There is small subset of #COVID19 papers that rely on trawling through GISAID and then publishing data that has been generated and submitted (but not yet published) by others. /1

Today’s particularly egregious example is published in @eurosurveillanc and discusses the transmission of the new variant N501Y mutant strains of SARS-CoV-2 in the UK https://www.eurosurveillance.org/content/10.2807/1560-7917.ES.2020.26.1.2002106 /2

While I do not doubt the data or the conclusions of this paper, it feels very wrong to have no involvement whatsoever from the many groups in the UK that have made sequence and epidemiological data available since mid-December /3

It is completely OK to reanalyse data that has been generated and formally published by others, but this is basically scooping researchers with their own data /4

This threatens the free exchange of data, which is essential for 21st century science (particularly so during a pandemic) and, in my opinion, the authors of this paper should be ashamed of themselves. /5

The journal @eurosurveillanc needs to check their editorial policies (‘Article submitted on 20 Dec 2020 / accepted on 28 Dec 2020’) and should consider whether they want to be part of these practices that I find deeply unethical /6 & end.