What does it mean when an editor needs additional reviews despite a status of "reviews completed"? I have submitted a paper to an Elsevier journal. After two weeks of required reviews completed status I have sent and E-mail to the editor. He replied:
Your paper is still under review. We need 1 or 2 more review comments and make the decision within a month.

So, I have to ask... What does he mean by we need 1 or 2 more review comments?
If the paper is still under review what is with the status of required reviews completed?
An educated guess is that the manuscript handling system by default expects two reviews. The number of reviews required for a decision can usually be changed by the editor. A reason for adding reviews is that you receive, for example and in the worst case, one accept and one reject from the two reviewers. It is therefore reasonable for an editor to search for additional reviewers to provide a better basis for a decision. Another reason can be that one or both of the original reviewers left reviews but they were deemed unconstructive and the need for additional reviews arose from the lack of reasonable feedback. There can be many other reasonable explanations as well, these are just examples.

Anyway, in this case, it is possible that the editors have not bothered to change the number of required reviews to 4 (which I assume the total would be). The system then shows that all reviews are in and that the manuscript should be decided upon. So hopefully, the editor will try to get speedy reviews and get back to you with useful feedback on your manuscript.