BACKGROUND: The global pandemic caused by the severe acute respiratory syndrome-coronarvirus-2 (SARS-CoV-2) leading to the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) has led to immediate and massive worldwide research activities Rapid publication of research data may be desirable but also carries the risk of quality loss OBJECTIVE: This analysis aimed to correlate the severity of the COVID-19 outbreak with its related scientific output per region METHODS: All articles related to the COVID-19 pandemic were retrieved from Web-of-Science and analyzed utilizing the web application SciPE (Science-Performance-Evaluation), allowing large data scientometric analyses regarding global geographical distribution of scientific output RESULTS: A total of 7,185 articles, including 2,898 articles, 2,275 editorial materials, 2,646 early access, 1,621 letters and 711 reviews and other contributions were extracted The top three countries involved in COVID-19 research were the United States (US), China, and Italy The regional number of confirmed COVID-19 cases or deaths correlated with the scientific research efforts The US was most active in terms of collaborative efforts, sharing a significant amount of manuscripts with the United Kingdom (UK), China, and Italy For China, the US was the frequent cooperating nation, followed by the UK CONCLUSIONS: The research landscape related to COVID-19 is rapidly developing and is driven by countries with a general strong research output but is also strongly affected by countries with high prevalence of COVID-19 cases The US dominates international collaborative efforts
SARS-CoV-2 and COVID-19: a scientometric analysis of research output and international cooperation