Who wouldn’t want to know more about a disease that has killed >1 million people to date, worldwide. Who wouldn’t want to know more about the thromboembolic risk associated with COVID-19 when we have been told that the VTE prevalence approaches 50% and that some centres have been using systemic thrombolysis based purely on clinical evidence of respiratory deterioration.

We always want to know more, right? But there is an important caveat to knowledge in the modern age. Do you want to hear more from your own echo chamber? Or do you want to know more from the broader literature, including findings that may disagree with what you initially believed.

If you were worried about VTE risk early and searched for information/confirmation to support a proposed change in practice, this information feed will continue. We all saw how the bar dropped for publication during the early stages of the pandemic, due to a clear thirst for knowledge and experience on this topic.

It’s time now for us to raise this bar back up – through scepticism, critical appraisal of the literature and perhaps broadening our reading lists.

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