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When HPS first occurred it was frequently referred to as "Navajo Flu" in the media. This led to complaints from the Navajo Nation tribal government, but it remained a common informal name for the disease among people in the Four Corners area.
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I have taken some time to polish the lede. Here are some initial comments, which are quite detailed considering you aim for FA:
The sentences are too long, especially in the lede. There are too many subordinate clauses, with the flow sometimes the reverse of what is relevant. Start with the most interesting and relevant points first, following with details. Omit excessive details in the lede.
I've tried to do this and rewrote some of the lead. I trimmed or split some other sentences in the article that may have been too long.
There is inconsistent use of tenses. Try to stick to one or two, and do not change in the middle of a sentence.
I re-read the article as I wrote it (before your changes) and tried to fix any grammar issues I found. The grammar should be fine.
A map of cases or epi-curve would be useful as the first image of the article. I can potentially assist you here if you find the appropriate data.
I wanted to include a map of cases by state but don't know how to make the image. The CDC has a map on their Reported Cases page[1] (the same source I use for the bar graph). You can sort the map by year to see cases in 1993 and can even make a month-by-month progression gif by adjusting the time by month.
I left this template out for various reasons. It's not clear when the outbreak starts and ends (just that it's in 1993). There's no index case. Numbers don't exist (or they're just very hard to find) for specifically the Four Corners area, just state-level and national numbers, etc. But I am not inherently opposed to its inclusion and I added more info to it.
Media mentions, as well as media names and colloquial names should be included.
Some colloquial names of the disease are mentioned in the "Social impact" section. The only prominent media mention of the outbreak I know of (apart from news coverage), is one episode of Forensic Files (season 4 episode 12). I'm unsure about including it though because of MOS:TRIVIA.
There is excessive mention of who conducted investigations. What is more important than that it was "medical staff" is from what body they were. CDC? State health authorities? County officials? They should be assumed to be competent in the appropriate area and we do not need to repeat their qualifications.
The background section details the geography - but jumps from geography to the virus. The background should start with the virus, potential information about prior circulation, and then why the geography is relevant - to the natural reservoir etc. The "Before the outbreak" section includes a lof of this, and should be moved up and merged with the background section.
I know the geography paragraph jumps to the virus paragraph abruptly but I haven't found a way to address that. The "Before the outbreak" section would be nonsensical if the information were moved up to the Background section. It's written in a retrospective style (which is how the sources write it), many of the happenings described in the section occurred after the outbreak, and in your order some things are stated in the section but introduced later on. For example, in your order, Tempest was quoted and then introduced six paragraphs later. I put it back where it was and renamed it "Retrospect".
The article needs to better abide by Wikipedia:Manual of Style/Medicine-related articles, with better organization of sections. I know this does not contain details on outbreaks, but I suggest you use multiple levels of headings, starting by moving "Initial cases" and "The investigation expands" under a larger "Outbreak investigation" header. I understand you want to keep it in a chronological order, but I am uncertain if this is the best format.
I kept some of your structure but reverted some of it for reasons. About chronological order, I wrote the article in roughly the same order as sources. I think it being in mostly chronological order is fine given it is a historical event. And I've gone through MOS:MED a few times. I know I use the word "case" a lot, but I've replaced it where possible with other words and people probably aren't too bothered by the word because of how common it was in COVID-19 news coverage. If there are other specific issues with MOS:MED then you can point them out.
Parts of the article are US-centric. It should not be assumed that an intricate knowledge of states, regions and state boundaries is required for readers. I have amended this in part by stating that the outbreak was in the United States.
I worked on this a lot. Wikilinked states and cities, got rid of the lists of states, partially rewrote the "Aftermath" section, etc.
The section on geography should describe why this outbreak was assumed to be isolated to this region, and was not observed outside. If this is not known or if it was by chance - this should be stated.
Isn't this explained throughout the article? The early cases were in the Four Corners, most cases occurred there, El Nino affected the region greatly, etc.
Course of the outbreak should be the second section after Background.
I was going back and forth on if "Course of outbreak" should go where you put it or where I had it. You moving it created some issues with the order of information and references, so I fixed that.
Check that all statements have the best possible sources. For each statement on medical symptoms all sources should be WP:MEDRS-compliant. For statements on case count, these should preferably all be from the CDC, State Public Health authorities, or county case counts. Reports from media should be prefaced with the detail that they are from media, and can be accepted if official sources are lacking.
I've improved the sourcing a good bit since my last edit. All of the medical claims from news sources should be backed with recent secondary sources. I also put all the titles in title case, put url= after title=, put the quotation marks on names everywhere (is this necessary?), and put spaces in the references like what you did.
The aftermath and social impact sections could be combined to a larger section (with subheadings) - and make more sense to keep together once you have moved "Before the outbreak".
I disagree because the "Social impact" section is talking about the immediate effects of the outbreak during the outbreak, whereas "Aftermath" is talking about after the outbreak over the course of decades. Your proposed change blurs the distinction. This also goes back to chronological order. The events of "Social impact" occurred before the events in "Retrospect" (I renamed the section), which occur before "Aftermath". And "Response" and "Social impact" occurred at the same time, so it's fitting to have them next to each other if going by chronological order.
After another reading, I have to say this is a very compelling article, and I agree this likely has a high chance of passing FAR. I have struck one of the points above. CFCF (talk) 13:00, 1 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I reverted a lot of the prose changes you made because I didn't think they were productive. For example:
"The warmer-than-usual 1992–1993 winter and increased rainfall in the spring of 1993, linked to the 1991–1992 El Niño, is considered to have indirectly caused the outbreak. An increase in vegetation, used by rodents for food and shelter, is assumed to have led to a 10-fold increase in the rodent population in the region." – These two sentences are disconnected from each other because you removed the chain-of-events connection from El Nino to the outbreak. "is considered to", and "is assumed to" are against MOS:WEASEL, the researchers aren't exactly "assuming" that environmental conditions had a role in the outbreak, passive voice is used when the active voice could/should be used, same sentence structure in back-to-back sentences, etc.
I want to commend you for writing a strong article on a historical outbreak for which it must have been very difficult to find the sources that you have. I have no strong opinions regarding the changes I made, and think your updates have improved the flow of the article considerably.
I will admit that this article piqued my interest in particular as I work at the government level in infectious disease control, including quite a bit with zoonotic diseases.
In the coming days, I'll give it another pass, and a shot at creating a map, and perhaps an image of an epi-curve for the "Course of outbreak" section (as the current one does not work on phones). With a few more passes, I think this has a very good chance of passing FAR (which is no small feat, especially in case this is your first). CFCF (talk) 21:47, 3 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Yes this is the first article I've tried to bring up to FA (I helped save one from demotion years ago, but it needs some work so I'm going to return to it.) and also the first historical article I've written. I rewrote the main hantavirus articles earlier this year and this one I found the most interesting, so I've put the most effort into it. Right now I'm doing a close reading to see if what I've written matches the sources, if anything else could be added, etc. I've found some minor issues which I will fix, but I think the article is pretty good overall. Velayinosu (talk) 03:59, 5 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
I realized that I didn't use any books as sources, so I found some and am going to go through them to see if I missed anything. Velayinosu (talk) 02:50, 6 April 2025 (UTC)[reply]
Unfortunately I have gotten into 4 pressing deadlines for April. I will see if I have time to give it another round, even though I also think it would be useful for some additional input, perhaps from WhatamIdoing?
However, I know I promised to produce the images for you, I will try to get around to it, but here is a first:
