The editors-in-chief of the Annals of Regional Science offer an overview and analysis of recent developments at the journal from January 2020 through December 2021, a time period hampered by the COVID-19 pandemic. Annal’s Impact Factor increased substantially to 2.646 in 2020. Moreover, submissions increased from pre-COVID times. A new development is the shifting of source regions for articles accepted for publication. For the first time, China tied with the USA to lead the distribution of acceptances by country. Special Issues continue to be important components of the journal. © 2022, The Author(s), under exclusive licence to Springer-Verlag GmbH Germany, part of Springer Nature.