahaeoindris for the quick response. Are you saying we can drop the secondary sources then, and reference the primary source directly?

Also, why do you specifically mention 'excess deaths' from the Lancet report, which have been collated on the same basis and therefore can stand 'amateur' comparisons, but not the multitude of places in this, and several other Covid articles, where popular and generally partisan media sources are liberally used to support dodgy and inexpert direct comparisons between data collected using totally different criteria and methodologies from different countries and of which several warnings exist of the dangers of making those comparisons? -- DeFacto (talk). 10:20, 13 June 2022 (UTC)

Statement suggesting "continued low levels" of Covid-19 is disputed by some reliable experts

In fact the statement by the UKHSA appears to be misleading because they refer to continued low levels of case rates, but *case* rates have become generally acknowledged by scientists (at least those independent of the official bodies) as being unreliable since the effective ending of mass testing in April 2022 (July in Wales) and therefore infection levels on the ONS infections survey now providing much more true picture as to the state of Covid-19 in the UK. These rates, reached briefly in September 2022, were thought not to be low by some experts such as Professor Christina Pagel and, even at this recent lowest of around 1 in 75 estimated infected on the ONS infections survey, they remained in the high end of what was often seen in the pre-Omicron time away from the waves of even higher infection. Infection levels this year have been constantly at this high end, or often even higher, as this approx. 1 in 75 point is the lowest point seen all year and was unsustained. The rates of Covid-19 have been objectively high at their highest points this year, reaching a peak of nearly 5 million people estimated infected in March 2022, the highest rate ever seen on the survey since it started in April 2020,. What finally made me crack and remove the quotation of the UKHSA altogether was the fact the downward trend of Covid-19 has proven not to be sustained, having dipped to around 1 in 75 infections on the ONS infections survey and then going back up - it was hardly at its lowest level for more than one survey. It factually *isn't* a sustained downward trend. Therefore the information quoted is unreliable and, if the statement about "low" rates is to be included, as matters of opinion and not objectively verifiable facts, since whether something is "low" or "high" is a matter of opinion and legitimate views may differ, it needs to be balanced by the opinions of scientific experts that represent a consensus away from bodies that may have vested interests as inclusion of one view that it is "low" is not impartial or neutrality (especially when infection levels have been often much higher than they were during the first two years of the pandemic). aspaa (talk). 21:52, 1 October 2022 (UTC)

References

Infobox

I've removed the "last 7 days" figure from the infobox; quoting a rolling figure from some arbitrary week over two years ago is at best a bit ridiculous and at worst potentially quite misleading (if a reader were to miss the "as of" date).

I can see some value in keeping a snapshot of the last cumulative figures we have from the period of mass testing, though I wonder if anything could be done to make it more clear that the figures are no longer receiving live updates (e.g. quoting figures over a range of dates rather than "as of" a date which is unlikely to ever advance). The infobox could maybe take a broader view than a snapshot in time: it could include dates of infection peaks, for example. Or perhaps the existing figures could be supplemented or replaced by a reliable source with more recent data.

As it currently stands, it makes the article look abandoned. I know there are sensitivities around treating COVID as history, but quoting ancient figures as if they're rolling updates does nothing to dispel that notion.

TheJames (talk) 12:25, 22 March 2024 (UTC)