Medical Journalism at the Time of the COVID-19 Pandemic

Abstract

An unprecedented outbreak of pneumonia of unknown etiology in Wuhan city, Hubei province, in China emerged in December 2019. A novel Coronavirus was identified as the causative agent, and the disease was subsequently termed COVID-19 by the World Health Organization. The COVID-19 pandemic has rapidly spread through the continents; also, it has brought along with it great hardships on the medical fraternity, as they cope with the rising numbers of sick. What makes these times especially challenging is that there is no clear understanding of which medications or treatment protocols are effective, as this disease is leaving the treating doctors groping in the dark. At the root of this dilemma is the quality of medical literature that is coming forth with studies showing clear flaws in methodology. There are currently 19251 articles indexed in PubMed on the topic of COVID published within a span of 5 months.[1] It is understandable that such volume of articles is not undergoing a rigorous peer review process at such a short time. What further muddied the waters is that two of the most prestigious medical journals having published studies relating to COVID-19 treatment based on big data, retracted them after their accuracy was questioned by researchers across the world.[2]

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