In the Race to Crack Covid-19, Scientists Bypass Peer Review

"In the 2003 SARS epidemic, for example, 93 percent of the papers published about the spread of the outbreak in Hong Kong and Toronto didn’t actually come out until after the epidemic period was already over, according to a 2010 analysis by researchers at the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research....

some traditional journals have accelerated their peer review process for coronavirus papers. But the Covid-19 crisis has also become a major test for preprints — an alternative system of publishing that had already been gaining traction among some scientists who see them as a way to make their results available as soon as possible...."