JAMA Pediatrics —The Year in Review, 2021

I would have hoped this year would see the end of COVID-19, but we may now be, as they say, at the end of the beginning. Once again, in JAMA Pediatrics, the lion’s share of published content, article views and downloads, and citations have been for COVID-19–related articles. Editing during a pandemic has been a steep learning curve for journal editors and deciding what should be expedited and what will contribute new knowledge by the time it is published has been challenging. The fluidity and pace of the COVID-19 pandemic continue to fluster us all. We have begun to see the aftereffects of COVID-19 in pediatric populations as we are accepting and publishing research on the virus’s cognitive and socioemotional effects as well as the postacute sequalae of COVID-19 infection. Many of the early research reports have been descriptive but are important in that they help define the scope of problems we must face. But we now need rigorous research related to how we begin to undo or mitigate the damage caused by the COVID-19 pandemic and how we can increase vaccine uptake for children.