Scientific solidarity in the face of the COVID-19 pandemic: researchers, publishers, and medical associations

抄録

In the face of COVID-19, the scientific community has rapidly come together to address this outbreak in an open and collaborative manner to support the global response to this outbreak by rapidly sharing and highlighting research data and relevant findings. COVID-19 research is being published at a furious pace. Over 6,000 articles have been published as of 20 April 2020, and at least 15 online resource centers/websites for COVID-19 have been created by publishers to enable fast and free access to the latest research, evidence, and data available. Moreover, many evidence-based guidelines for COVID-19 have been issued based on academic articles and summaries of the experiences of frontline medical personnel. Various academic medical associations are also actively sharing information and providing technical support. As an example, 93 guides/proposals/responses to COVID-19 have been issued so far by 50 medical associations in Japan. However, few publications and national situation reports have provided information on the number of infected healthcare workers (HCWs). More publications and national situation reports are urgently needed to provide scientific information to devise specific infection prevention and control measures in order to protect HCWs from infection.