15 Coronavirus Papers Have Been Retracted

We are in the middle of a pandemic, or at least the tale end of one. That being said, we are also in the middle of a replication crisis in science. Furthermore, we seem to be in the middle of one social media/mainstream media-driven moral panic after another. One of those seems to be the collective overreaction to Covid-19.

And it appears these things are all related.

15. That's how many papers about COVID-19 have been retracted so far. https://t.co/AXiBZbUNXN pic.twitter.com/2H1rQ6svcU

— Retraction Watch (@RetractionWatch) June 4, 2020

You can find the link to Retraction Watch's list of retracted Coronavirus papers here.

Of course, you would expect there to be some, but 15 is a lot. And that doesn't even include flawed or misleading papers, just retracted ones. It would appear the rush to publish during a quick-moving, panic-inducing event like a global pandemic made scientific standards much worse (and they're struggling already). Add in a hysterical mainstream press and an even more hysterical groups of social justice-minded social media users and you have the recipe for really, really bad public policy.

​Which just so happens to be what we got.