In search of the relevant COVID research

‘Are we publishing what we should be publishing?’ is a question all editors ask themselves from time to time. With an acceptance rate of ∼20% for theEuropean Journal of Public Health (EJPH), and even lower for many others, one question is how we prioritize among incoming papers. But, the problem raised by Odoneet al.1 is that scientists seem to have failed to address the important issues regarding the COVID-19 pandemic. Some reasons are obvious: this is a new virus with unknown properties, global spread is of a character previously unknown, case definition and cause of death assessment vary strongly making comparisons difficult, and the long-term effects are too early to evaluate. And on the positive side, we should acknowledge the extremely rapid publication of the first characterization of the disease,2 and the genome sequence,3 compared to the long road to knowledge on HIV and SARS. But, as Horton4 formulates it in heading of a recent book on the topic ‘Science: the Paradox of Success and Failure’.
Source: The European Journal of Public Health - Category: General Medicine Source Type: research