Pandemic Publishing: Medical journals drastically speed up their publication process for Covid-19

Serge P.J.M. Horbach

While drastic acceleration of the review stage might evoke quality issues, this arguably applies less to the editorial stage of the publication process. Journals' achievement of shortening this stage of the publication process for Covid-19 related content is purely laudable. However, this might raise questions about why publication delays in this stage are usually higher and whether journals will aim and be able to maintain such standards in a post-crisis era. One potential explanation for the shortened editorial stage is that publishers or journal editors now prioritize Covid-19 related research articles, at the expense of other articles. However, our data on non-Covid-19 related articles published during the pandemic seems to contradict this. It seems like journals are managing to speed up editorial work for Covid-19 related content, while maintaining standards for other articles.