Abstract
Early in the epidemic: impact of preprints on global discourse about COVID-19 transmissibility
Highlights
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, 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]
In this Comment, we used both preprint and peerreviewed studies that estimated the transmissibility potential of SARSCoV-2 on or before Feb 1, 2020 to investigate the role that preprints have had in information dissemination during the ongoing outbreak
Relevant news reports were discovered through MediaCloud and search trends by use of Google Search Trends, and both served as a proxy indicator for information dissemination
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 SARSCoV-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].
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Sign-in/Register to access full text options 
Free) 
Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a call
