Dissemination of Information During Public Health Crises: Early COVID‐19 Data From The Laryngoscope

Chern, Alexander; Selesnick, Samuel H.

OBJECTIVES: During a public health crisis, it is important for medical journals to share information in a timely manner while maintaining a robust peer‐review process. This review reports and analyzes The Laryngoscope's publication trends and practices during the COVID‐19 pandemic, before the COVID‐19 pandemic, and during previous pandemics. METHODS: Comprehensive review of two databases (PubMed and The Laryngoscope) was performed. COVID‐19 manuscripts (published in The Laryngoscope during the first 4 months of the pandemic) were identified and compared to manuscripts pertaining to historic pandemics (published in The Laryngoscope during the first 2 years of each outbreak). Keywords included “Laryngoscope”, “flu”, “pandemic”, “influenza”, “SARS”, “severe acute respiratory syndrome”, “coronavirus”, “COVID‐19”, and “SARS‐CoV‐2”. Data were obtained from The Laryngoscope to characterize publication trends during and before the COVID‐19 pandemic. RESULTS: From March 1, 2020 to June 30, 2020, The Laryngoscope had 203 COVID‐19 submissions. As of July 8, 2020, 20 (9.9%) were accepted, 117 (57.6%) under review, and 66 (32.5%) rejected. During the first 4 months of the pandemic, 18 COVID‐19 manuscripts were published. The mean number of days from submission to online publication was 45, compared to 170 in 2018 and 196 in 2019. A total of 4 manuscripts concerning previous pandemics were published during the initial 2 years of each outbreak. CONCLUSIONS: The Laryngoscope rapidly disseminated quality publications during the COVID‐19 pandemic by upholding a robust peer‐review process while expediting editorial steps, highlighting relevant articles online, and providing open access to make COVID‐19‐related publications available as quickly as possible. Laryngoscope, 2020