Scientific output in the year of COVID is high

As 2020 nears its end, a counterintuitive picture is emerging for scientific output. Rather than suffering a COVID-driven slowdown, 2020 delivered extraordinary growth for journal content. To put it simply, journals are expected to grow by about 500k papers from 2019 to 2020, as much as they grew overall in the previous six years. Will a 2020 boom yield a 2021 bust? While the mechanism of this year’s growth is unclear, it may have implications for the scientific output of 2021.