The Sars-CoV-2 outbreak has required a strong and massive response from public authorities. The research community is working diligently to provide critical answers to better understand the virus and the repercussions on the economic sector. This outbreak will have a sustained impact on the entire world.

A vast amount of data is required in supporting public health, governing authorities, and researchers in understanding the disease and predict its evolution. Providing the crucial information for fast decision-support requires precise, reliable and accurate data covering everything from the molecular process involved through to the implications at national and international levels.

For JMIR Medical Informatics, we are calling for the submission of papers with original research including, but not limited to, the following topics:

• Data landscape: real time acquisition (logistics of care, care, clinical, public health, environmental, population based), availability, interoperability, reliability, completeness of data, and FAIR data
• Data analytics, predictive systems, decision support, data interaction, visualization, machine learning, deep learning related to the disease, the usage of resources, the development of measures/treatments, their impacts, etc.
• Molecular, genetic, phenotype convergence and analytics
• Molecular predictive modelling
• Telemedicine and teleworking
• Technologies such as mobile apps and wearables as well as domestic technologies for screening, surveillance and quarantine
• Impacts on humans and society

Other JMIR journals are soliciting COVID-19 papers which will be prioritized for peer review and publication. As with all JMIR journals, fast-tracking is also available for even faster peer review and publication.

All articles submitted to this theme issue will be shared and published rapidly through the following mechanisms:

• JMIR Preprints (example) are immediately available after submission (with DOI); authors should select the preprint option on submission.
• Preprints already submitted to MedRxiv can be transmitted to JMI via the M2J interface.
• Free "PubMed Now!" feature, ensuring that the paper is submitted to and searchable on PubMed within 24 hours after acceptance (fees are waived)
• All peer-reviewed research publications in this theme issue are immediately and permanently made open access. This is, of course, the standard for JMIR journals
• Special tagging of the XML of the published paper for priority release on PubMed Central (in collaboration with NCBI)

Questions regarding this theme issues should be directed to JMI Editor-in-Chief, Christian Lovis, christian.lovis@hcuge.ch or the editorial team at ed-support@jmir.org

How to submit

Please submit to JMIR Medical Informatics by selecting "Theme Issue: Medical Informatics and COVID-19" in the "Section" drop-down list.

See also "How do I submit to a theme issue?" in our knowledge base.