To the Editor,
I am reading Chan’s article with great interest (1). Since World Health Organization declared COVID-19 as a pandemic on March 11, 2020, the scientific world has seen a rapidly increasing amount of literature like no other pandemic before. A search for “COVID-19” in early April yielded roughly 3500 hits. The same search on August 22nd already yielded 42,693 entries (2). The daily average at that moment was roughly 181 articles per day. The same search on October 24th showed 66,988 entries. By November 7th, there were 71,682 entries. (Figure 1) The daily average increase in number of articles is 335, an amount that will probably exceed the ability of the fastest and most enthusiastic reader. For comparison purpose, the daily average of article produced for “HIV” was only 54. There are articles that analyzed the publishing pattern already, with some casting doubt on the scientific merits of some articles (1,3). Data that is difficult to track would be the actual number of submission (which must be even higher) and peer review duration (which is getting longer). Back in April, our paper on isolated meningoencephalitis (4) was accepted within 48 hours of submission and “rejection” was unheard of till late May. Lately, some submission has taken well over 4 weeks before revision is suggested. The type of literature has also changed. The first round was mostly case report and observational series. Nowadays, papers on pathophysiology, treatment and large-scale review paper begin to appear. This is the first pandemic in the so call “information age”, it will be interesting to follow the development in the literature world and learn how does its “lead” our fight against COVID-19 pandemic.
Figure 1.
Number of COVID-19 “hits” on PubMed from Oct 24 – Nov 7, 2020.
Table 1.
Daily publication average for COVID-19 and others from Oct 24 to Nov 7, 2020.
| COVID-19 | COVID-19 or MERS or SARS | HIV | |
| Oct 24, 2020 | 66988 | 85811 | 370876 |
| Nov 7, 2020 | 71682 | 90961 | 371631 |
| Daily Average | 335 | 368 | 54 |
Acknowledgement
The author would like to thank Prissilla Xu for preparation of this manuscript.
Conflict of interest
Each author declares that he or she has no commercial associations (e.g. consultancies, stock ownership, equity interest, patent/licensing arrangement etc.) that might pose a conflict of interest in connection with the submitted article
References
- 1.Chan J, Oo S, Chor C, et al. COVID-19 and literature evidence: should we publish anything and everything? Acta Biomed. 2020 Sep 7;91(3):e2020020. doi: 10.23750/abm.v91i3.9827. doi: 10.23750/abm.v91i3.9827. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- 2.Liu A. Letter to the Editor: Exponential increase in COVID-19 related publications compared to other pandemic diseases. Rambam Maimonides Med J. 2020 Oct 30 doi: 10.5041/RMMJ.10424. doi: 10.5041/RMMJ.10424. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- 3.Gianola S, Jesus T, Bargeri S, et al. Characteristics of academic publications, preprints, and registered clinical trials on the COVID-19 pandemic. PLoS ONE. 2020 Oct 6;15(10):e0240123. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0240123. doi: 10.1371/journal.pone.0240123. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]
- 4.Duong L, Xu P, Liu A. Meningoencephalitis without respiratory failure in a young female patient with COVID-19 infection in Downtown Los Angeles, early April 2020. Brain Behav Immun. 2020 Jul;87:33. doi: 10.1016/j.bbi.2020.04.024. doi: 10.1016/j.bbi.2020.04.024. [DOI] [PMC free article] [PubMed] [Google Scholar]