Challenges for the practice of evidence based medicine during COVID 19 pandemic (practice of evidence based medicine in the new normal)

Abstract

The forces which had kept the evidence based medicine (EBM) movement alive and ongoing have altered significantly during this coronavirus disease (COVID) 19 pandemic. There has been discrepancy in the demand and availability of scientific evidence. Deaths of thousands of people including physicians and other health care workers (while offering COVID 19 care) across the globe have shaken the confidence of the physicians towards the practice of EBM. Journals started publishing in a hurry, incomplete and at times misleading scientific articles, about COVID 19, leaving the physicians in a dilemma about the evidence. The practitioner of EBM has had to turn helplessly to non documentary evidences to treat COVID 19 patients. Apart from the evidence becoming hyperdynamic and volatile along with a reduction in its quality, the environment got polluted by political interference. In a nutshell, the COVID 19 pandemic has affected the practice of EBM and its acceptance in multiple ways.