Submitting manuscripts during the Coronavirus

[Santommaso]

I am in a humanities field and I work in a country on lockdown. I am wondering whether submitting manuscripts to journals right now might seem callous. Editors and reviewers who are professors are struggling to get their courses online, and those with children in primary and secondary school are struggling to master their schooling also. I wonder whether many editors are even asking potential reviewers right now to agree to review manuscripts.

[Parasaurolophus]

Journals in my humanities field are still operating as normal, but everyone has been advised to expect that each step in the process will probably take longer than usual, at least in the short-term, as people adjust to the new normal and figure out their priorities.

For my part, I see no harm in submitting at all, as long as you adjust your expectations. I was just asked to referee an article, and I've accepted--in fact, I'll probably be able to turn it around faster than usual.

[nescafe]

I don't see the harm in this, no. But it might be good to temper your expectations about quickly editors can process new manuscripts for a while. There might be delays. But there isn't any harm in submitting something!

[secundem_artem]

Allied health field editor here.  I am continuing to receive manuscripts, reviewers continue to accept assignments and I just had an article accepted today my another journal.

I doubt anything will happen with much alacrity, but the system appears to be functioning normally.  As always, this is probably field dependant and YMMV.

[delsur]

I agree with others to continue with your work but with adjusted expectations. I was recently given a few weeks to revise and resubmit (humanities journal) with a strict deadline to submit yesterday, with which I complied. Granted, a few weeks ago things were not so dire but nobody got in touch to switch the deadline or to put things off.

If you are worried about being perceived as insensitive--this is not the case from my perspective.
If you are worried that strategically this might be the wrong time to submit (with emails and submissions buried under the pressing reality)--maybe or maybe not as the restrictions might even give some people more time to work.

Good luck!

[zyzzx]

The journal I am involved with (STEM field) will carry on as usual, but with flexibility around deadlines and no robo-reminder emails about deadlines (so as not to stress people out). While many people are struggling to manage new responsibilities, I'm one of those who actually has more time now and am happy to increase my load of handling manuscripts and reviewing in order to help out. Since all my travel is cancelled, new data collection has stopped, and there's nothing to do but sit at home, I am hoping to get some solid writing done in the next weeks and don't plan on feeling bad when submitting things. 

[Hibush]

With a lot of research on hold, I predict a big uptick in manuscripts submitted this year.

[pgher]

What else are you going to do when the world is shut down? Might as well review manuscripts.