Preprints on the coronavirus have been impressively reliable

SCIENTIFIC PUBLISHING moves slowly. Depending on the academic field, it can take years for a single paper to get published in a well-regarded journal. In that time, a paper might undergo several rounds of peer-review by academic volunteers, followed by corrections—and possibly rejections—before a new scientific result sees the light of day.

This rigmarole is meant to ensure that the research that enters the scientific record is reputable, rigorous and trustworthy. That is admirable—and the system generally works well—but it also introduces a bottleneck, delaying the circulation of new scientific results. To get around this, scientists can release a “preprint”: a manuscript of a paper posted to a public server online before it has completed a formal peer-review process.

Preprints are commonplace in physics and mathematics. During the covid-19 pandemic, these publications took off in bio logy, genomics and medicine too, reflecting the urgency of communicating corona virus-related findings to other scientists, government officials, and the public.

Some have expressed concerns over the quality of preprints, however, arguing that publishing research prematurely risks undermining the integrity of science if conclusions may later need to be revised, after comments from peer-reviewers, say. Fortunately, a study...