“This version is not peer-reviewed” Here’s the problem with preprints like this: In an earlier era, issues with the Santa Clara study would have been addresse

“This version is not peer-reviewed” Here’s the problem with preprints like this: In an earlier era, issues with the Santa Clara study would have been addressed during peer review—the process in which scientific work is assessed by other researchers before being published in a journal. But like many COVID-19 studies, this one was uploaded as a preprint—a paper that hasn’t yet run the peer-review gauntlet. Preprints allow scientists to share data quickly, and speed is vital in a pandemic: Several important studies were uploaded and discussed a full month before being published. Preprints also allow questionable work to directly enter public discourse, but that problem is not unique to them. The first flawed paper on hydroxychloroquine and COVID-19 was published in a peer-reviewed journal, whose editor in chief is one of the study’s co-authors.[1] [1] https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/04/pandemic-confusing-uncertainty/610819/ https://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2020/04/pandemic-...