{"doi":"10.1016/j.jclinepi.2025.111705","title":"Massive covidization and subsequent decovidization of the scientific literature involved 2 million authors","abstract":"<h4>Objectives</h4>We aimed to examine the growth trajectory and impact of COVID-19-related papers in the scientific literature and how the scientific workforce engaged in this work.<h4>Study design and setting</h4>We used Scopus data to August 1, 2024, and a search string for COVID-19-related publications. Authors of COVID-19 work were mapped against databases of top-cited authors.<h4>Results</h4>Scopus indexed 718,660 COVID-19-related publications. As the proportion of all indexed scientific publications, COVID-19-related publications peaked in September 2021 (4.7%) remained at 4.3%-4.6% for another year and then gradually declined but was still 1.9% in July 2024. COVID-19-related publications included 1,978,612 unique authors: 1,127,215 authors had ≥5 full papers in their career and 53,418 authors were in the top 2% of their scientific subfield. Authors with >10%, >30%, and >50% of their total career citations attributed to COVID-19-related publications were 376,942, 201,702, and 125,523, respectively. As of August 1, 2024, 65 of the top 100 most cited papers published in 2020 were COVID-19-related, declining to 24/100, 19/100, 7/100, and 5/100 for the most cited papers published in 2021, 2022, 2023, and 2024, respectively. Across 174 scientific subfields, 132 had ≥10% of their active influential (top 2% by composite citation indicator) authors publish something on COVID-19 during 2020-2024. Among the 300 authors with highest composite citation indicator specifically for their COVID-19-related publications, 41 were editors or journalists or columnists.<h4>Conclusion</h4>COVID-19 massively engaged the scientific workforce in unprecedented ways. As the pandemic ended, there has been a sharp decline in the overall volume and high impact of newly published COVID-19-related publications.<h4>Plain language summary</h4>We evaluated Scopus, a bibliometric database, for the increase and waning of the COVID-19 scientific literature. Until August 1, 2024, we identified 718,660 COVID-19-related publications indexed in Scopus that had involved 1,978,612 unique authors. The rise and subsequent decline pattern of COVID-19 publications was similar to other previous epidemics like Zika, Ebola, and H1N1, but at a far larger, unprecedented scale. 125,523 authors had >50% of their total career citations attributed to COVID-19 papers. 132/174 scientific subfields had at least one of every 10 of their top-cited authors publish something on COVID-19 during 2020-2024. Many influential authors were editors or journalists or columnists. Overall, COVID-19 massively engaged a huge number of authors and created a vast literature. As the interest has now sharply declined, one needs to examine what this immense COVID-19 scientific workforce will do in the future.","journal":"Journal of Clinical Epidemiology","year":2025,"id":6714,"datarank":0.2145640991508595,"base_score":1.3862943611198906,"endowment":1.3862943611198906,"self_citation_contribution":0.20794415416798362,"citation_network_contribution":0.006619944982875882,"self_endowment_contribution":0.20794415416798362,"citer_contribution":0.006619944982875882,"corpus_percentile":44.75183075671278,"corpus_rank":680,"citation_count":5,"citer_count":2,"citers_with_citation_signal":1,"citers_with_endowment":1,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":true,"is_dataset_confidence":0.617,"is_oa":false,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2025-04-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":11830,"name":"Thomas A. Collins","orcid":null,"position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":11482,"name":"Eran Bendavid","orcid":"0000-0002-8364-4711","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":11483,"name":"Jeroen Baas","orcid":"0000-0001-8005-4153","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":148,"name":"John P. A. Ioannidis","orcid":"0000-0003-3118-6859","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":35,"raw_metadata":{"citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-03-01T18:20:47.508186Z","pmid":null,"pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}