It has been the opposite for me.

However, I think there's no relationship between that and a "more benevolent spirit" of editors and reviewers during the pandemics.

I think I have more time to work on the papers now, and I have more time for important things such as family, studying theory and analyses, reading books, leisure time with the kids at home, in other words, mental health and quality time devoted to papers and personal life. I did not have that when there was no pandemic.

Yes.

Alex - similar to Rhainer I have not personally noted higher rates of rejection. However, I review for a lot of clinical journals and, as you would suspect, a large proportion of the recent submissions have been Covid-related. Personally, I am immediately more wary of these submissions than other general submissions. The very first thing I ask myself is 'is this manuscript contributing anything new?' - and, in most cases, I would argue that the answer is 'no'.

I think one may need to look at possible circumstantial evidence from what @Dean White earlier pointed above. Many researchers have no clear goal to contribute to the scientific knowledge except to write in envious of their colleagues probably whose recent articles on COVID-19 may have received high citations. I have recommended >70% of many papers that I recently reviewed for major revision and the other way round. In many writeups of COVID-19 related, you get bored while you try to fathom why the authors decide to embark on such studies, you know what I mean. So, it is not the editors' problem but the authors.

In conclusion, the notion to contribute sufficiently to fight COVID-19 for many authors is not there, not to talk of being already lost.

I have exactly the same opinion as Dr. Rhainer Guillermo-Ferreira already mentioned...!

yes! I agree with Dr. Dean Whitehead. The ratio of rejection becomes high rate.

I am not sure whether COVID is responsible, but I have had contact from a journal I review for, essentially asking their reviewers to be tougher. They said that they want their acceptance rate to be lower because they already have papers for most of their 2021 issues.

As a reviewer, I often see papers that I feel need a LOT of work and I tend to want to mentor the writers and give them the opportunity to revise. But the practical reality is that a journal can only publish so many articles a year, so I will need to become more strict.

Alex Córdoba-Aguilar for our field of research (chemistry) I'm pretty sure that the corona pandemic makes no difference as far as acceptance / rejection rates are concerned. However, as Dean Whitehead pointed out, the situation is certainly different for the flood of COVID-19 related manuscripts. I assume that many of them were prepared under an immense time pressure.

I feel a big YES. Even diverse type of job applications are on continuous rejection and or freezing in state.

I don’t think so. There is no relation between acceptance or rejection of research articles and Covid-19 pandemic.

Muhammad Ali remember that rejection of job applications and paper rejections are two completely different pairs of shoes. You are certainly right in that numerous jo applications are currently rejected due to the difficult economic situation in corona times. As for scientific papers, I agree with Gourab Das.

I do not think that the rejection rate of papers has increased during the COVID-19 pandemic period. There should not be any relation of COVID-19 with acceptance or rejection of papers.

I think there is no relation between paper acceptance or rejection and CIVID19

I have not experienced that, that rejection rate is increasing, and it is because of C-19. There seems to be no relation, if there is, that might be because many authors are quick to write C-19 papers, which probably are not of high scientific quality. What I see happening rather is the unnecessary delay in non-C-19 manuscripts.

I agree with Michael W. Marek

i havent been able to so be rejected during this period but i would love to. Logic says it should affect the rejection rate because probably authors who dont have to work with primary data (in social sciences or related field), must have produced more papers.

No. IEEE recent experience. Reviewers still read the paper quickly finding questions not relevat to the paper aim. Therefore, there is no relation with COVID.

Your recommendation and feedback is really appreciated. Best regards, Colin.

Indeed, there is no direct relation between covid19 and paper rejection but: a) more scientists are staying at home meaning they can be less distracted to write papers; and b) there is pressure to write covid related papers (in support of Dean and Kamoru's points) meaning they are writing more. Michael has an important point too. The fact is that I am experiencing at least a 20 % higher rejection rate, with papers that have no relation with corona makes me believe how correct Mike is here.

Many journals are encouraging manuscripts that are covid 19 relate. This may imply, to a certain extent, some papers that are non covid related maybe given lesser priority.

Alex, this is an interesting observation/question to posit. I wonder what the evidence is. Are the purported article rejections only for all ranked journals or are these for both ranked and non-ranked journals. If these purported rejections actually happen, why may this situation be the case? I would be interested to find out what the actual situation regarding rejections is. This could provide a forum/platform for insightful discussions and comments.

John Mendy I don't have evidence but my own experience submitting papers and also other colleagues'. My guess is that academics are either having trouble dealing with the consequences of the pandemic and/or having more time to write and submit. In the latter case, journals are possibly receiving more than usual and so editors rejecting more. My feeling again.

No. I have not experienced that the rejection rate is increasing. In my personal opinion and my subject area, it is the same, maybe in areas related to COVID research, the amount of papers is now more significant, and that is connected with a bigger rejection rate.

Dear Alex Córdoba-Aguilar I agree with Jorge Ari Noriega in that the rejection rate of regular research papers has certainly not increased. However, I assume that there is a flood of COVID-19 related manuscripts that are written hurriedly and should better be rejected.

Rejection not increased due to lesser number of submissions!!

Your observation is not incorrect.

At the beginning of the COVID-19 pandemic, the acceptance rate of related to COVID-19 papers was too high. Now it is slowing down.

Logically thinking, I believe the acceptance rate should decrease for many reasons such as the quality of submitted papers that got affected due to restrictions imposed (access to labs).

I just learnt that in the past 6 months more than 50,000 COVID-19-related papers have been published. Personally I assume that 90+ percent of these studies are useless.

But Frank, the numbers is only foe the biomedical sciences...

Covid-19 has alsoban impact on business, law,social scinces and there we also have a paper avalance... And in fluid science and liquid and air physics and material science etc.

Rejection rate is high, just because there are floods of same papers or most of them are written approximately on same topics of pandemic.

Yes. The reviewers and editors were actually depressed ... ahaha

Sana Arshad has a point. Take, for instance, so much similar work exists under COVID19.

Good discussion