Talk:Flattening the curve

Evaluation ?

As for WikiProject COVID-19, I evaluated "Flatten the curve" as "importance=mid". Maybe we should rate it higher. Yug (talk) 19:13, 7 April 2020 (UTC)

Lessened emphasis on "raise the line"

I wanted to bring this point back to the surface, as I have made a few attempts to submit content that was relevant to flattening the curve, specifically the raise the line section which has been regularly removed. There is an opportunity to provide relevant content that supports how the different hemispheres are flattening the curve and or raising the line, with thoughtful and innovative mechanisms. I am of the view that whether or not raise the line isn't heavily sighted in traditional mediums, it is is alternative avenues. Thoughts? — Preceding unsigned comment added by CBazilDA (talk • contribs) 16:15, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

The reason for one part of my rewrite may deserve comment. WP:BALASP says that aspects of a topic should be treated with a weight proportional to their appearance in published material on the subject. "Flatten the curve" appears vastly more often than "raise the line", so they shouldn't have equal emphasis here. Dan Bloch (talk) 09:08, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

Hi Danbloch,

First, i agree that the "raise the line" is far less cited. But the concept of flattening the epidemic curves only makes sense together with the health care capacity line and their respective level. One can either flatten the curve or raise the line, it's the same end effects satisfying the central public health policy of not overfloading health care capacity. The March 16th Imperial report[4] cite about a dozen time the need for a "surge capacity". It is also extremely clear that the natural curve to flatten is 50 times too hight (given 14 ICU beds at 75% occupancy so 4 are free while +200 would be needed) or 15 times too high (if all these 14 beds/100,000 inhabitants are free), mitigation wont work, and only the combined approach of suppression with "surge capacity" will do. Similarly, the Vox article[5] is explicite that both flattening and raising the line are required. The capacity surge or raise the line/surge capacity is not to be a footer explanation in this equation with 2 mobile lines to pilote.

Second, in the current pandemic context, raising the line is as much required. Not raising public awareness about it, failing to raise the line is predicted to make a likely 5 million deaths difference, according to Imperial College COVID-19 Response Team report #12's projections of 2M, 10M, and 40M deaths, and therefor about half of them will survive/die depending if the line is raised high enough in coming 3 months or not (ventilators, mainly).

Given what is at stake and given we are here writing one central information source for the public, can't we keep some emphasis on "raise the line" despite lower citations count ? Yug (talk) 18:11, 9 April 2020 (UTC)

I don't disagree with any of that (though I haven't checked the numbers), but it's still the case that "raise the line" isn't in widespread use. My gut feeling is that raise the line doesn't belong in the lead paragraph, but expanded discussion of it below there isn't a problem. Dan Bloch (talk) 05:35, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

I took half an hour to gather my sources.

We observe in Western countries and for covid19 patients : entering ICU means ventilation assisted breathing. When ventilated, 40~50% die, 50~60% survives ONLY because of ventilators, without ventilators, 100% die. Countries such as Turkey, South Africa, Pakistan are locally reaching crisis level --covid19 wave n⁰1 closing up with capacity line--, right now, this week, next week. Poorer and poorly mitigated countries will follow, entering local crisis this late April with peak in May~June proportional to their unpreparedness and social closeness. Poorer countries base capacity is at ~0.1 ventilator for 100,000 citizens. Given the wave estimate being 50 to 15 times western countries health care capacity, even rich countries have wide and systematic shortages. Between 2 and +40M people will need one ventilator for ~10 days. Open-source ventilator have proposed basic yet functional 44$, 100$, 420$ designs ventilators. We are the 5th most visited website, we have 1~3 months to inform about raise the line and equipment. It's not the time to lessen the visibility of calls for health care capacity surge.

I'am at 65 days wikipedia COVID19 non-vacation effort, I need wikibreak, yet I will come back to enlarge the raise the line section. I need your authorisation and a consensus is enough to increase it's visibility back to central level. Some times, sources are unbalanced as you pointed out, and it's ok for us editors to agree and balance it back if we reach consensus and keep reasonable. Current situation, with ubiquitous presence of the "surge capacity" in Imperial College reports, calls for such consensus and it's fine. But we need consensus. Yug (talk) 09:54, 10 April 2020 (UTC

References

If I understand your argument right, I'm afraid I have to disagree with you. No matter how important this is, Wikipedia is not a platform for advocacy; see WP:SOAPBOX. People will come to this page to find out what lower the curve means and that's what we should tell them (in the lead paragraph). After that, we can tell them other things. Dan Bloch (talk) 21:47, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

There are several argument. First : fattening is absolutely linked to the line level, which is variable. Both Imperial College reports, Vox explicitly stated that flattening alone doesn't make sense, it's part of the whole. Second, yes, we are on emerging topics -flatten the curve was unknown 45 days ago and raising the line is emerging now--, both twin concepts are a public health emergency, right now, at play within the current pandemic with forecasted death toll is 10M. More awareness brings more action, more action reduce the death toll. Less awareness means less action, and more deaths. With both the conceptual clarity and deaths toll ongoing, WP guideline are a deadly narrative to press on. Sources are clear : flatten the curve is not enough. Yug (talk) 08:37, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Sorry, I should have replied. That is what I thought your argument was, so my previous comment does reflect my thoughts. Dan Bloch (talk) 06:59, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

RE: I was making the case that talking about flattening the curve without referential point (line) does little sense, we also had few sources making valid argument that health care capacity surge is complementary to flatten the curve and fully relevant. I added in second the context so to call you to play it zen and accept the sources rarity. Given your strict block, I'am finding new sources so your objection point is addressed. We are losing critical days to end up to the same point, but your point is increasingly addressed. Yug (talk) 19:53, 12 April 2020 (UTC)

References

Sources

• The US doesn’t just need to flatten the curve. It needs to “raise the line.” https://www.vox.com/2020/4/7/21201260/coronavirus-usa-chart-mask-shortage-ventilators-flatten-the-curve
• Colonialism Made Puerto Rico Vulnerable to Coronavirus Catastrophe https://www.thenation.com/article/politics/puerto-rico-coronavirus/
• Flattening the curve won’t lead to coronavirus turning point, study finds https://amp.scmp.com/news/china/society/article/3081105/flattening-curve-wont-lead-coronavirus-turning-point-study-finds

Illustration

Moved to Wikipedia:Graphics Lab/Illustration workshop § Replacing cartoonish social distancing graphics with better ones

Yug (talk) 16:55, 10 April 2020 (UTC)

Graphics showing this is not just flattening but just plain overall lower number of cases

The graphics there and on the main COVID article show that flattening the curve leads to rashly half as many cases.

1) This is very optimistic.

2) Just normal measures to stop the disease and limit the cases count would lead to the same - as any successful measures taken also lead to flattening the curve in some degree. So to distinguish the idea of this article from the regular typical measures against diseases, it should not show just plain vast reduction of cases. As the readers seeing this will optimistically associate flattening the curve with just plain lower number of cases - which is not correct. Number of cases is ofc the area below the curve.

But ofc governments all around the world tell stories to calm public down as people would not be so complacent knowing the restrictions would lengthen the disease in time and the Wikipedians comply as I see... — Preceding unsigned comment added by 83.11.93.118 (talk) 15:03, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

I don't know what "ofc" means. The graphic shows the general concept, not any particular pandemic or timeline or region. In any event, the 'beginning' and 'end' curves have comparable areas beneath them, so there is no implication that flattening the curve will inherently reduce the number of cases (if that is what you're objecting to). —RCraig09 (talk) 15:29, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

@RCraig09: ofc = of course. Non graphists don't get that we have to do some choices, given both pedagogical selection, technical limits and partial knowledge. Yug (talk) 15:34, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

Yea Google knows "ofc". Comparable? Do you even know how to compute area beneath a curve at all?? 83.11.93.118 (talk) 20:07, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

83.11.93.118, can you create such animation constant area ? Truth is we are volunters here with limited skills. Most graphics are done by hands, not with maths formula. It would help global awareness if you can produce such equal areas visual. I can help your wikipedia onboarding if necessary, some parts of the upload process are lighly tricky. Yug (talk) 20:12, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

I know we are volunteers etc. The fact I prefer being under IP does not mean I am new. I am not a graphic. Now I read the author did all the frames manually. Wow. Anyway I just wanted to do some comment. Maybe there will be done another version so then it could be taken into consideration. 83.11.93.118 (talk) 20:21, 11 April 2020 (UTC)

"Flattening the curve" image

The lead image in this article (entitled "Flattening the curve") was replaced yesterday by @RCraig09: with an image that shows both flattening the curve and raising the line. This makes no sense to me. Let me know if I'm missing something--otherwise I'm going to put it back. Dan Bloch (talk) 03:39, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Actually, it wasn't me (or even "I") who introduced the animation (or either animation, actually). I just created the things on Wikimedia! I'm innocent! Actually, either graphic would be suitable since the only difference is "the line", and not "the curve" that is the subject of this article. On initial impression I can't see a reason to have both. —RCraig09 (talk) 06:23, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Hi, @RCraig09: The idea was that "flatten the curve" is the topic of this article and very notable, and gets an image showing it (that image exists in various forms all over the web). "Flatten the curve, raise the line" is a related, much less widely known concept and gets a separate image for people who want to keep reading. So it sounds like you have no objections to going back to the previous version of "flatten the curve"? Thanks, Dan Bloch (talk) 18:12, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

I'm not sure which is "the previous version", but my opinion is:

— Since this article is about Flatten(ing) the curve (FTC), it makes more sense to me to use a graphic whose motion focuses our attention on the FTC, rather than making FTC share equal attention with a moving Raising the Line (RTL) element. If in the distant future the article develops into a longer article and there is a section distinguishing FTC and RTL, then the graphic dynamically moving both the epidemic curve and the healthcare capacity line would be appropriate in that section. I can't foresee that second circumstance arising in the near future since FTC, by itself, seems to be a fairly straightforward concept. —RCraig09 (talk) 19:43, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

​Okay, I think we more or less agree with each other. I'm going to roll back the image to version 4, and I'm going to leave both images (FTC, RTL) here, since it looked okay and the editor who created the page really cares about it. See what you think. Dan Bloch (talk) 20:06, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

The graphic is currently used at the main pandemic article as well, which as the far more prominent article should take precedence, so I rolled it back. See the ongoing discussion at Talk:2019–20_coronavirus_pandemic#Epidemic_curve_graphics for more. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:47, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

I'd also add that, in my interpretation, FTC is in part about buying time for healthcare systems to increase capacity — that's the benefit to the delayed peak when the curve is flattened as depicted in the graphic. RTL doesn't need to come into it — RTL is just a slogan for saying we should boost healthcare capacity more. {{u|Sdkb}} ^talk 20:56, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

@Danbloch: Any choice here of which graphic to display, should be accomplished by changing the name of the file inside the article's wikitext here on Wikipedia. Someone with your username on Wikimedia Commons just reverted one of the files to an earlier state — which should be done only in special circumstances, circumstances that do not apply in this case. Thanks to Sdkb for returning the file to its intended state. —RCraig09 (talk) 21:28, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

@RCraig09:Those circumstances also didn't apply to any of the previous modifications to that file so I'm not sure that's a compelling argument, but I've spent as much time on this as I'm going to. Carry on. Dan Bloch (talk) 22:05, 15 April 2020 (UTC)

Previous modifications were made during development of the graphic—not to fit a purpose in a particular article. When a WikiMedia Commons file is reverted, it is reflected in all the articles in which the graphic appears, not just this article. —RCraig09 (talk) 15:02, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Mislabled Graph

The epidemic curve used in this article is mislabeled. The vertical axis is NOT "Number of cases", which never decreases, instead it's the "Number of New Cases", which does rise and fall, as shown. This shape arises from the first differential of the Number of Cases, which is typically Sigmoidal. Syzygy303 (talk) 10:31, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

As uploader of this set of animations, I had considered this issue, @Syzygy303: I found that most sources keep this simplest axis label. The additional descriptor is implicit in this context, in which all curves eventually decline to lows. A primary graphist's goal is to keep it simple! However, if this set of animations needs updating, I think I'll include the change you suggest. Thanks for your observation. —RCraig09 (talk) 15:13, 16 April 2020 (UTC)

Update: I've changed the vertical axis labels on all three English-language animations to "Active cases". —RCraig09 (talk) 20:10, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Flatten the curve graph

I think, that the graph should show LONGER period of recovery, if it's flattened. For now, I think it is slightly misleading: following the "flatten the curve" process ends at the same time point as not following it, and this is not true. Sorry for my English, but I hope someone gets my point. Rafal S

Thank you for your comment, Rafal. The animation shows a general concept. It follows numerous graphs found in many news sources. This animation is not designed to show details of a particular pandemic—each pandemic is different. —RCraig09 (talk) 20:15, 17 April 2020 (UTC)

Raising the line

I personally feel like "raising the line" should have its own article. JJPMaster (talk) 19:21, 30 April 2020 (UTC)

Hello,

I am just curious whether or not the "raising the line" article is still being considered as a separated file. — Preceding unsigned comment added by CBazilDA (talk • contribs) 16:07, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Form what I can see no one disagrees with creating a separate article, but no one cares enough to do it. Dan Bloch (talk) 18:01, 16 July 2020 (UTC)

Additional source.

• https://healthblog.uofmhealth.org/wellness-prevention/flattening-curve-for-covid-19-what-does-it-mean-and-how-can-you-help

Yug (talk) 18:54, 30 July 2021 (UTC) (from my phone)

No mention of "Flatten the Curve" in the Gordis textbook on Epidemiology

See - https://ak.sbmu.ac.ir/uploads/epidemiology_gordis_5_edi.pdf Search for the term "Flatten the Curve" - even try just the word "flatten" no hits... Might be in the 6th edition but regardless the term seems to be a recent invention. The Gordis book is considered a solid reference in the field of epidemiology ... 96.255.42.67 (talk) 19:30, 12 February 2022 (UTC)

Origin of this term - and it is an expression/term NOT a coherent medical definition.

The article talks to a phrase, an expression and then declares it something else - I think there are a lot of weird NOT medical types leaping all over this.

"A version of the chart and the phrase “flatten the curve” first appeared in a 2007 report by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention about ways to control the spread of a pandemic. With interventions like social distancing and mask wearing, the CDC said, the peak of infections could be delayed and lowered, and the total number of infections could be reduced." - see link. — Preceding unsigned comment added by BeingObjective (talk • contribs) 19:15, 24 October 2023 (UTC)

Let's be honest - we are all now scientists, doctors and public health officials - rather shocked that this simple term has become so contentious.

The history of the expression - goes back to 2007, it did not just appear with COVID - the opening statement is highly misleading.

One can debate it on semantics - but an attempt to clarify this - was strongly challenged - it is not a matter of semantics -

https://news.wisc.edu/flatten-the-curve-was-everywhere-but-it-didnt-change-peoples-pandemic-attitudes/#:~:text=A%20version%20of%20the%20chart,the%20spread%20of%20a%20pandemic. BeingObjective (talk) 17:51, 24 October 2023 (UTC)