Ivan:
I’d like to hear your thoughts, Elisabeth, on an L.A. Times story, which was picking up a preprint about mutations and the novel coronavirus, alleging that the virus is mutating to become more infectious – even though this conclusion wasn’t actually warranted. A lot of the news around it is picking up on one particular side of the story that is maybe not that much exaggerated by the scientists. I don’t think this paper really showed that the mutations were causing the virus to be more virulent. Some of these viruses continuously mutate and mutate and mutate, and that doesn’t necessarily make a strain more virulent. I think in many cases, a lot of people want to read something in a paper that is not actually there. The tone level, everything that’s being published now, it’s problematic. It’s being rushed, here it wasn’t even peer-re- viewed. But even when they are peer-reviewed, they’re being peer-reviewed by people who often aren’t really an expert in that particular area.
Elisabeth:
Ivan:
Elisabeth:
That’s right.
Ivan:
To me, it’s all problematic. At the same time, it’s all real- ly good that it’s all getting out there. I think that five or 10 years ago, or if we weren’t in a pandemic, maybe that paper wouldn’t have appeared at all. It would have maybe been submitted to a top-ranked journal and not have been accept- ed, or maybe it would have been improved during peer review and bounced down the ladder a bit to a lower-level journal. Yet, now, because it’s about coronavirus, it’s in a major news- paper and, in fact, it’s getting critiqued immediately. Maybe it’s too Pollyanna-ish, but I actually think that quick uploading is a good thing. The fear people have about pre- print servers is based on this idea that the peer-reviewed literature is perfect. Once it is in a peer-reviewed journal, they think it must have gone through this incredible process. You’re laughing because-
Elisabeth:
I am laughing.
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