The speed with which biomedical researchers were able to identify and characterise COVID-19 was clearly due to prior research with other coronaviruses. Early epidemiological comparisons with two previous coronaviruses, Severe Acute Respiratory Syndrome (SARS) and Middle East Respiratory Syndrome (MERS), also made it easier to predict COVID-19's likely spread and lethality. This article assesses whether academic interest in prior coronavirus research has translated into interest in the primary source material, using Mendeley reader counts for early academic impact evidence. The results confirm that SARS and MERS research 2008-2017 experienced anomalously high increases in Mendeley readers in April-May 2020. Nevertheless, studies learning COVID-19 lessons from SARS and MERS or using them as a benchmark for COVID-19 have generated much more academic interest than primary studies of SARS or MERS. Thus, research that interprets prior relevant research for new diseases when they are discovered seems to be particularly important to help researchers to understand its implications in the new context.

中文翻译：

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2020 年之前的冠状病毒研究比以往任何时候都更相关，尤其是在解释 COVID-19 时

生物医学研究人员能够识别和表征 COVID-19 的速度显然是由于先前对其他冠状病毒的研究。与之前两种冠状病毒，严重急性呼吸系统综合症 (SARS) 和中东呼吸系统综合症 (MERS) 的早期流行病学比较，也使预测 COVID-19 可能的传播和致死率变得更加容易。本文评估了对先前冠状病毒研究的学术兴趣是否已转化为对主要来源材料的兴趣，使用 Mendeley 读者计数作为早期学术影响证据。结果证实，2008 年至 2017 年 SARS 和 MERS 研究的 Mendeley 读者在 2020 年 4 月至 5 月期间出现了异常高的增长。从 SARS 和 MERS 中学习 COVID-19 课程或将其用作 COVID-19 的基准的研究比对 SARS 或 MERS 的主要研究产生了更多的学术兴趣。因此，在新疾病被发现时解释先前相关研究的研究似乎对于帮助研究人员理解其在新背景下的含义特别重要。