File talk:COVID-19-outbreak-timeline.gif

Title wording

@Metropolitan: Thank you for your work! The coloured bar on the bottom could be used to indicate number of confirmed cases worldwide. And, in efforts to aviod any potential meaningless controversies on politics, I kindly suggest putting "/region" after "country". Akira CA (talk) 09:56, 1 February 2020 (UTC)

@Akira CA: Thanks for your feedback. The title wording has been corrected. Metropolitan (talk) 01:16, 2 February 2020 (UTC)

Animation speed

@Metropolitan: I feel the animation could be sped up a bit. Since it's primarily in the infobox and small in size, the transitions feel rather lengthy. StreetSoda_{talk 04:29, 3 February 2020 (UTC)}

@Streetsoda: You're correct, I've removed the animation it should be slightly higher paced now. Metropolitan (talk) 01:20, 4 February 2020 (UTC)

@Metropolitan: The animation speed should at least be 1.5x-2x faster than what it is right now, now especially since the duration of the outbreak means additionally more frames. Sleath56 (talk) 02:47, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

Scary to watch (+ curious about source files :) )

I came to this already assuming that the spread of the virus cannot be contained, but watching the animation still was scary to me... Good work Metropolitan ! (not for scaring me, but for making an animation which visualises the viruses progression so well :P). Thumbs up for the continual updates as well (I'll admit I've come back to it pretty much every day since first seeing it :P).

Oh, any chance of you putting up the sources online somewhere? I'd assume you're using SVG's or similiar? (Not really important, but I'm an open source enthusiast, and you never know how it might come in handy for here, or someone else).

Thanks, and kind regards, Sean Heron (talk) 00:03, 8 February 2020 (UTC)

Making it open source is an interesting idea (at least to allow other people to update it), however I don't know if there are any official Wikipedia guidelines to properly do so. Metropolitan (talk) 00:56, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

A CC-BY-SA compatible licence is obviously required if the source is posted on Commons. You can dual license, e.g. GPL + CC-BY-SA if you want to avoid any incompatibility risk. See Category:Images including source code in their description, but you should pick a more specific category, depending on what software is needed to produce the figure using the script. You don't need to explicitly paste a free licence declaration, because that's implicitly declared by the default Commons CC-BY-SA licence (I can see an example declaration right now below my editing box). However, if you want to increase the chance that other people pass on to other users the same freedom to use a modified copy of your code that you provide, then pasting a brief free licence declaration at the top (as in File:Scalar_fields_theta_quadrant.svg, though the author name - me - is missing on that line) may increase the chance that the chain of copies remains free and attributed. Boud (talk) 20:29, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

Suggestion for scale

@Metropolitan: Thank you for making this animation - great job! One suggestion: Would it be possible to make the scale logarithmic, i.e:

• 0
• 1-9
• 10-99
• 100-999
• 1000-9999
• 10000-99999
• 100000+

This would allow for better detail of the level of the infection in seriously infected countries, at only a minor cost in detail for countries with low levels of infection. The same scale is used in this graphic: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Logarithmic_scale#/media/File:COB_data_Tsunami_deaths.PNG Christian Ankerstjerne (talk) 14:07, 10 February 2020 (UTC)

 Support - I completely agree with Christian Ankerstjerne here. Having the colors match a logarithmic scale would only be an advantage in my mind, especially since most people viewing this gif are as dumb as rocks and are on Wikipedia for the first time in forever just because (at least outside of eastern Asia) they were driven by their overexaggerated fear that they may contract the virus when they are exponentially more likely to die by the common cold. In the minds of many of those people having the United States and Australia differentiated from China by pretty much only one shade of color (since the 100-999 color isn't used at the present) will reinforce that fear because that's the first thing they'll notice about the map. Hell, people easily believed the "news" distributed by Facebook bots as legit in 2016 due to their extreme gullibility and inability to distinguish real from fake. I'm pretty sure all of us here have seen the garbage on the web that some people somehow actually believe to be true, and many of those same people that believe the aforementioned garbage, the ones that are extremely gullible and are only driven by emotions and not by logic or facts, are looking at this gif and are shitting their pants because they only looked at the color and not the key or the numbers on the map. Fluffy89502 ~ talk 02:18, 11 February 2020 (UTC)

Just a side comment here - I've been looking at some of the institutional infos (European CDC for example), and the publications available (till around a week ago), and the likelyhood of this outbreak turning into a global pandemic are relatively large. If the diseases lethality and severity stay anywhere close to what they are in Hubei province (which is actually not certain - infections often turn less lethal through evolutionary pressures over time!), then this is going to be very serious in the US and Europe around next winter (plus/minus a season - so some time between autumn 2020, and spring 2021). Hoping that it doesn't come that way, regards 37.209.66.77 23:54, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

@Christian Ankerstjerne: The map has initially been created on January 31st and the scale was determined according to what fitted best at the time. The problem with a logarithmic scale is that it would currently have 4 out of 7 categories unused. This would tremendously reduce contrast. On English Wikipedia talk page, @Tvx1: suggested the following scale:

• 1000+
• 100-999
• 50-99
• 10-49
• 5-9
• 1-4
• none

I believe it would fit better with the current situation. However, I need to adjust all frames of the animated GIF to modify this and I can't take the time immediately. Metropolitan (talk) 16:13, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

Scale has been updated as described above. Metropolitan (talk) 06:16, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

@Metropolitan: Please edit japan as it only has 50-57(not sure) people affected with the virus but there was a rumor and 47 extra people from japan has the virus but not mentioned in the GIF map. Anyway please change the virus name to (-----) this is not it i will mention it where it actually came from because it did not come from Wuhan that was where the 1st person to catch the virus it came 30km away from Wuhan. Wojciech 2020 (talk) 22:49, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

Figures shown on the map are those officially published in WHO daily situation reports. Title on the image has been corrected to "COVID-19 Coronavirus confirmed cases by country/region". Metropolitan (talk) 06:16, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

Now China is out of control, S. Korea is about to top 1,000 and Japan close behind S. Korea cases I think the scale needs to be adjusted.

• 5000+
• 1000-4900
• 100-999
• 50-99
• 10-49
• 5-9
• 1-4
• none

79.76.249.91 20:57, 25 February 2020 (UTC)

Suggestion: Use relative scale (normalise per capita) instead of a absolute numbers

Besides the already mentioned logarithmic scale I'd suggest to normalise the colouring per capita. IMHO 1 infection in Spain (46 million inhabitants) should not result in the same colour as 1 infection in India (1300 million inhabitants). --Kondephy (talk) 01:49, 13 February 2020 (UTC)

@Kondephy: A limited number of colour categories is recommended for contrast readability and accessibility reasons. Furthermore, considering the main source are WHO situation reports which don't use per capita figures but number of cases by country, I believe it's better to stick to the source in order to avoid being accused of original research. Metropolitan (talk) 16:13, 15 February 2020 (UTC)

I fully support the per capita visualization. Otherwise we suggest a comparability which is not given in the current form. Right now the image is highly misleading. --Rabenkind (talk) 10:55, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

ps - and no - this is not original research at all. Same as converting currencies or units of distance. There is no research involved. --Rabenkind (talk) 10:57, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

In the current situation, the absolute numbers seem more relevant to me than proportions. All these numbers are tiny as percentages; even in Hubei province, the percentage of confirmed cases is "only" about 0.1% of the total, and might peak below 1% if the draconian lockdown continues for another 2 months or so. Sustained (uncontrolled) human-to-human transmission - exponential growth - makes the difference between 1, 10 or 100 cases per country more significant than the fractional numbers of cases, it seems to me. When/if the numbers get up to 1% or 10% per country, then population-normalised colouring would make sense. Boud (talk) 20:40, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

This is no problem - simply scale from 0‰ to 7‰ the colours accordingly. I don't quite see the problem. --Rabenkind (talk) 12:59, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

ps and yes, please, logarithmic. --Rabenkind (talk) 13:46, 19 February 2020 (UTC)

47 missing cases

47 cases were missing from Japan so the GIF map must be updated again with 47 exta people to Japan. Wojciech 2020 (talk) 21:39, 16 February 2020 (UTC)

As told above, figures shown on the map are those officially published in WHO daily situation reports. Metropolitan (talk) 06:16, 17 February 2020 (UTC)

Speed of day switches

Initially posted on English wikipedia file talk page.

Metropolitan, thank you for this great GIF. Could you please slow down the switching between days in the graphic to half or one third of current speed? It would help the reader's eyes to distinguish what changed from one day to the next. Xenagoras (talk) 17:44, 23 February 2020 (UTC)

@Xenagoras: : thanks for your insight, length have been extended from 0.7s per frame to 0.9s per frame. Metropolitan (talk) 09:39, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

Metropolitan, thank you for the change and the moving of my comment to the right page. Xenagoras (talk) 09:51, 24 February 2020 (UTC)

French Guiana

Really informative graphic Metropolitan! Would it be best to de-link French Guiana from metropolitan France, so it does not look like the virus spread to South America before it actually appeared in Brazil? This is what has been done in File:COVID-19 Outbreak World Map.svg. Zangar (talk) 08:41, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

The one and only source of the map are WHO daily situation reports counting the number of Coronavirus confirmed cases according to countries national health agencies without detailing regions of occurrences (except for China). Rearranging the map to cut the Canary Islands from Spain because the first cases of the country were located there or removing Alaska from the US because there's been no case reported there is not possible in sticking to that single official source. Metropolitan (talk) 09:11, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

The Falklands

They are part of the UK, so why are they not colored in like the UK mainland?79.76.250.115 23:43, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

Can we use different colours for sustained local transmission and confirmed cases?

Good pic.. but is it possible to pls change it to differentiate between places with sustained local transmission, as opposed to confirmed cases (usu travellers who have often not transmitted) Its very different. @Doc James: @Bondegezou: --Almaty (talk) 10:28, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

I like the idea. I don't know that we have the data to know well enough when there has been sustained local transmission. Bondegezou (talk) 10:45, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

Or maybe at least change the color or remove those countries were everyone has recovered. Doc James (talk · contribs · email) 19:01, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

The map could remove a nation once it has had all it's victims recover and only show nation with active cases. There could also be a final map at the end or start showing a grand total all the victims at all times added up in to national totals.79.76.250.115 23:31, 26 February 2020 (UTC)

Static image at top

I highly appreciate your work on this image, Metropolitan! I think it would be better to have a static image at the top of en:2019–20 coronavirus outbreak, just showing the latest status, so that the introduction gives a quick idea of the current spread. I think the animated gif can then be shown at the timeline articles for those readers interested in the history:

• en:Timeline of the 2019–20 coronavirus outbreak in December 2019 – January 2020
• en:Timeline of the 2019–20 coronavirus outbreak in February 2020

Do you agree? Mikael Häggström (talk) 10:17, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

I realized that there is a static image (File:COVID-19 Outbreak World Map.svg), so I went ahead with the suggested move. Mikael Häggström (talk) 10:25, 27 February 2020 (UTC)

I agree.79.76.243.33 17:04, 21 March 2020 (UTC)

Help updating the map

Hi Metropolitan . Thanks a lot for your work! I noticed the map has not been updated for a while. I am not sure how you made it, but if you have the files/code for it I can figure it out. I make maps for a living.

(Sorry, I made this post while not logged in, my username is buzoherbert ) Not great at wikis, but you can find me with that handle elsewhere

Yes I just noticed this file popping up in my google results and I see it is even used on Wikipedia! Good grief, this needs a multilingual title at the very least to date it as the information is 1) already seriously outdated for anyone looking to Wikipedia for quick answers and 2) in it's static state it should stop at the most recent moment, and certainly not the starting moment showing China as a blazing red zone. I know and understand the limitations of using moving footage on Wikimedia projects but please, we're better than this! Jane023 (talk) 08:39, 15 March 2020 (UTC)

Why it stops at February?

Why this nice pictures stop? Please can you add the last months :-) --Markus (talk) 12:51, 13 July 2020 (UTC)

I concur. It would be great to have at least a few days more. :) The first case in my country was on 4 March. --TadejM ^(t/p) 07:56, 18 May 2023 (UTC)