An Observatory for Post-Publication Reviews of Covid-19 Science

The Covid-19 pandemic has led to an unprecedented surge in scientific publications, some of which have subsequently faced criticism regarding their analytical integrity. Aiming to foster collaborative scientific discourse, we introduce the prototype of an observatory with over 40 published Covid-19 studies and a selection of public responses for each study. Through several case studies from the observatory, we examine specific instances of methodological flaws, data integrity issues, and challenges of maintaining scientific rigour that were uncovered in these responses. While the prototype demonstrates the potential for creating a crowd-sourced comprehensive repository of post-publication reviews, it also reveals limitations such as resource constraints and the complexities involved in selecting and presenting articles and responses. Future developments will prioritize refining the selection and ordering criteria while encouraging greater engagement from the scientific community and informed public with the goal to enhance the reliability of published research.