Early in the epidemic: impact of preprints on global discourse about COVID-19 transmissibility - The Lancet Global Health

openacrs's bookmarks 2020-03-28

Summary:

Since it was first reported by WHO in Jan 5, 2020, over 80 000 cases of a novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) have been diagnosed in China, with exportation events to nearly 90 countries, as of March 6, 2020.1 Given the novelty of the causative pathogen (named SARS-CoV-2), scientists have rushed to fill epidemiological, virological, and clinical knowledge gaps—resulting in over 50 new studies about the virus between January 10 and January 30 alone.2 However, in an era where the immediacy of information has become an expectation of decision makers and the general public alike, many of these studies have been shared first in the form of preprint papers—before peer review. For the past three decades, preprint servers have become commonplace in the scientific publication ecosystem, and COVID-19 has prompted a seemingly unprecedented use of these platforms.3 Although peer-review is crucial for the validation of science, the ongoing outbreak has showcased the speed with which preprints can disseminate information during emergencies. In this Comment, we used both preprint and peer-reviewed studies that estimated the transmissibility potential (ie, basic reproduction number [R0]) of SARS-CoV-2 on or before Feb 1, 2020 to investigate the role that preprints have had in information dissemination during the ongoing outbreak. We also analysed the agreement of preprint estimates compared with those presented by peer-reviewed studies and propose a consensus-based approach for evaluating the validity of preprint findings during public health crises. For our analysis, we collected publicly available data from scientific studies, news reports, and search trends pertaining to SARS-CoV-2 and its R0. Defined as the average number of secondary infections that a new case might transmit in a fully susceptible population, estimates of R0 can provide decision makers with insights into the epidemic potential of a given outbreak.

Link:

https://www.thelancet.com/journals/langlo/article/PIIS2214-109X(20)30113-3/fulltext

Updated:

03/28/2020, 14:22

From feeds:

Open Access Tracking Project (OATP) » openacrs's bookmarks

Tags:

oa.new oa.preprints oa.publishing oa.platforms oa.impact oa.versions oa.medicine oa.speed

Date tagged:

03/28/2020, 18:22

Date published:

03/24/2020, 14:22