Help Gid and Lea publish COVID-19 research
Donation protected
We're Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz and Lea Merone. We're two PhD students who also work in public health - Gid is an epidemiologist in Sydney, NSW and Lea is a public health academic in Cairns, QLD.
In May 2020, we conducted one of the first systematic reviews into COVID-19 mortality, which remains one of the most cited works in this area. We did this entirely in our free time, on weekends and after work, and have not received funding of any kind for the work.
The study was published here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1201971220321809
Because the study was (in our opinions) so important, we decided to submit to an Open-Access (OA) published, the International Journal of Infectious Disease. OA journals put findings up for the entire world to see, allowing people to freely download their work, but they also require payment from the researchers for this privilege. At the time, we thought very little of it - both of us have published in these journals before, and universities and other institutions usually cover the fees. Naively, we thought we'd be fine.
Unfortunately, it's COVID-19 time, and nothing is really fine.
After being cited by the CDC, and accruing 158 academic citations since September, our study payment is due and our organizations are not willing to cover the fees. The funds that we originally wanted to rely on have been dissolved to pay for deficits caused by the pandemic. We still would like to have this study published in an OA journal - it's important science! - but we really need to cover the payment somehow.
We'd really appreciate anything you can give. The full fee is $1,925 USD. We've set this fundraiser up to try and raise about half of that, which will hopefully allow us to work out a payment plan with Elsevier for the rest.
Thank you for reading - Gid and Lea.
Update: we are blown away by how much people have already donated. We literally can't believe it - thank you all so much. We've raised the target to the full cost of the study, if we go over all excess money will be donated to the Community Restorative Centre of NSW who provide services to current/former inmates and their families to break the cycle of recidivism https://www.crcnsw.org.au/
In May 2020, we conducted one of the first systematic reviews into COVID-19 mortality, which remains one of the most cited works in this area. We did this entirely in our free time, on weekends and after work, and have not received funding of any kind for the work.
The study was published here: https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1201971220321809
Because the study was (in our opinions) so important, we decided to submit to an Open-Access (OA) published, the International Journal of Infectious Disease. OA journals put findings up for the entire world to see, allowing people to freely download their work, but they also require payment from the researchers for this privilege. At the time, we thought very little of it - both of us have published in these journals before, and universities and other institutions usually cover the fees. Naively, we thought we'd be fine.
Unfortunately, it's COVID-19 time, and nothing is really fine.
After being cited by the CDC, and accruing 158 academic citations since September, our study payment is due and our organizations are not willing to cover the fees. The funds that we originally wanted to rely on have been dissolved to pay for deficits caused by the pandemic. We still would like to have this study published in an OA journal - it's important science! - but we really need to cover the payment somehow.
We'd really appreciate anything you can give. The full fee is $1,925 USD. We've set this fundraiser up to try and raise about half of that, which will hopefully allow us to work out a payment plan with Elsevier for the rest.
Thank you for reading - Gid and Lea.
Update: we are blown away by how much people have already donated. We literally can't believe it - thank you all so much. We've raised the target to the full cost of the study, if we go over all excess money will be donated to the Community Restorative Centre of NSW who provide services to current/former inmates and their families to break the cycle of recidivism https://www.crcnsw.org.au/
Co-organizers (2)
Gideon Meyerowitz-Katz
Organizer
Eastlakes, NSW
Lea Merone
Co-organizer