COVID -19 became the most important field of research in 2020. Accelerated publication of papers containing data regarding COVID-19 has been facilitated, assuming that rapid circulation of important knowledge may save lives. However, experts have raised concerns regarding the methodological quality of articles published after accelerated review processes, thus resulting in the retraction of many papers. Retraction is a mechanism for alerting readers that an article contains seriously flawed or erroneous content and is unreliable. This study analyzes the post-retracted citations of four highly cited COVID-19 papers to analyze how the retracted papers are interwoven in the scientific literature.
