RESEARCH ARTICLE - IA de Investigación especializada en el MIT

ARTÍCULO DE INVESTIGACIÓN

Coronavirus research before 2020 is more
relevant than ever, especially when
interpreted for COVID-19

un acceso abierto

diario

Statistical Cybermetrics Research Group, University of Wolverhampton, Reino Unido

Mike Thelwall

Palabras clave: altmetrics, COVID-19, Mendeley, MERS, readers, SARS

Citación: Thelwall, METRO. (2020).
Coronavirus research before 2020 es
more relevant than ever, especially
when interpreted for COVID-19.
Estudios de ciencias cuantitativas, 1(4),
1381–1395. https://doi.org/10.1162
/qss_a_00083

DOI:
https://doi.org/10.1162/qss_a_00083

Recibió: 6 Junio 2020
Aceptado: 23 Julio 2020

Autor correspondiente:
Mike Thelwall
m.thelwall@wlv.ac.uk

Editor de manejo:
Juego Waltman

ABSTRACTO

The speed with which biomedical specialists were able to identify and characterize COVID-19
was partly due to prior research with other coronaviruses. Early epidemiological comparisons
with Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS),
also made it easier to predict COVID-19’s likely spread and lethality. This article assesses
whether academic interest in prior coronavirus research has translated into interest in the
primary source material, using Mendeley reader counts for early academic impact evidence.
The results confirm that SARS and MERS research in 2008–2017 experienced anomalously
high increases in Mendeley readers in April–May 2020. Sin embargo, studies learning
COVID-19 lessons from SARS and MERS or using them as a benchmark for COVID-19
have generated much more academic interest than primary studies of SARS or MERS. De este modo,
research that interprets prior relevant research for new diseases when they are discovered
seems to be particularly important to help researchers to understand its implications in the
new context.

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INTRODUCCIÓN

COVID-19 was first recognized because scientists already knew about coronaviruses: their shape
and how to test for them. Their origins were also already known (zoonotic with specific animal
carriers). Además, an understanding of virus mutations had led to an expectation that new
coronaviruses could emerge and that their virulence could differ from those already found.
De este modo, while the virulence of COVID-19 and timing of its occurrence could not be predicted in
advance, its emergence was a recognized possibility.

Además, prior coronavirus research had identified a set of symptoms from previous
outbreaks, tested a range of treatments, experimented with vaccines, and implemented preven-
tative measures. De este modo, biomedical and public health investigations of COVID-19 had a body of
prior research to draw upon. Assessing the extent to which COVID-19 differs from prior diseases
might help speed new biomedical and public health research, Por ejemplo. This is made explicit
in some papers, such as “Repurposing antivirals as potential treatments for SARS-CoV-2: De
SARS to COVID-19” (Gómez-Ríos, López-Agudelo, & Ramírez-Malule, 2020). It seems likely that
this is a general trend, so older coronavirus research will be attracting substantial new attention in
2020, but evidence is needed to confirm this. There are currently three known coronavirus

Derechos de autor: © 2020 Mike Thelwall.
Publicado bajo Creative Commons
Atribución 4.0 Internacional (CC POR 4.0)
licencia.

La prensa del MIT

Coronavirus research before 2020 is more relevant than ever

diseases that can have a serious impact on humans. Other coronaviruses are mild in humans or
only infect some species of animals.

(cid:129) SARS (Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome) is caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV (también
known as SARS-CoV-1, SARSr-CoV). It was first identified in 2003, and there has been no
outbreak since then. 8,437 people have been reported infected, con un 11% death rate
(https://www.who.int/csr/sars/country/2003_07_11/en/).

(cid:129) MERS (Middle East Respiratory Syndrome) is caused by the MERS coronavirus MERS-CoV.
It was first identified in Saudi Arabia in 2012 y, by January 2020, 2,500 people had been
reported infected, con un 35% death rate (http://www.emro.who.int/health-topics/mers
-cov/mers-outbreaks.html).

(cid:129) COVID-19 is caused by the coronavirus SARS-CoV-2 and emerged in December 2019.
En el momento de escribir, it had infected many more people than the previous two corona-
viruses, was more infectious for human-to-human transmission, and had a lower death
rate but much higher death toll. It has previously been called 2019-nCoV and 2019/
2020 novel coronavirus.

Despite the above-mentioned likelihood of prior coronavirus research being more useful in
2020, there is no evidence yet to check whether interest in research specific to SARS and
MERS has increased due to COVID-19. A positive result—even though highly expected—
would empirically validate the importance of ongoing research into diseases related to poten-
tial pandemics (p.ej., coronaviruses, ebolaviruses, Flaviviridae viruses). This article addresses
this issue and compares the current academic impact of COVID-19 research with prior coro-
navirus research to assess their current relative importance. It is not clear whether older coro-
navirus research would be more impactful. This seems possible because it may be more
foundational and of higher quality due to more time to plan and execute. En cambio, investigación
about COVID-19 may be more relevant to the 2020 pandemic. The focus here is on scholarly
impacto (es decir., citations from future research, or Mendeley readers as a proxy for this) en vez de
societal impact. In the special case of COVID-19 it is not yet clear whether scholarly impact
would be a good indicator of societal impact, especially in the form of treatments, vaccines, o
epidemiology. The research questions are as follows.

(cid:129) RQ1: Does SARS and MERS research from before 2020 have more scholarly impact in

2020 than expected for its age?

(cid:129) RQ2: Does SARS and MERS research from before 2020 have more scholarly impact in

mid-2020 than early 2020 COVID-19 research?

2. BACKGROUND: BIBLIOMETRIC STUDIES OF CORONAVIRUSES

Some bibliometric studies have investigated the influence of coronavirus research, mostly
characterizing the number and type of publications indexed in relevant scholarly databases.
As coronaviruses have many variants and could be the primary focus of a paper or less central
to a research project, each study has operationalized its sample in different ways and there is no
single agreed method. All seem to have been produced in 2020 in the context of COVID-19.

A range of studies have shown that there is a rapid rate of COVID-19 research publishing and
that both MERS and SARS are relevant to this emerging set. In detail, and discussed chronolog-
icamente, the specific findings are as follows. One study found 8,732 articles and 1,028 reviews with
the title term “coronavirus” by February 9, 2020 in the Web of Science ( WoS). The Journal of
Virology (9%) was the single most common source and both SARS and MERS were identified

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Coronavirus research before 2020 is more relevant than ever

as relevant keywords (tao, zhou, et al., 2020). By February 29, 2020, 183 publications matching
the query “COVID-19” were indexed in PubMed, a third of which reported original research
(Lou, tian, et al., 2020). In PubMed and the World Health Organization ( WHO) COVID-19
research database, there had been 564 observational or interventional investigations about
COVID-19 by March 18, 2020 (Chahrour, Assi, et al., 2020). An investigation of WoS publica-
tions matching a set of COVID-19 queries on April 1, 2020 found keywords related to both MERS
and SARS to be associated, suggesting that early research had often made connections with the
two prior diseases (Hossain, 2020). By April 7, the COVID-19 coverage of a range of scholarly
databases had been expanding at an increasing rate since January 2020 (Torres-Salinas, 2020).
On April 9, 12,109 papers had been indexed by Scopus matching the query “coronavirus*”, con
sudden increases associated with each of SARS, MERS, and COVID-19 (Haghani, Bliemer, et al.,
2020; see also Danesh & GhaviDel, 2020). A collection of 2,958 articles and 2,797 preprints from
Scopus, arXiv, bioRxiv, and medRxiv by April 23, 2020 was created by a set of inclusive queries,
with unspecified manual checking afterwards (Latif, Usman, et al., 2020). Topic modeling
applied to this data set extracted sets of 10 topics for different slices of the data, but none included
SARS or MERS. Scopus queries for “COVID-19” in titles, abstracts, or keywords 2 days later
(Abril 25) found 3,513 documents and a keyword-based topic visualization included MERS
(Hamidah, Sriyono, & Hudha, 2020). Also on April 25, the number of COVID-19 documents
indexed by PubMed was experiencing exponential-like growth (Kambhampati, Vaishya, &
Vaish, 2020). A similar investigation with a wider range of queries found both SARS and MERS
represented in a topic map (Dehghanbanadaki, Seif, et al., 2020).

One prior bibliometric study has compared SARS, MERS, and COVID-19 papers until March
25, 2020. Similar document types were published for each disease, both SARS and MERS
research volume had decreased over time, and COVID-19 research was more cited (higher field
normalized citation counts). This paper adopted an inclusive search strategy, finding 7,272 SARS
documents and 2,199 MERS documents (Hu, Chen, et al., 2020). De este modo, this analysis may be
dominated by studies that are related to the three diseases without being primarily about them.

Some research has compared bibliometric trends for a variety of diseases, including corona-
viruses. A comparison of SARS, MERS, Avian Flu, Ebola, HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis B & C, Flu, y
Swine Flu found that short-lasting epidemics were uniquely associated with rapid increases
and declines in both publication volumes and citation rates around the critical years (Kagan,
Moran-Gilad, & Fire, 2020). Another study compared COVID-19 with SARS, Ebola, Avian Flu
(H1N1), and Zika publications in WoS by April 9, 2020 (adding papers from PubMed and the
Chinese National Knowledge Infrastructure for COVID-19). It found that all four prior epidemics
were associated with rapid increases in publication volumes, with slower declines. Research into
all diseases covered a wide range of subject areas (zhang, zhao, et al., 2020).

3. MÉTODOS

The research design was to gather studies about coronaviruses from before 2020 and compare
their scholarly impact (as reflected by their Mendeley reader counts) with that of studies published
en 2020. There is a large curated relevant data set: the COVID-19 Open Research Dataset
(CORD-19), which is a collection of papers designed for data mining and scientometrics, pero
takes a broad approach by including many publications not primarily about coronaviruses
(Colavizza, costas, et al., 2020). This was not used because of its broad remit. The scholarly
database Dimensions was chosen in preference to WoS, PubMed, or Scopus for its rapid indexing
of academic documents and wider coverage of COVID-19 than other scholarly indexes (Torres-
Salinas, 2020; Kousha & Thelwall, 2020). For the basic sample, Dimensions was searched for

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Coronavirus research before 2020 is more relevant than ever

documents matching “coronavirus” weekly from March 21, 2020 to May 30, 2020, using the
query below. This single term was chosen, rather than a set of coronavirus-related keywords
and phrases, to give a narrow focus on the virus. The earliest result was from 2008, which seems
to be an API limitation, because the web version has results from 1950.

search publications for “coronavirus“ return publications [basics + extras]

Mendeley was queried for each document matching the above query to count the number
of registered readers of the document. Reader counts were checked each week, immediately
after the Dimensions queries. Mendeley readers have moderate or strong correlations with
citation counts in all or almost all academic fields (Thelwall, 2017b) and recent scholarly
articles usually have at least one Mendeley reader (Zahedi, costas, & Wouters, 2014). Early
Mendeley reader counts have a high correlation with later Scopus citation counts (Thelwall,
2018) but appear about a year before them (Maflahi & Thelwall, 2018; Thelwall, 2017a), entonces
they are preferable to citation counts as an indicator of early scholarly impact. This is also true
for COVID-19 research (Kousha & Thelwall, 2020). Most people registering documents in
Mendeley are academics or PhD students, although there are also some master’s students,
librarians, and other professionals (Mohammadi, Thelwall, et al., 2015). People usually
register an article in Mendeley because they have read it or intend to read it (Mohammadi,
Thelwall, & Kousha, 2016), so all evidence points to it being a citation-like academic
impact indicator, with a small element of educational impact. Mendeley is not ideal for
comparing reader counts for articles published in different years (for RQ1) because the
expansion or contraction of its user base can influence the reader counts for papers. Esto es
especially true because articles are often added to users’ Mendeley libraries shortly after they
are published, so older articles are less likely to attract Mendeley readers. Sin embargo,
although Mendeley launched in 2008, an analysis in 2014 found that average reader
counts were close to the subject maximum for articles published in 2009 (Thelwall & Sud,
2016), suggesting that it is reasonable to use Mendeley reader counts for this year as a
scholarly impact indicator. Comparisons of reader counts between years therefore seem
reasonable from 2009 onwards, although they are not precise due to unknown changes in
the Mendeley user base since then. The same would be true for citations, as citation counts
from any database depend on the number of journals indexed and the size of those journals.

Mendeley documents were searched for using an author/title query and a separate DOI query,
with the results combined to identify readers of all variants of a document in Mendeley (Zahedi,
Haustein, & Bowman, 2014). The Mendeley reader counts were not field normalized because the
documents fit within a relatively narrow topic and trends over time are clearer with the raw reader
count data. Articles not in Mendeley by March 21, 2020 were discarded to focus on research
published by that date (the data collection start). Including later articles would dilute the results
through new articles with few readers when first published.

Four subsets were extracted to identify the influence of different types of research. The first
three sets of documents were based on the inclusion of a human coronavirus-related keyword
in the title. Documents mentioning a keyword in the abstract rather than the title were excluded
because they are less likely to focus on coronaviruses. Por ejemplo, an abstract might mention
coronaviruses as a potential application of a technique or a motivation, or as part of a related
estudiar (p.ej., “Feline infectious peritonitis as a systemic inflammatory disease: Contribution of liver
and heart to the pathogenesis” mentions in its abstract that the disease examined is induced by a
feline coronavirus, but the article is of little relevance to coronavirus research). Many papers in
the complete set of matches of the original Dimensions coronavirus query were about other

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Coronavirus research before 2020 is more relevant than ever

viruses or about viruses in general, but mentioned coronaviruses as an example or as part of a list
(p.ej., “Fighting misconceptions to improve compliance with influenza vaccination among health
care workers”). The fourth subset encapsulated any mention of coronaviruses generally or a spe-
cific human coronavirus in article titles. Although an article can be about these topics without
containing a disease or virus name in the title, for example by being published before a formal
name was assigned (p.ej., “A pneumonia outbreak associated with a new coronavirus of probable
bat origin”), or research targeting an aspect of the disease without needing to specify it (p.ej., "El
psychological impact of quarantine and how to reduce it: Rapid review of the evidence” and
“First respiratory transmitted food borne outbreak?” from 2020), this method seemed to be effec-
tive at eliminating peripherally relevant papers.

(cid:129) SARS: Journal articles with “SARS”, “SARSr-CoV”, “SARS-CoV-1”, or “SARS-CoV”, o
“Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome” in their titles. The results from 2020 were manually
checked to remove false matches that were mentions of COVID-19 before it had been
named.

(cid:129) MERS: Journal articles with “MERS”, “MERS-CoV”, or “Middle East Respiratory

Syndrome” in their titles.

(cid:129) COVID-19: Journal articles containing “COVID-19”, “COVID19”, “COVID2019”,
“SARS-CoV-2”, “2019-nCoV”, “2019 coronavirus”, “coronavirus disease 2019”, o
“Wuhan”, in their titles. The inclusion of “Wuhan” did not generate false matches
because the original data set was captured with a coronavirus query.

(cid:129) Coronavirus: Journal articles containing any of the above or the word “coronavirus” in
their titles. This encapsulates the three human coronaviruses and the generic name for
the virus family.

Documents that did not match the Dimensions classification for journal articles were excluded
to focus on the primary mechanism for disseminating coronavirus-related research. This excludes
books, book chapters, and conference papers. Some of the documents classified in Dimensions
as journal articles may have been news items, editorials, letters, short articles, or reviews rather
than “standard” journal articles. These were retained because short-form contributions seem to
play an important role in infectious disease research (Kousha & Thelwall, 2020).

The rate of increase for each subset was calculated with the percentage increase in average
Mendeley readers over about 2 meses: from the first date checked in April to the last date in
Puede 2020. Although the start date could have been earlier, from March 21, 2020, there was a
higher rate of increase to the end of March. April was chosen as the starting point as a conservative
step, in case the end of March increase was due to a technical cause.

4. RESULTADOS

As captured by Dimensions, the volume of research about SARS has slowly decreased since 2011
(Cifra 1), with a projected increase for 2020, given that the 2020 data contains only a quarter of a
año (articles recorded in Mendeley on March 21, 2020). A diferencia de, the volume of research
about MERS increased to 2015/16, then decreased, even allowing for the 2020 data containing
only a quarter of a year.

The average readership for the three subsets of articles (excluding the COVID-19 subset) es
very approximately constant, irrespective of year, for all sets, except with a substantially higher
average number of readers for research published in 2020 (Cifra 2). Other factors being equal,
older articles should be more cited and have more readers because interest should accrue over

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Coronavirus research before 2020 is more relevant than ever

Cifra 1. The number of journal articles in the four sets examined, as extracted from Dimensions
and with a Mendeley record by March 21, 2020 (see Methods for descriptions).

tiempo. De este modo, the relatively static average numbers of readers per article until 2019 suggests a
moderate tendency for newer articles to be more read in all three categories. Además, artículos
published in 2020 attracted substantially more readers than articles published earlier. This gives a
negative answer to RQ2: By mid-2020, coronavirus research from 2020 had already attracted
more interest than coronavirus research from before 2020. For MERS, articles written in 2013,
just after the disease was identified, tend to have attracted more readers, presumably due to their
use in follow-up research.

For all four subsets, average reader counts increased between March 21 and May 30, 2020

(Figures 3–6). The rate of increase is highest for articles published in 2020 for all data sets.

The percentage increase in Mendeley readers over a 2-month period was calculated for
each data set and year (Cifra 7). Multiplying by 6 would give an estimated 12-month (annual)
increase in Mendeley readers if the rate were constant over the year. For reference, a 17%
increase over 2 months would equate to an annual increase of over 100%. For almost all

Cifra 2. el promedio (geometric mean) number of Mendeley readers per article on May 30, 2020
for the four subsets examined, as extracted from Dimensions and with a Mendeley record by March
21, 2020 (see Methods for descriptions).

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Coronavirus research before 2020 is more relevant than ever

Cifra 3. The weekly average (geometric mean) number of Mendeley readers per article for the
SARS subset, as extracted from Dimensions and with a Mendeley record by March 21, 2020 (ver
Methods for description). Data for individual years are in the supplementary information.

data sets and years, the 2-month increase was above 17%, indicating an over 100% annual
increase in Mendeley readers. This figure can be benchmarked against expected increases in
Mendeley readers, based on prior information about the rate at which citations increase.

Citations tend to continue to accumulate in the long term, with old articles increasing their
total citation counts slowly. Por ejemplo, the cited half-life of the most common source, el

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Cifra 4. The weekly average (geometric mean) number of Mendeley readers per article for the
MERS subset, as extracted from Dimensions and with a Mendeley record by March 21, 2020 (ver
Methods for description). Data for individual years are in the supplementary information.

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Coronavirus research before 2020 is more relevant than ever

Cifra 5. The weekly average (geometric mean) number of Mendeley readers per article for the
COVID-19 subset, as extracted from Dimensions and with a Mendeley record by March 21, 2020
(see Methods for description).

Journal of Virology, era 10.9 para 2019 according to the Clarivate Journal Citation Reports (el
cited half-life has increased steadily from 7.1 en 2009), so the typical virology article should have
attracted half of its final citation count after 11 años. Sin embargo, in the life sciences, the annual
number of citations that a paper attracts seems to peak after 2 años, then gradually decrease
(Adams, 2005; this is an old reference, but the average age of cited biomedical literature has been
approximately constant since the 1950s: Larivière, Archambault, & Gingras, 2008) and in biology

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Cifra 6. The weekly average (geometric mean) number of Mendeley readers per article for the
Coronavirus subset, as extracted from Dimensions and with a Mendeley record by March 21, 2020
(see Methods for description). Data for individual years are in the supplementary information.

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Cifra 7. The percentage increase in average (geometric mean) Mendeley readers per article on
Puede 30, 2020 compared to April 4, 2020 for the four subsets, as extracted from Dimensions and
with a Mendeley record by March 21, 2020 (see Methods for descriptions).

the peak for more cited papers published in 1990 is at 4 años, with the peak for less cited papers
de 1990 being at 2 años (Parolo, Cacerola, et al., 2015), consistent with an overall average of 3 años
to the citation peak. De este modo, después 3 años, the annual percentage increase in total citations should
be substantially below 100% (because the total number of citations could only double in years
before the year with the highest annual increase). Similarmente, después 4 years the annual percentage
increase in total citations should be below 50% (because the previous 2 years would have had
higher annual increases in citations). As Mendeley readers accumulate a year earlier than cita-
ciones (Maflahi & Thelwall, 2018; Thelwall, 2017a), the annual Mendeley reader count percentage
increases should be substantially below 100% después 2 years and below 50% después 3 años. De este modo,
SARS, MERS, and coronavirus research for every year from 2008 a 2017 has attracted an abnor-
mally large increase in academic attention during April and May 2020, giving a positive answer to
RQ1. This is especially the case for SARS research. It is to be expected that the rate of increase is
highest for the newest articles, with two anomalous exceptions (2009 and MERS in 2012—only
one paper).

The reason for the high readership counts for SARS papers from 2020, compared to SARS
papers from previous years (Cifra 3) can be deduced by reading their titles (Apéndice,
Table A1). The top 17 SARS papers from 2020 also mentioned COVID-19 in their titles. De este modo,
the high readership rate for 2020 is probably due to SARS being mentioned in the context of
its implications for COVID-19.

The reason for the high readership counts for MERS papers from 2020, compared to SARS
papers from previous years (Cifra 4) can also be deduced by reading their titles (Apéndice,
Table A2). For MERS, most articles mentioning COVID-19 (including its earlier names) tener
more readers than most articles not mentioning it in its title, with some exceptions. De este modo, de nuevo
the high readership rate for MERS is partly due to research using it to illuminate COVID-19
propiedades, usually by comparisons or in the form of learning lessons from it. There are four
exceptions in terms of highly read articles that do not mention COVID-19. Three are about
treatments for MERS that mention the antiviral medication remdesivir, which has also been
suggested elsewhere as a potential treatment for COVID-19. A review of MERS research is also
widely read (604 readers). Only three papers mentioning COVID-19 (299, 222, 35 readers) son
not in the top 22. One is a short editorial and the other two are short letters.

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5. DISCUSIÓN

The main limitation of this study is its restriction to articles mentioning the diseases in their titles.
Articles could be primarily about coronaviruses without including their names in the titles if they
use an uncommon or early name variant. A second limitation is the use of Mendeley reader counts
as a source of academic impact evidence. Mendeley may be less used in China and this could skew
the results away from studies that were more read in China. También, its use as an academic impact
source may be misleading if users employ it for nonacademic purposes (such as personal safety)
during the pandemic. The use of a 2-month period to assess changes is also a restriction, as the rate
of increase of readers might speed or slow in the rest of 2020. It is also possible that changes in the
uptake of Mendeley since 2009 have influenced the comparisons of readership counts between
años, but it seems unlikely that such changes would be enough to affect the conclusions drawn.

The results show, apparently for the first time, that older SARS and MERS research has
generated substantial new attention in April–May 2020, which is almost certainly due to new
COVID-19 research. Sin embargo, SARS and MERS research from before 2020 has had far less
academic impact, at least as reflected by Mendeley reader counts, than articles from 2020 eso
have reviewed or situated prior SARS and MERS research in the context of COVID-19. This issue
does not seem to have been investigated for other groups of related diseases. De este modo, while studies
of SARS and MERS have informed COVID-19 research, this has occurred disproportionately
through new articles that have explicitly made connections with COVID-19 or that have trans-
lated SARS and MERS research into implications for COVID-19. This underlines the value of this
type of translating research.

Although the scholarly impact of pre-COVID-19 coronavirus research has apparently increased
due to COVID-19, this increase is relatively small, given the huge number of COVID-19 publica-
tions in 2020 (by March 21; ver figura 1). The reason for this is unclear. The analysis above sug-
gests that the value of pre-COVID-19 coronavirus research is partly channeled through articles
translating it for COVID-19. It is also possible that early COVID-19 articles have sufficiently drawn
upon earlier coronavirus research and moved forward with new COVID-19 findings, representación
some earlier studies no longer relevant for COVID-19. Short-form COVID-19 articles (p.ej., letters,
editorials, news reports in journals) may also deliberately focus on COVID-19 research to convey a
succinct and clear message to a general audience.

6. CONCLUSIONS

The results confirm that older SARS and MERS research is proving useful for COVID-19 scholar-
barco, confirming expectations. The Mendeley readership evidence also suggests that research
interpreting SARS and MERS studies for COVID-19 performs a particularly useful role in
academia. It is more read, on average, than the earlier primary studies that underpin it. This also
suggests that the academic impact of pre-COVID-19 coronavirus research is underestimated by
Mendeley reader counts because publishing scholars seem to prefer to read the interpreting
articles rather than the original papers.

A practical suggestion from the findings is that, in future, when new diseases emerge that are
variants of known diseases, researchers may need to prioritize publishing reviews of prior
research and interpreting it in the context of the new disease. These reviews may save valuable
time by reducing the need for academics and clinicians to rely on the source material to identify
likely properties of the new disease. While this has happened for COVID-19, it may be useful to
ensure that this is recognized an important stage that should not be forgotten. Such reviews should
be careful to draw out all the value of earlier research given the possibility that researchers will
focus on papers about the new disease, with relevant earlier studies being relatively less read.

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Coronavirus research before 2020 is more relevant than ever

CONFLICTO DE INTERESES

The author has no competing interests.

INFORMACIÓN DE FINANCIACIÓN

This research was not funded.

DISPONIBILIDAD DE DATOS

The processed data used to produce the graphs are available in the supplementary material
(https://doi.org/10.6084/m9.figshare.12442616).

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Table A1.

El 25 SARS papers published in 2020 and found by Dimensions by March 21, 2020. Mendeley reader counts are from May 30, 2020

APPENDIX

Title*
Receptor recognition by the novel coronavirus from Wuhan: an analysis based on decade-long structural

studies of SARS coronavirus.

Immune responses in COVID-19 and potential vaccines: Lessons learned from SARS and MERS epidemic.

The reproductive number of COVID-19 is higher compared to SARS coronavirus

Potent binding of 2019 novel coronavirus spike protein by a SARS coronavirus-specific human

monoclonal antibody

The deadly coronaviruses: El 2003 SARS pandemic and the 2020 novel coronavirus epidemic in China

A systematic review of lopinavir therapy for SARS coronavirus and MERS coronavirus-A possible reference

for coronavirus disease-19 treatment option

From SARS to COVID-19: A previously unknown SARS-CoV-2 virus of pandemic potential infecting humans –

Call for a One Health approach

Coronavirus covid-19 has killed more people than SARS and MERS combined, despite lower case fatality rate

Does SARS-CoV-2 has a longer incubation period than SARS and MERS?

Potential factors influencing repeated SARS outbreaks in China

Radiology perspective of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19): Lessons from Severe Acute Respiratory

Syndrome and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome.

SARS to novel coronavirus – old lessons and new lessons

Structural, glycosylation and antigenic variation between 2019 novel coronavirus (2019-nCoV) and SARS

coronavirus (SARS-CoV)

Emerging threats from zoonotic coronaviruses-from SARS and MERS to 2019-nCoV

COVID-19: Lessons from SARS and MERS

From SARS and MERS CoVs to SARS-CoV-2: Moving toward more biased codon usage in viral structural

and nonstructural genes

China’s response to a novel coronavirus stands in stark contrast to the 2002 SARS outbreak response

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1555

1493

1007

897

750

715

579

539

478

476

473

449

423

407

376

366

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Table A1.

(continued )

Title*
Gold nanoparticle-adjuvanted S protein induces a strong antigen-specific IgG response against severe

acute respiratory syndrome-related coronavirus infection, but fails to induce protective antibodies and
limit eosinophilic infiltration in lungs

Deja vu or jamais vu? How the Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome experience influenced a Singapore

radiology department’s response to the coronavirus disease (COVID-19) Epidemic.

Inactivation of three emerging viruses – severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus, Crimean-Congo

haemorrhagic fever virus and Nipah virus – in platelet concentrates by ultraviolet C light and in plasma
by methylene blue plus visible light

Identification of potential cross-protective epitope between 2019-nCoV and SARS virus

A high ATP concentration enhances the cooperative translocation of the SARS coronavirus helicase nsP13

in the unwinding of duplex RNA

Aerosol and surface stability of HCoV-19 (SARS-CoV-2) compared to SARS-CoV-1

Long-term bone and lung consequences associated with hospital-acquired severe acute respiratory syndrome:

a 15-year follow-up from a prospective cohort study

Evaluation of an octahydroisochromene scaffold used as a novel SARS 3CL protease inhibitor

Readers
340

333

324

277

236

171

* References to COVID-19 are in bold. Readers are bold when there is no reference to COVID-19. Red titles are unrelated to COVID-19. SARS references are blue.

Table A2.

El 60 MERS papers published in 2020 and found by Dimensions by March 21, 2020. Mendeley reader counts are from May 30, 2020

Title*
Immune responses in COVID-19 and potential vaccines: Lessons learned from SARS and MERS epidemic.

Readers
1555

The SARS, MERS and novel coronavirus (COVID-19) epidemics, the newest and biggest global health threats:

what lessons have we learned?

Potential maternal and infant outcomes from coronavirus 2019-nCoV (SARS-CoV-2) infecting pregnant women:

lessons from SARS, MERS, and other human coronavirus infections

Overlapping and discrete aspects of the pathology and pathogenesis of the emerging human pathogenic

coronaviruses SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV, and 2019-nCoV

Comparative therapeutic efficacy of remdesivir and combination lopinavir, ritonavir, and interferon beta against

MERS-CoV

A systematic review of lopinavir therapy for SARS coronavirus and MERS coronavirus-A possible reference for

coronavirus disease-19 treatment option

Prophylactic and therapeutic remdesivir (GS-5734) treatment in the rhesus macaque model of MERS-CoV infection

The antiviral compound remdesivir potently inhibits RNA-dependent RNA polymerase from Middle East

respiratory syndrome coronavirus

Focus on Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV)

Coronavirus covid-19 has killed more people than SARS and MERS combined, despite lower case fatality rate

Novel coronavirus 2019-nCoV: prevalence, biological and clinical characteristics comparison with SARS-CoV

and MERS-CoV.

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863

776

754

750

747

714

604

579

568

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Table A2.

(continued )

Title*
Does SARS-CoV-2 has a longer incubation period than SARS and MERS?

Asymptomatic coronavirus infection: MERS-CoV and SARS-CoV-2 (COVID-19)

Three emerging coronaviruses in two decades the story of SARS, MERS, and now COVID-19

Radiology perspective of coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19): Lessons from Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome

and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome.

Emerging threats from zoonotic coronaviruses-from SARS and MERS to 2019-nCoV

COVID-19 in the Shadows of MERS-CoV in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia

COVID-19: Lessons from SARS and MERS

From SARS and MERS CoVs to SARS-CoV-2: Moving toward more biased codon usage in viral structural and

nonstructural genes

MERS-CoV infection among healthcare workers and risk factors for death: Retrospective analysis of all

laboratory-confirmed cases reported to WHO from 2012 a 2 Junio 2018

Diagnosis of SARS-CoV-2 infection based on CT scan vs. RT-PCR: Reflecting on experience from MERS-CoV

SARS-CoV, MERS-CoV and now the 2019-novel CoV: Have we investigated enough about coronaviruses? –

A bibliometric analysis

Characterization of novel monoclonal antibodies against MERS-coronavirus spike protein

Effect of isolation practice on the transmission of Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus among hemodialysis

patients: A 2-year prospective cohort study.

Effectiveness for the Response to COVID-19: The MERS Outbreak Containment Procedures

A realistic two-strain model for MERS-CoV infection uncovers the high risk for epidemic propagation

Influence of trust on two different risk perceptions as an affective and cognitive dimension during Middle East

respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) outbreak in South Korea: serial cross-sectional surveys

Middle East Respiratory Syndrome-Corona Virus (MERS-CoV) associated stress among medical students at a university

teaching hospital in Saudi Arabia

Origins of MERS-CoV, and lessons for 2019-nCoV

Small molecule inhibitors of Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus fusion by targeting cavities on heptad

repeat trimers.

Syndromic surveillance system for MERS-CoV as new early warning and identification approach

Cross-sectional prevalence study of MERS-CoV in local and imported dromedary camels in Saudi Arabia,

2016–2018

Decoupling deISGylating and deubiquitinating activities of the MERS virus papain-like protease

Topological dynamics of the 2015 South Korea MERS-CoV spread-on-contact networks

Treatment of Middle East respiratory syndrome with a combination of lopinavir/ritonavir and interferon-b

(MIRACLE trial): statistical analysis plan for a recursive two-stage group sequential randomized controlled trial

Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) – surveillance and testing in North England from

2012 a 2019

Readers
539

490

479

476

423

422

407

376

366

365

362

342

305

299

256

237

224

222

218

211

203

149

142

139

119

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Coronavirus research before 2020 is more relevant than ever

Table A2.

(continued )

Title*
MERS-CoV infection is associated with downregulation of genes encoding Th1 and Th2 cytokines/chemokines and

elevated inflammatory innate immune response in the lower respiratory tract

Climate factors and incidence of Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus

Seroprevalence of MERS-CoV in healthy adults in western Saudi Arabia, 2011–2016

Ribavirin and interferon therapy for critically ill patients with Middle East respiratory syndrome: a multicenter

observational study

The risk factors associated with MERS-CoV patient fatality: A global survey

Polymorphisms in dipeptidyl peptidase 4 reduce host cell entry of Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus

Burden of Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus infection in Saudi Arabia

Pediatric Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Coronavirus (MERS-CoV) Infection – UAE

Effect of information disclosure policy on control of infectious disease: MERS-CoV Outbreak in South Korea

Seroprevalence of Middle East Respiratory Syndrome Corona Virus in dromedaries and their traders in upper Egypt.

Demographic variations of MERS-CoV infection among suspected and confirmed cases: an epidemiological analysis

of laboratory-based data from riyadh regional laboratory

Characterization of the immune response of MERS-CoV vaccine candidates derived from two different vectors in mice

Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus antibodies in bactrian and hybrid camels from Dubai.

Infection prevention measures for surgical procedures during a Middle East Respiratory Syndrome outbreak in a tertiary

care hospital in South Korea

Narrative review of Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus (MERS-CoV) infection: updates and implications

for practice.

Genetic diversity of MERS-CoV spike protein gene in Saudi Arabia

Spatial association between primary Middle East respiratory syndrome coronavirus infection and exposure to dromedary

camels in Saudi Arabia

Knowledge and attitudes towards Middle East respiratory sydrome-coronavirus (MERS-CoV) among health care workers

in south-western Saudi Arabia.

Ultra-rapid real-time RT-PCR method for detecting Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus using a mobile

PCR device, PCR1100

Clinical characteristics of two human to human transmitted coronaviruses: Corona virus disease 2019 versus

Middle East Respiratory Syndrome coronavirus.

Confronting the persisting threat of the Middle East respiratory syndrome to global health security

One Health-based control strategies for MERS-CoV

When the illiberal and the neoliberal meet around infectious diseases: an examination of the MERS response in South Korea

MERS-CoV infection is associated with downregulation of genes encoding Th1 and Th2 cytokines/chemokines and

elevated inflammatory innate immune response in the lower respiratory tract

Readers
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* References to COVID-19 are in bold. Readers are bold when there is no reference to COVID-19. Red titles are unrelated to COVID-19. MERS references are blue.

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