Talk:COVID-19 pandemic#RfC on censorship section

I have noticed over the course of the past 5 years that there has been a lot of debate surrounding when on this page to switch the tense in regard to the pandemic, whether it was still taking place or if it had concluded. Unfortunately, the argument was as heated as it was due to the politicalization of the encyclopedia, and I really don’t think there is any denying that.

The beginning of this article is still worded in a way that feels unnatural & out of sync with other articles chronicling historic events. People come to Wikipedia to figure out what the event was.

It’s time to replace the compromise that was put in place with wording that aligns with the precedent set by decades of articles. There is no reason to still be in disagreement about this, and the only reason one could say “no, we already compromised and we aren’t going to use ‘was’” is if you are prioritizing your position from years ago, disregarding the fact that time is constantly moving forward, and that as humans we should be happy with this reality. The reality is that the pandemic is over.

Is anyone opposed to rewording the beginning of the article so as not to leave a crucial piece of information out? By not addressing it in the past tense or present tense, it is lacking crucial context. Brickto (talk) 12:16, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

:* Strong oppose. The pandemic is ongoing according many of the best sources, and will likely be for decades. Bon courage (talk) 12:26, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

:*:This is not true. Look at the fact alone that there needs to be compromise that leave the information ambiguous as the telltale sign that this isn’t a matter of what is and isn’t true, but a matter or ego & inability to admit it is over.

:*:That fundamentally damages the encyclopedia.

:*:*[https://pmc.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/articles/PMC10969173/ National Library of Medicine - The COVID-19 Pandemic Is Over, but the Virus Still Lingers]

:*:*[https://www.cbsnews.com/video/researcher-says-long-covid-causing-great-deal-of-suffering/ CBS News - Quote: "The pandemic may be over, but millions are still dealing with COVID-19's effects."]

:*:*[https://link.springer.com/content/pdf/10.1140/epjb/s10051-024-00733-0.pdf The European Physical Journal B - Why and how did the COVID pandemic end abruptly?] Brickto (talk) 10:37, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

:*:* Comment - Now, can you find recent academic writing that explicitly states that the pandemic is still taking place in March 2025? Because academia doesn’t just release entire articles about the end of a pandemic if it hasn’t happened yet, so please explain that Brickto (talk) 10:41, 30 March 2025 (UTC)

:*:*:*Comment - I would like to apologize to Bon courage for having said that the debate was over ego. I started the conversation off on the wrong foot and that’s on me. It’s a shame too, because I think the debate is worth having at this point in time, and I think that there are a lot of valid opinions across the board. Sorry for immediately polarizing the discussion. I am prone to doing that, and I am working on it. Brickto (talk) 10:24, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

:*:Bon courage I got back to you and provided sources. Would you mind sharing the sources you were speaking about?

:*:

.. many of the best sources..

:*:I would like the opportunity to read these. I went looking and cannot seem to find anything. Brickto (talk) 07:35, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

:*::Junk journals and unreliable sources don't really move the needle. While relevant, top-tier sources like the WHO describe a pandemic[https://www.who.int/europe/emergencies/situations/covid-19], or explicitly say we are still in "transition" to an endemic phase{{snd}}see PMID:39956089{{snd}}then Wikipedia is bound to follow. What would move the needle is a strong epidemiology/virology source or multinational health organisation discussing why the pandemic is "over", which would seem to be an exceptional claim given that SARS-CoV-2 is still infecting people all over the planet.[https://www.who.int/docs/default-source/coronaviruse/situation-reports/ceu_177.pdf?sfvrsn=22ccb24d_4&download=true] Note the word "pandemic" means different things in an epidemiological sense, and in a lay sense (where it equates to noticeable public health measures), as has been discussed on this Talk page ad nauseam. Bon courage (talk) 08:33, 2 April 2025 (UTC)

:*:::Bon courage… Excuse me? “Junk” journals? The sources I cited are credible and peer-reviewed.

:*:::

:*:::The first is published in The European Physical Journal B by Springer Nature—a top global academic publisher. It comes from researchers at Rutgers University and CIMATEC Brazil, and it uses physics-based modeling to explain the decline in COVID severity. Peer-reviewed, data-driven, and published in a real journal.

:*:::

:*:::The second is literally titled “The COVID-19 Pandemic Is Over”—published in Diseases, a PubMed-indexed medical journal. It’s archived by the U.S. National Library of Medicine (NLM) and National Institutes of Health (NIH). It plainly states: “The global health emergency officially ended on 11 May 2023.”

:*:::

:*:::There’s nothing fringe about this. It’s institutional consensus and scientific analysis, both confirming the same thing: the pandemic is over. Brickto (talk) 08:14, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

:*::::See WP:MEDFAQ#PUBMEDRIGHT. In particular, WP:MDPI is a questionable publisher. (I'd also add for future reference that editorials are generally not peer-reviewed, and the guy penning this one makes the rookie error of confusing the end of the emergency phase with the pandemic itself. This confusion is covered at Endemic COVID-19). Stick to the WP:BESTSOURCES and all shall be well. Bon courage (talk) 11:58, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

:*:::::Bon courage, WP:MEDFAQ is a personal essay. This is what you are basing your argument on? The personally essay itself doesn’t even discredit these sources — “not necessarily” — but again, this is a personal essay. Not a policy or even a guideline.

:*:::::You are choosing to ignore the peer-reviewed, science-backed confirmation that the pandemic has ended in favor of political ego. That’s on you. You don’t have to grasp at straws in order to defend your indefensible stance. Brickto (talk) 15:56, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

:*:::::* Comment- Bon courage, WP:MEDFAQ is not only an essay, but it is one that you have a history of editing. Between [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:PermaLink/668443254 June 26, 2015] and [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:PermaLink/1238701622 August 5, 2024] you have contributed 4,931 bytes, 23 out of 89 total edits (25.84% of the essay’s edits) — of which only 4 were marked as minor. Citing yourself in a personal essay.. again, is not the best defense. Brickto (talk) 16:01, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

:*:::::*:It just reflects sense and (in the matter of PUBMED) aims to impart some small degree of research competence. Nothing un-obvious from that perspective. Bon courage (talk) 17:11, 4 April 2025 (UTC)

:*::::::Do you two even really disagree with each other? COVID-19 isn't over. The global health emergency is. As for the pandemic, well, that depends on your definition of the term. Like the flu, which caused a pandemic 1918, it became endemic. As for the editorial, editorials are opinion pieces. They're opinion pieces by editors, who are typically well-respected and credentialed in their line of work, but are nonetheless still opinions and must be treated as such, with in-text attribution if they're used in a Wikipedia article. Now, you can say that Professor of Gastroenterology at the University Magna Graecia says that the pandemic is over, but Wikipedia can't state someone else's opinion in its own voice. I avoid taking a side in such a dispute between experts, simply stating that it's disputed among experts when or if the pandemic ended, or we would write as if taking what's said by the WHO, that "this does not mean the pandemic itself is over, but the global emergency it caused is – for now", as fact (pending new guidance). I don't appreciate your comments about "political ego, though", Brickto. I bring that up because I see you used the word in two different comments, and I advice you discontinue your hostility to other editors. If anything, you seem to be the one attempting to over­ride consensus for political reasons, and your comment about ego is a borderline personal attack, not to mention a brick thrown in a glass house.

:*::::::In conclusion, you can say the emergency is officially over, the virus still lingers, and that, in the opinion of one expert, the pandemic is over, although the WHO never officially announced the end of the pandemic. And no one would bite you for saying it. So why are you biting others for simply not fixing something that isn't broken? Abenavoli says the "The COVID-19 Pandemic Is Over" in the title, yes, but the body references instead "the global health emergency [...] ended". This does not appear to contradict the WHO, which says pretty much the same thing, just a bit more pedantically when it comes to avoiding conflation of global health emergency with pandemic, which I suppose technically have a different meaning. 1101 (talk) 02:21, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

:*:::::::Talib1101, I appreciate your input. Maybe you are right that we agree, but perhaps are just defining things differently. I also enjoy a good, healthy debate! The global health emergency is synonymous with the pandemic. An epidemic is an outbreak isolated to a specific region. Then, there is the lingering of COVID which we are talking about, and that is known as endemic, and when as disease is endemic it rarely ends. COVID isn’t just “lingering” — it is going to remain a constant globally. WHO has already confirmed this. So, if we are waiting on the end of the endemicity in order to say the pandemic is over, then it will never end. There is a vaccine. There is control over it now. It is just simply something we will have to live with as a species for the rest of our time here on Earth, and perhaps one day even beyond Earth.

:*:::::::

:*:::::::Once something this infectious spreads all over the world, it can easily become a pandemic, but it lingering all over the world does not mean it remains one. The pandemic by both definition & social interpretation was an event that began at the end of the 2010s, and proceeded to take place and end at the beginning of the 20s.

:*:::::::
History is not going to define it as ongoing at the present moment we are living in. It has ended.

:*:::::::
This doesn’t even remotely mean that COVID is gone. It will never be. If this is really this much of a debate, perhaps there would be benefits in creating Endemicity of COVID-19 ? I’m gonna ping Bon courage so they see this.

:*:::::::*[https://hsph.harvard.edu/news/covid-endemic-bill-hanage/ Experts say COVID-19 is endemic. What does that mean? - Harvard School of Public Health]

:*:::::::*[https://www.cureus.com/articles/195526-from-emergence-to-endemicity-a-comprehensive-review-of-covid-19#!/ From Emergence to Endemicity: A Comprehensive Review of COVID-19 - 10.7759/cureus.48046]Brickto (talk) 04:24, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

:*::::::::We already have an article Endemic COVID-19, as I aleady said (and linked). Cureus is an even crappier source than the last one. In general the approach Wikipedia takes to NPOV is to focus on the WP:BESTSOURCES and summarize them, not use search engines to try and get random sources to prop up an editor's prior view. When you say "The global health emergency is synonymous with the pandemic" you are simply wrong (as explained in RS). I don't think this conversation is worth continuing and {{u|Brickto}} you need to drop the stick. This is a WP:CTOP if any of the bad behaviour mentioned by {{u|Talib1101}} recurs, it is unfortunately likely sanctions will be necessary. Bon courage (talk) 05:34, 5 April 2025 (UTC)

:*:::::::::Bon courage See this is odd. Endemic COVID-19 already exists as an article? There are experts who say it already is endemic. I am just confused as to why you are specifically choosing dated statements from people years ago. There are no current sources saying that the pandemic is ongoing. Almost all experts agree that it has ended.

:*:::::::::I understand you don’t like some of the sources, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t reliable. Harvard School of Public Health? National Institutes of Health? You are just dismissing them entirely? Then what basis do your sources have that make them more credible than some of the most prestigious sources of public health related data? Brickto (talk) 17:24, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

:*::::::::::{{tq|I understand you don’t like some of the sources}} ← your daft impertinence has gone too far. WP:CIR. I shall not respond further to this crap. Bon courage (talk) 17:28, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

:*:::::::::Bon courage not here to fight, but to have a discussion if that’s alright. I don’t want to make this into an argument, and I know this isn’t a forum, but the discussion still wasn’t really over truly. There are simply too many reliable sources pointing to it having ended 2 years ago.

:*:::::::::The reason I say Endemic COVID-19 is an odd thing to already exists.. is the fact that an article being created about a hypothesized state of an infectious disease, would surly be a careless thing to include in the encyclopedia as a standalone article. Brickto (talk) 17:29, 9 April 2025 (UTC)

:*oppose--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 12:38, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

::Without sources presented there's really no reason to consider changing this. Wikipedia has quite a few topics, like wars, political trends, and so forth, for which their end is gradual and ambiguous, and can't really be named as such until well after the fact. Crossroads ^-talk- 19:57, 27 March 2025 (UTC)

:::Did the pandemic of 1918 continued well into 1923? I'm asking this because if COVID-19 lasts longer than the 1918 Flu, it means it's more dangerous than the 1918 Flu, which most scientists don't agree with.84.54.72.60 (talk) 11:34, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

::::Length of pandemic does not equate to seriousness, but some pandemics are long (e.g. HIV/AIDS). Anyway, WP:NOTFORUM. Bon courage (talk) 11:43, 6 April 2025 (UTC)

Give Ukraine internationally recognized borders and correct purple colour. 31.129.245.26 (talk) 02:34, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

:this is not a political article, it is about a pandemic that has passed(please post elsewhere)--Ozzie10aaaa (talk) 11:48, 14 April 2025 (UTC)

Consider the fact COVID-19 is a type of common cold caused by a specific type of virus, in this case SARS coronavirus type 2. As long as this virus circulates in human populations, the pandemic will therefore continue indefinitely. In fact, the first documented pandemic in human history, the flu of 1918 which was later determined to be H1N1 still continues this day after well over 100 years. Therefore, it makes sense no pandemic will never end because there is no criteria for ending a pandemic.

Source: https://www.history.com/articles/1918-flu-pandemic-never-ended

66.22.167.30 (talk) 19:40, 1 May 2025 (UTC)

:Leaving aside the dumb 'common cold' comment, that is a rubbish source. See Spanish flu for some decent sourcing putting the end of that pandemic in April 1920. Bon courage (talk) 19:49, 1 May 2025 (UTC)