Background:
The COVID-19 outbreak showed the importance of rapid access to research.
Objective:
This paper investigates research communication about this disease, the level of openness of papers, and the main topics of research into this disease.
Methods:
Thus, it analyses Open Access (OA) uptake (typologies, licence use) and the topic evolution of publications, from the start of the pandemic (1 January 2020) until the end of a year of widespread lockdown (1 March 2021).
Results:
The sample includes 95,605 publications; 94.1% were published for open access, 44% of them in Bronze OA. 42% do not have a licence, which can limit the number of citations, and thus impact. We also illustrated an approach that uses a topic modelling method and found that publications in Hybrid and Green OA publications are more focused on patients and their effects whereas the strategy adopted by countries is studied more in papers that have chosen the Gold OA route.
Conclusions:
The study concludes that although OA scientific production has increased, some weaknesses in Open Access practise, such as lack of licensing or under-researched topics, still hold back its effective use to further research.