Covid challenges science to open up to society and complexity

The hypotheses at the time of the Coronavirus are a fascinating chapter and could give rise to a practically infinite encyclopedia. They account for a great intellectual vivacity, the desire of many to contribute to finding solutions to overcome the crisis and feed on a whirlwind circulation of information.

The hypotheses emerge, are multiplied, some remain suspended, others discussed because they confirm consolidated beliefs or surprise them overturned, soliciting reactions or stirring emotions. And in this period the need to attract attention is maximum, because we always and only talk about the emergency in progress, and those who access traditional media or social media do so to get news, understand trends, imagine prospects. Witness the enormous listening to the daily bulletin at 6pm of the Civil Protection, which made most of them familiar with subjects such as epidemiology, virology, modeling.

On the other hand, the media, as we know, go in search of emotions and solicit expectations, and In just two months, thousands of scientific source documents have accumulated with increasing progression, from articles in accredited peer-reviewed journals, to editorials, letters, pre-prints (without peer-review) in all disciplines related to the new SARS coronavirus -CoV-2 and its COVID-19 respiratory disease.

Studies on the virus, on the transmission mechanisms, on the treatment, the prevention of contagion, the symptoms, the comorbidities, the cofactors, the role of exposure to atmospheric particulate matter, produce a whirlwind of conclusions called ‘results’, of which it is difficult to understand The premises, the methods and the hypothesis.