The Academic Response to COVID-19
Chantelle Rijs
Frederick Fenter- Frontiers, Lausanne, Switzerland
COVID-19 has posed an unprecedented challenge to the international scientific community. Along with the disruption faced by most of the world's population, many researchers have felt an added pressure to understand, cure and mitigate the virus. In order to gain insight into what impact COVID-19 has had on the international scientific community, their work and the implications for science, we conducted a survey with our editors, reviewers and authors in May and June 2020. In one of the largest academic surveys ever conducted, 25,307 members of our academic community participated, representing diverse countries, roles, and areas of research.
Summary of key findings
1. Despite the massive disruption, researchers' day to day work has not been significantly affected by COVID-19 at the time of the survey, with many able to continue their professional role throughout.
2. Many researchers expressed that policy makers had not sufficiently taken scientific advice into account to mitigate the pandemic.
3. Nearly half of the researchers surveyed fear that the pandemic will have a long-lasting effect on funding.
4. Researchers ask that policy makers invest more funding into basic research, and better ways for science to advise policy and decision making.
5. The pandemic has encouraged many to reconsider how they share their work with researchers more likely to publish open access, share their data and use preprint servers.
6. Most researchers want to contribute to task forces, primarily with research into the virus itself or through interdisciplinary knowledge-sharing.
7. There is concern about future pandemics, but researchers are equally concerned about climate change, which we can prepare for and mitigate with the help of science.
8. Researchers stress the importance of learning from the COVID-19 pandemic, allowing us to become more resilient in the future.
1.
A pesar de la masiva interrupción, el trabajo diario de los
investigadores no se ha visto afectado significativamente por COVID-19
en el momento de la encuesta, y muchos de ellos han podido continuar con
su papel profesional durante todo el tiempo.
2. Muchos
investigadores expresaron que los encargados de formular políticas no
habían tenido suficientemente en cuenta el asesoramiento científico para
mitigar la pandemia.
3. Casi la mitad de los investigadores encuestados temen que la pandemia tenga un efecto duradero en la financiación.
4.
Los investigadores piden que los encargados de formular políticas
inviertan más fondos en la investigación básica, y mejores formas de que
la ciencia asesore a la política y la toma de decisiones.
5. La
pandemia ha animado a muchos a reconsiderar la forma en que comparten su
trabajo con los investigadores, que tienen más probabilidades de
publicar el acceso abierto, compartir sus datos y utilizar servidores de
preimpresión.
6. La mayoría de los investigadores desean
contribuir a los grupos de trabajo, principalmente con la investigación
del propio virus o mediante el intercambio de conocimientos
interdisciplinarios.
7.. Existe preocupación por las futuras
pandemias, pero los investigadores están igualmente preocupados por el
cambio climático, para el que podemos prepararnos y mitigarlo con la
ayuda de la ciencia.
8. Los investigadores destacan la
importancia de aprender de la pandemia COVID-19, lo que nos permitirá
tener más capacidad de recuperación en el futuro.
Report
Read the full report to gain insight into what impact COVID-19 has had on researchers, their work and the implications for science.
Supplementary Material
The Supplementary Material for this article can be found online at: https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2020.621563/full#supplementary-material
Data Sheet 1. The academic response to COVID-19 survey data.
Conflict of Interest
This survey was conceptualized, conducted, analyzed and produced by Frontiers, led by Chantelle Rijs, Director of Communications and Frederick Fenter, Executive Editor.
These results have not been peer-reviewed and represent only a subset of the full collection of responses. The dataset provided as the supplementary material is the data used by Frontiers to create the survey report. A full dataset is available on request. Please send enquiries to: chantelle.rijs@frontiersin.org.
This survey was run on Qualtrics, who provided complimentary access to their platform. It was conducted in the absence of any commercial or financial relationships that could be construed as a potential conflict of interest.
Acknowledgments
We would like to thank all 25,307 Frontiers authors, editors and reviewers who participated, for their ongoing dedication to science and uniting against COVID-19. We would also like to thank our internal key contributors for their work in creating this report.
Keywords: SARS-CoV-2, COVID-19, coronavirus, survey, international survey, science policy, open access, open science, challenge, shared research, essential cooperation, preparedness, resilience
Citation: Rijs C and Fenter F (2020) The Academic Response to COVID-19. Front. Public Health 8:621563. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2020.621563
Received: 26 October 2020; Accepted: 28 October 2020;
Published: 28 October 2020.
Edited and reviewed by: Frontiers, Lausanne, Switzerland
Copyright © 2020 Frontiers. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) and the copyright owner(s) are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
*Correspondence: Chantelle Rijs, chantelle.rijs@frontiersin.org
15 Comments - Ali Mobasheri, Shah Jahan Leghari, Benjamin Mautner Blumberg, Pasquale Pagliaro, Bernd Rosenkranz, Arshad Mehmood Abbasi, Leticia Cotrim Da Cunha, Morufu Olalekan Raimi, Matteo Convertino, DrEng PhD, Prof. Pedro J Romero, Nicole Liam, Victor Owoyele, Carlo V. Bruschi, Elex Massage and Beth Walters.
Ali Mobasheri Congratulations, this is very timely and interesting. It's good to see that the academic community is showing its resilience under the exceptional and unprecedented current circumstances.
Shah Jahan Leghari Congratulations, Dear Prof. Dr. Chantelle Rijs and Frederick Fenter. These research findings are interesting, effective, and would be helpful for future planning. We all participated to provide you correct information.
Benjamin Mautner Blumberg On the basis of 30 years bench experience with RNA and DNA viruses, I offer this simple home remedy for people infected with the Chinese Coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 and suffering with COVID-19.<br/>Take a scant teaspoonful of CsCl (cesium chloride) mixed in a glass of orange juice or tomato juice to hide the saltiness, wait 8 hours, then eat a banana. Be prepared to experience diarrhea. The CsCl “bends” the N protein of the viral RNA polymerase and slows the viral rate of replication, allowing the immune system to catch up. <br/>CsCl is currently FDA approved for clinical use (to combat aggressive cancers). However its track record against cancer is spotty, and although it has been used at some prestigious Hospitals such as Memorial Sloan-Kettering since 1984, it is considered a niche drug and is practically unknown. CsCl has a serious side effect: it causes hypokalemia (low blood potassium, with attendant cardiac problems) when taken on a chronic basis. Therefore, patients should not take more than 5 doses of CsCl. The banana (which is full of potassium) is taken to rebalance the electrolytes. CsCl is not found in pharmacies. It can be ordered online from e.g. Amazon.com. One teaspoonful of CsCl weighs about 19 grams. To further boost the immune system, take multiple doses of AirBorne, which can be found in most pharmacies.<br/>Doctors have recently noticed that the course of COVID-19 typically is mild for a week or 10 days, with muscle aches, a persistent cough and a low fever, and then the patient either recovers slowly, or suddenly crashes with high fever and acute respiratory distress syndrome (ARDS). CsCl can help the patient past the ARDS danger point.<br/>In the light of the recent maybe-partial-success of the drug Remdesivir or the now-disputed drug combination hydroxychloroquine+azithromycin, it is unlikely that any practicing physician will reach for a bottle of CsCl in preference. However, the current FDA-approval means that its off-label use against coronavirus puts it in the same category as the chloroquine drugs. Even better, its action is based in scientific data (unpublished). <br/>By nature, a new virus has to spread before its identity and its characteristics become recognizable. SARS-CoV-2 has spread widely for three reasons. 1. It is as infectious as measles or flu. 2. Its incubation period of 20 days means that there are a LOT of infectious but symptom-free people walking around. 3. Recent testing shows that as many as 35% of infected persons never know they had the disease. 4. There is virtually no "herd immunity" in the USA. In theory, herd immunity only begins to suppress the spread of infection after about 80% of a population has become immune, either through vaccination or through natural infection.<br/>The CsCl remedy was originally conceived (by me) as a remedy for Ebola virus, when Ebola visited NYC in late 2014. In fact, it should work against any RNA virus whose genome is in a nucleocapsid structure. That includes measles virus and the current seasonal strain of flu. Since CsCl targets the viral polymerase, there is little chance that it can mutate in such a way as to become resistant to CsCl without also becoming replication-incompetent.
The Economist: “Are governments following the science on covid-19?”
https://www.frontiersin.org/articles/10.3389/fpubh.2020.621563/full
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