The Pandemic Is Pushing Scientists To Rethink How They Read Research Papers

[sl8]

From https://www.npr.org/sections/health-shots/2020/07/07/884957449/the-pandemic-is-pushing-scientists-to-rethink-how-they-read-research-papers
(audio at link)

The Pandemic Is Pushing Scientists To Rethink How They Read Research Papers

July 7, 20209:54 AM ET
Heard on Morning Edition
Richard Harris

The coronavirus pandemic has posed a special challenge for scientists: Figuring out how to make sense of a flood of scientific papers from labs and scientists unfamiliar to them.

More than 6,000 coronavirus-related preprints from researchers around the world have been posted since the pandemic began, without the usual peer review as a quality check. Some are poor quality, while others, including papers from China from early in the course of the epidemic, contain vital information.

The beauty of science is the facts are supposed to speak for themselves.

"In the ideal world we would simply read the paper, look at the data and not be influenced by where it came from or who it came from," says Theo Bloom, the executive editor of the medical journal BMJ (formerly the British Medical Journal). But Bloom knows we don't live in an ideal world. We are deluged with information, so people necessarily turn to shortcuts to help them sort through it all.

[...]

[JudyM]

1. Seems some screening parameter application could be developed.

At least for the preprints, since they follow a uniform format. Anecdotal reports are the Wild West, but still can contain important info.

Especially early on, I was reading everything I could get my hands on, including reports from China, where there was a bus study that demonstrated non-symptomatic airborne transmission that infected passengers on the subsequent bus route, basically throughout the bus. The covid spreader never sneezed, coughed, nor even spoke with anyone, based on close inspection of the closed circuit camera video. The federal failure to synthesize info like this and to, in fact, actually discourage mask wearing, is stunning, even for trump. We need to relentlessly hammer him on the excess death numbers.

[Nitram]

2. I never understood the suggestion that mask wearing was not helpful to the wearer, only to prevent

the communication of the disease to others. It seemed to me a no-brainer that it would provide at least some protection to both. Even something so simple as a bandana across the nose and mouth. And then conservatives decided it was an impingement on their God-given freedom. Go figure!

[JudyM]

3. Basic logic, right?! In that report about the bus, none of the mask-wearing passengers got Covid.

Go figure.