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Much of the public first heard of "preprints" on March 20, 2020, just nine days after the World Health Organization declared a pandemic, when a too-good-to-be-true treatment for SARS-CoV-2 infection appeared on medRxiv. The paper, which described a small clinical study and had been posted only four days after the last patient enrolled, touted the apparent benefit of hydroxychloroquine (long used for rheumatic diseases) and azithromycin (a familiar respiratory antibiotic) for treating COVID-19. It included medRxiv's standard disclaimer: “This preprint reports new research that has not been certified by peer review and should not be used to guide clinical practice.”
The International Journal of Antimicrobial Agents (IJAA) accepted the manuscript on the same day it appeared on medRxiv, just one day after it was submitted to the journal. Although the preprint process often allows crowdsourced discussion and debate that may ultimately improve the paper ...
