  The COVID 19 pandemic has paused many ongoing research projects and unified
researchers' attention to focus on COVID 19 related issues. Our project traces
712294 scientists' publications related to COVID 19 for two years, from January
2020 to December 2021, to detect the dynamic evolution patterns of the COVID 19
collaboration network over time. By studying the collaboration network of COVID
19 scientists, we observe how a new scientific community has been built in
preparation for a sudden shock. The number of newcomers grows incrementally,
and the connectivity of the collaboration network shifts from loose to tight
promptly. Even though every scientist has an equal opportunity to start a
study, collaboration disparity still exists. Following the scale-free
distribution, only a few top authors are highly connected with other authors.
These top authors are more likely to attract newcomers and work with each
other. As the collaboration network evolves, the increase rate in the
probability of attracting newcomers for authors with higher degrees increases,
whereas the increase rates in the likelihood of forming new links among authors
with higher degrees decreases. This highlights the interesting trend that the
COVID pandemic alters the research collaboration trends that star scientists
are starting to collaborate more with newcomers but less with existing
collaborators, which, in a certain way, reduces the collaboration disparity.
