In response to these controversies, bioRxiv added a disclaimer above all preprints emphasising their contents were not peer-reviewed and should not be taken as definitive in clinical decisions or news reporting. Elsewhere, a large number of academics backed an official statement to denounce conspiracy theory and misleading information about the origins of SARS-CoV-2 and reinforce public faith in science \citep{calisher_statement_2020}. However, more preventive ways of handling and filtering out unsound evidence from the large volumes of preprint material during future global emergencies are clearly necessary.
This begs an important question - whose responsibility is it to carry out such regulation over use and dissemination of preprint evidence? Predictably, the answer is likely universal: that of authors to ensure their preprint research is rigorous and presented objectively; that of preprint servers to encourage and streamline opportunities for peer commentary; that of academics to provide such commentary in a timely and constructive manner; and that of the wider public readership to acknowledge the limitations of preprint research. In this case, a set of guidelines for good practice in understanding and interpreting unreviewed research for journalists and the general public would be a valuable resource to mitigate the spread of misinformation surrounding highly topical events. Some example starting points for this guidance is given in Box 1. These broadly echo general considerations for interpreting research and the scientific method for non-academic audiences.