Same pandemic but different studies: an exploration of COVID-19 research at the early stage

Scientific research is an essential necessity for the prevention and control of COVID-19. Accelerated paper-sharing makes it possible to explore the responses of scientific communities of different countries and their research focus. This is achieved by examining relevant publications during the early stage of the pandemic. This paper explores a timely research assessment on COVID-19 among China, USA, and EU.

Papers indexed in PubMed and published from December 30, 2019, to March 11, 2020, were selected. Papers from China, USA, and EU were assessed by calculating the significance of items in the co-occurrence exported from VOSviewer.

The results showed that Chinese studies focus more on clinical manifestations, while USA and EU focus on experimental research. Furthermore, US research is more geared toward detection techniques and mathematical models, China focuses more on monitoring the epidemic situation, and EU engages in both.

This paper argues that the above distinctions are caused by differences in the stages of epidemic development, researchers' experience bases for formulating measures, traditions within the different medical cultures, and the distinction between "information" and "knowledge".