L'indice di Hirsch, fa la sua comparsa nell'informazione generalista sul Covid 19 - The Hirsch index makes its appearance in the Covid 19 general press

This editorial is based on a public discussion that involved the Hirsch index in the TV popular media. In May 2020, the positions of the Government and the measures adopted by the Italian Health System, in the middle of the Covid 19 pandemic, caused a debate on their adequacy. These discussions involved prominent professionals in the medical community and their scientific reliability level. In this regard, scientometric indices were invoked, such as the Hirsh index (h-Index), as objective proof of competence in the matter. The citation score would therefore be a kind of benchmark in order to evaluate the convenience to follow the indications of scientists and researchers. The scientific community, while not taking positions on the matter, seems to consider these parameters a kind of lesser evil. On the other hand, data published for instance by Scimago indicate the production of literature in the various disciplinary fields, remarkably large. This makes it difficult to analyze them by ordinary academic commissions, case by case up to an thorough evaluation of the goodness or otherwise of an individual scientific production, as Nobel Prize Richard Ernst would suggest, hoping that they can: read the works instead of evaluating them by counting quotes. In the current organization of scientific publishing on a global scale, bibliometric indices remain a fundamental tool for making reasonable evaluations on articles and, consequently, on the scholars who wrote them. This discussion, due to its scientific importance and the urgence to face the Covid 19 pandemic, ends up leaving the academic and research environment to make its appearance in satirical broadcasts and in popular media information