On 29.03.2021 at 22:22, Martin Gregorie scribbled:

> On Mon, 29 Mar 2021 23:00:27 +0200, Aragorn wrote:
> 
> > Wrong.  The influenza virus is NOT a coronavirus, and neither is the
> > common cold virus.  They are all three different categories of
> > viruses. 
> Fair enough  - I stand corrected. 
> 
> Nonetheless Wikipedia (yeah, I know, teaat with extreme caution
> though IME and in my fields (Chemistry, IT, flight) its generally
> accurate due to some peer review. It says:
> 
> "Coronaviruses are a group of related RNA viruses that cause diseases
> in mammals and birds. In humans and birds, they cause respiratory
> tract infections that can range from mild to lethal. Mild illnesses
> in humans include some cases of the common cold (which is also caused
> by other viruses, predominantly rhinoviruses), while more lethal
> varieties can cause SARS, MERS, and COVID-19. In cows and pigs they
> cause diarrhea, while in mice they cause hepatitis and
> encephalomyelitis." 
> 
> Is that entirely wrong?

I'd say that whoever wrote that doesn't properly understand what
they're talking about.  But then again, the Covid-19 pandemic is still
a relatively new and thus insufficiently explored phenomenon —
insufficiently explored with regard to what was known about
coronaviruses prior to the pandemic — and thus a lot of speculation and
many unknowns are added to the current understanding, and perhaps even
more importantly, how this knowledge is disseminated to the public.

There are yet other medically related topics on Wikipedia in which the
English pages are vague and/or incorrect compared to pages on the same
subject in other languages.  This suggests a culturally defined
factuality bias among the members of the English-language committee
that oversees the content.  And interestingly enough, most of that bias
appears to come from the US American side of things — pages that have
clearly been composed by British and Canadian editors appear more
factual and accurate.


-- 
With respect,
= Aragorn =

--- SoupGate-Win32 v1.05