The impact of early scientific literature in response to COVID-19: a scientometric perspective

Davide Golinelli; Andrea Giovanni Nuzzolese; Erik Boetto; Flavia Rallo; Manfredi Greco; Fabrizio Toscano; Maria Pia Fantini

The information relating to infectious outbreaks have a complex dynamic and occur at various levels. On the one hand, the scientific community is quickly activated on producing evidence, studies and articles that describe the new pathogen, the first cases, the methods of transmission, etc. For example, the first scientific article related to COVID-19 was indexed on Pubmed on January 14th 2020 (Bagoch 2020) . In it, authors reported that a cluster of pneumonia of unknown aetiology was published on ProMED-mail, possibly related to contact with the Huanan seafood wholesale market in Wuhan, China, and warned for the potential international spread via commercial air travel. On the other hand, the communication channels of the official sources (WHO, Ministries of Health, etc.) are committed to collecting, filtering and transmitting true and confirmed information, in order to provide a public service and to contain the population response. In turn, traditional media (newspapers, periodicals, etc.), both digital and printed, resume the news and disseminate it. At this level, misinformation can occur. That is, the creation -more or less fraudulent -of false news that can determine an emotional response in the population, creating false beliefs or panic.