Preprinting the COVID-19 pandemic

• Published in: bioRxiv 2021-02
• Main Authors: Fraser, Nicholas, Brierley, Liam, Dey, Gautam, Polka, Jessica K, Máté Pálfy, Nanni, Federico, Coates, Jonathon Alexis
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Subjects: Coronaviruses; COVID-19; Pandemics; Scientific Communication and Education; Severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2
• ISSN: 2692-8205
• DOI: 10.1101/2020.05.22.111294

Abstract The world continues to face a life-threatening viral pandemic. The virus underlying the COVID-19 disease, SARS-CoV-2, has caused over 98 million confirmed cases and 2.2 million deaths since January 2020. Although the most recent respiratory viral pandemic swept the globe only a decade ago, the way science operates and responds to current events has experienced a paradigm shift in the interim. The scientific community has responded rapidly to the COVID-19 pandemic, releasing over 125,000 COVID-19 related scientific articles within 10 months of the first confirmed case, of which more than 30,000 were hosted by preprint servers. We focused our analysis on bioRxiv and medRxiv, two growing preprint servers for biomedical research, investigating the attributes of COVID-19 preprints, their access and usage rates, as well as characteristics of their propagation on online platforms. Our data provides evidence for increased scientific and public engagement with preprints related to COVID-19 (COVID-19 preprints are accessed more, cited more, and shared more on various online platforms than non-COVID-19 preprints), as well as changes in the use of preprints by journalists and policymakers. We also find evidence for changes in preprinting and publishing behaviour: COVID-19 preprints are shorter and reviewed faster. Our results highlight the unprecedented role of preprints and preprint servers in the dissemination of COVID-19 science, and the impact of the pandemic on the scientific communication landscape. Competing Interest Statement JP is the executive director of ASAPbio, a non-profit organization promoting the productive use of preprints in the life sciences. GD is a bioRxiv Affiliate, part of a volunteer group of scientists that screen preprints deposited on the bioRxiv server. MP is the community manager for preLights, a non-profit preprint highlighting service. GD and JAC are contributors to preLights and ASAPbio Fellows. The authors declare no other competing interests. Footnotes * Manuscript has been revised and updated to include a larger time frame (Jan - Oct 2020) and more detailed analyses. * https://github.com/preprinting-a-pandemic/pandemic_preprints