The editorial demonstrates changes in the number and subject matter of papers dealing with issues related to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19), which were published in Advances in Clinical and Experimental Medicine (ACEM) during 3 years of the pandemic (2020-2022). In 2020, 24 such manuscripts were submitted to the editorial office, of which 9 were published; in 2021, 48 were submitted and 10 published, while in 2022, there were 34 articles submitted and 4 published. Authors of this editorial point out that while initially chances for publication of papers regarding COVID-19 were greater than papers covering other issues, the editors of ACEM gradually enforced the same requirements for COVID-19-related papers as for the others (the acceptance rate for these papers was 37.5% in 2020, 20.8% in 2021 and 11.8% in 2022). The published papers described, among other aspects, the relationship between COVID-19 and other diseases (e.g., pneumonia, Parkinson's disease and acute kidney injury) and methods of preventing severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 (SARS-CoV-2) infection among healthcare staff. An emergency situation of pandemic called for disseminating the results of scientific research as promptly as possible; however, the proper answer to this challenge is not lowering and simplifying requirements for peer review, but releasing the results in a form of registered preprints, which allow for provisionally making the paper available for the scientific community while the peer review verification is still ongoing.
Keywords: COVID-19; SARS-CoV-2; pandemic; preprint; scientific journal.