Clinical Infectious Diseases 'Under Review': What Each Status Means and When to Expect a Decision
If your Clinical Infectious Diseases submission shows Under Review, here is what the IDSA Editor-in-Chief and deputy editors are doing during each stage and when to follow up.
While you wait
Waiting on Clinical Infectious Diseases? Get your next move ready.
The Clinical Infectious Diseases wait is out of your hands; the next move isn't. Scan your next manuscript free, or run this paper through the scan to see what reviewers typically push back on, so the revision response is ready when the decision lands.
Last reviewed: 2026-10-09.
Quick answer: If your Clinical Infectious Diseases submission shows "Under Review," elapsed time is the most reliable signal. CID has a 2025 Journal Impact Factor of 8.3 in the 2026 JCR release, and is commonly estimated to accept roughly 15 to 20 percent of submissions, and IDSA reports a 1-week desk rejection target with a goal to make desk rejection decisions within one week of submission for papers that are not a good fit for any IDSA journal (per Clinical Infectious Diseases author guidelines).
The IDSA journals' review process begins with an initial quality check, followed by the manuscript being sent to the editor-in-chief or a deputy editor for editorial review. External peer review is a single-anonymous process. IDSA's journals offer a submission pathway for papers previously reviewed and rejected by high-impact medical journals outside of the IDSA portfolio, which may see faster review times.
For a second opinion before reviewers see your manuscript, run a Clinical Infectious Diseases submission readiness check.
Submission portal and editorial contact: Clinical Infectious Diseases uses Editorial Manager at Editorial Manager submission portal. Editorial questions should reference the manuscript ID and go to the CID editorial office, whose contact details are in the author guidelines (CID is published by OUP for IDSA). The CID author guidelines and the CID general instructions cover the editorial workflow.
For broader status-tracking guidance across infectious-diseases publishers, the Cell Press author status portal gives useful baseline patterns for reading status fields across editorial portals.
How does IDSA handle a CID submission?
Clinical Infectious Diseases operates the IDSA Editor-in-Chief + deputy editor + associate editor model published by OUP. The IDSA journals' review process begins with an initial quality check to ensure that all necessary materials are present, followed by the manuscript being sent to the editor-in-chief or a deputy editor for editorial review.
CID editorial culture is decisive: the 1-week desk rejection target means scope problems surface fast. Papers that pass the CID deputy editor + associate editor screen have cleared the steepest filter in IDSA infectious-diseases publishing.
What is CID's review pipeline?
Status | What is happening | Published figure |
|---|---|---|
Submitted | Initial quality check at CID editorial office | No figure published |
With EIC or Deputy Editor | EIC or deputy editor editorial review (1-week desk target) | Aim of desk rejection decisions within 1 week |
With Associate Editor | Associate editor managing external peer review process | No figure published |
Under Review | External reviewers invited or actively reviewing (single-anonymous) | Submission to first decision: median 39 days without desk rejects |
Required Reviews Complete | Associate editor reviewing reports | No figure published |
Decision Pending | Editors deciding on the recommendation | No figure published |
Decision Sent | Reject, R&R, or accept | Check email |
What happens at the deputy editor desk screen?
Before the paper reaches external reviewers, the CID Editor-in-Chief or a deputy editor performs editorial review. If the paper is not a good fit for any IDSA journal, the editors will desk reject the paper prior to peer review, with a goal to make these desk rejection decisions within one week of submission.
A desk rejection most often means the editor concluded that the work would fit better at a sister IDSA journal (Open Forum Infectious Diseases for open-access cascade, The Journal of Infectious Diseases for basic-translational, IDSA practice guidelines for non-research) or that the clinical infectious-diseases priority bar is not met.
What does the initial quality check cover?
The CID editorial office initial quality check ensures that everything needed to send the paper for peer review is present: the manuscript file (figures and tables can sit in it at first submission), all supplementary files cited in the text, the complete conflict-of-interest statements expected in the submitted manuscript, ethics statements in the Methods, trial-registration numbers at the end of the Abstract for trials, a data availability statement, and, for randomized controlled trials, the complete protocol and amendments uploaded as supplementary data. CID does not require a cover letter.
What does the EIC or deputy editor review?
The EIC or deputy editor reads the paper and evaluates clinical infectious-diseases priority, methodological rigor, IDSA family routing, and whether the paper warrants external peer review. The 1-week desk target reflects IDSA's commitment to rapid editorial response.
Can the editors route a paper to another IDSA journal?
Yes. If the paper is not appropriate for CID, the editors may offer a transfer to another IDSA journal (Open Forum Infectious Diseases, The Journal of Infectious Diseases, the Journal of the Pediatric Infectious Diseases Society, or Research Connections). The guidelines do not describe a separate internal consultation stage or a number of days for one.
What happens once a paper is accepted for peer review?
Papers that are accepted for peer review are assigned to an associate editor or another appropriate editor who manages the external peer review process and invites reviewers whose expertise aligns with the focus of the manuscript.
How are reviewers recruited?
The associate editor invites reviewers whose expertise aligns with the focus of the manuscript, and CID aims to recruit at least two independent peer reviewers for every original research, review, and perspective-type paper. A third reviewer may be added if additional perspective is needed, and a statistical review from one of the in-house statistical editors may be required for some manuscripts.
Active peer review (single-anonymous)
External peer review is a single-anonymous process at the journal, meaning that reviewers are anonymous to each other and to the paper's authors, while their identities are known to the editors handling the manuscript. The journal reports a median of 39 days to first decision when desk rejects are excluded.
Editorial synthesis and decision
After reports return, the associate editor reviews them and the editors decide to revise, accept, or reject. The journal reports a median of 72 days to final decision when desk rejects are excluded.
When to worry
- Rejection within 1 to 7 days: EIC or deputy editor desk rejection per the 1-week target.
- Still Under Review after 2 weeks: Strong signal. Paper passed the deputy editor desk screen and is in active review.
- Still Under Review after 10 weeks: Reviewer-recruitment or reviewer-report delay. A polite inquiry to the CID editorial office is appropriate.
- Status changes to "Decision Pending": Reports are in; the editors are working toward a decision.
"My paper has been Under Review for 6 weeks. Is that bad?"
This is the most common anxiety we hear from CID authors during the active editorial window. The honest answer: no, 6 weeks at Under Review is close to the 39-day median CID reports for first decisions when desk rejects are excluded. Reports may already be in editorial synthesis with the associate editor preparing the recommendation for the EIC. Most reviewer-driven delays come from reviewer-recruitment timing for infectious-disease subspecialty experts rather than slow reviews.
If the portal still says Under Review at the 10-week mark, the most likely explanation is that one of the assigned reviewers asked for an extension and the associate editor granted it. This is normal practice at CID.
What you should NOT do during the 6-to-10-week window is email the editorial office. At a reported median of 39 days to first decision, 6 weeks is still close to the normal window, so an inquiry adds friction without accelerating the timeline.
What to do while waiting
- Do not email the editorial office during the first 6 weeks unless an urgent ethics issue surfaces.
- Do not submit the paper anywhere else while it is Under Review at CID. IDSA has explicit prohibitions on dual submission.
- Prepare a point-by-point response template for likely reviewer concerns: clinical infectious-diseases priority, methodological rigor, CONSORT/STROBE compliance, reproducibility, antimicrobial-stewardship implications where applicable.
- If you have related work submitted elsewhere or recently published, prepare disclosure language for when revisions are requested.
- Read recent CID papers in your subfield to calibrate the current editorial bar.
Readiness check
While you wait on Clinical Infectious Diseases, scan your next manuscript.
The scan takes about 2 to 3 minutes. Use the result to decide whether to revise before the decision comes back.
Status inquiry checklist
- [ ] Check whether the manuscript is beyond 10 weeks, not just beyond the 1-week desk-screen target.
- [ ] Confirm the manuscript ID, Editorial Manager status date, and whether the file is with an associate editor or reviewers.
- [ ] Keep the inquiry focused on status and reviewer timing rather than asking whether the paper is likely to be accepted.
If CID rejects: sister-journal cascade with reasoning
If your CID paper is rejected after review, the natural cascade depends on what the reviewers and associate editor cited:
Open Forum Infectious Diseases (OFID) is the natural IDSA open-access cascade for infectious-diseases papers where the priority bar of CID is not met but the rigor is high. IDSA supports manuscript transfer, and reviewer reports can travel with the paper when the reviewers consent.
The Journal of Infectious Diseases (JID) is the IDSA cascade for basic-translational infectious-diseases work. JID uses ScholarOne at ScholarOne submission portal; editorial contact jid.editorialoffice@oup.com.
Clinical Microbiology and Infection (CMI) is the external ESCMID cascade for European clinical microbiology and infectious-diseases papers.
JAMA is the external general-medicine cascade for top clinical infectious-diseases trials. JAMA uses ScholarOne at ScholarOne submission portal; editorial contact jama-editor@jamanetwork.org.
The Lancet Infectious Diseases is the Lancet specialty cascade for top global-impact infectious-diseases. The Lancet uses Editorial Manager at Editorial Manager submission portal; editorial contact editorial@lancet.com.
NEJM is the external top-tier general-medicine cascade for evidence-changes-practice infectious-diseases trials. NEJM uses ScholarOne at ScholarOne submission portal; editorial contact nejm@nejm.org.
How Clinical Infectious Diseases compares to nearby alternatives
Feature | CID | Open Forum Infectious Diseases | Journal of Infectious Diseases | Lancet Infectious Diseases |
|---|---|---|---|---|
Desk-rejection rate | Not published by CID | 30 to 40 percent | 50 to 60 percent | Over 80 percent |
Desk-decision speed | 1-week target | 1 to 2 weeks | 1-week target | 1 to 2 weeks |
Total review time (post-screen) | Median 39 days to first decision without desk rejects | 4 to 6 weeks | 4 to 8 weeks | 4 to 8 weeks |
Reviewer count | At least 2 (single-anonymous) | 2 to 3 | 2 to 3 | 3 + statistical |
Peer-review model | Single-anonymous | OUP open-access single-anonymous | Single-anonymous | Single-blind + concurrent statistical |
Editorial bar | Top IDSA clinical infectious-diseases | IDSA open-access infectious-diseases | IDSA basic-translational infectious-diseases | Top global-impact infectious-diseases |
Submit if your paper passed the desk
If your CID paper is Under Review past 2 weeks, you have cleared the deputy editor desk-screen. Use the waiting window to prepare a thorough revision response template.
Clinical Infectious Diseases submission readiness check takes about 5 minutes.
Think Twice If
- Your abstract frames the paper as a narrow subspecialty report without a clinical infectious-diseases decision point.
- Your methods section or supplement cannot trace CONSORT, STROBE, or PRISMA checklist items to actual text and tables.
CID associate editors retain discretion to reject after partial review if reviewer reports surface methodological or infectious-diseases-priority concerns the desk screen did not catch. The estimated acceptance rate of roughly 15 to 20 percent (an unofficial estimate, since CID publishes none) means most post-desk-screen papers still receive a substantial-revision or reject decision.
For a pre-upload diagnostic of clinical-infectious-diseases priority framing and CONSORT/STROBE compliance, run a Clinical Infectious Diseases pre-submission diagnostic before reviewer reports surface those concerns.
Last verified: CID author guidelines at Oxford Academic author instructions and IDSA editorial documentation.
The Clinical Infectious Diseases reviewer experience
The CID author guidelines do not publish a reviewer checklist, so the table below is Manusights' reading of what reviewers typically probe, mapped to actionable preparation.
Reviewer focus area | What reviewers typically probe | How to prepare for it |
|---|---|---|
Clinical infectious-diseases priority | Does the work matter for the IDSA clinical infectious-diseases readership beyond a narrow subspecialty? | Frame the introduction around the broader-infectious-diseases priority the findings address. The 1-week desk target selects for papers with clear clinical infectious-diseases priority. |
Methodological rigor | Are the experimental methods appropriate, properly conducted, and ethically robust? | Include detailed methods documentation. Pre-registration for clinical trials, sample-size justification, and STROBE for observational studies are evaluated by reviewers. |
CONSORT / STROBE compliance | Does the manuscript comply with CONSORT (clinical trials) or STROBE (observational studies) reporting standards? | Complete the relevant reporting checklist fully before submission. Reviewers consistently flag checklist gaps. |
Reproducibility | Could the central infectious-diseases analyses be reproduced by another team with the methods as written? | Use detailed methods documentation. CID requires data-availability statements. Pre-registration documentation strengthens reproducibility framing. |
Common patterns we see that miss the CID bar
In our pre-submission work with CID-targeted manuscripts, three named patterns generate the most consistent reviewer concerns and the most common reasons papers miss the editorial bar or fail the desk screen.
Narrow-subspecialty framing flagged at EIC or deputy editor screen. When a Clinical Infectious Diseases introduction frames the work too narrowly within one infectious-diseases subspecialty without broader clinical priority, deputy editor desk rejection within the 1-week target is common. The strongest manuscripts make the patient-care, antimicrobial-stewardship, outbreak-response, transplant-ID, HIV, or hospital-epidemiology consequence visible in the abstract and first figure. A CID paper can be methodologically sound and still miss the journal if the clinical decision surface is buried in the discussion.
Check whether your CID clinical-priority framing is broad enough →
Reporting checklist gaps surface as reviewer concerns. When CONSORT, STROBE, or PRISMA checklists are incomplete or items say "see Methods" without actual Methods coverage, Clinical Infectious Diseases reviewers consistently request expanded reporting sections. We see this most often in cohort-selection language, missing denominator definitions, under-explained sensitivity analyses, and supplementary tables that do not match the abstract claim. The strongest manuscripts complete the relevant checklist fully before submission and make every checklist item traceable to methods, results, or supplement text.
Check your CID reporting-checklist coverage →
IDSA cascade offers from associate editor. When the Clinical Infectious Diseases associate editor concludes the work is rigorous but the CID priority bar is not met, transfer offers to Open Forum Infectious Diseases or The Journal of Infectious Diseases are common. Authors can also use the IDSA pathway for papers previously reviewed and rejected by high-impact medical journals outside the IDSA portfolio, which may see faster review times.
The practical distinction is whether the limitation is scope, clinical actionability, or basic-translational emphasis; each points to a different revision and routing plan.
Check whether CID, OFID, or JID is the better route →
We have reviewed 50+ manuscripts targeting Clinical Infectious Diseases, Open Forum Infectious Diseases, The Journal of Infectious Diseases, Lancet Infectious Diseases, and major general-medicine journals. This guide tells you what Clinical Infectious Diseases editors look for in the status window, while the review tells you whether your paper passes the same clinical-priority, methods, reporting-checklist, and IDSA-routing checks before the deputy editor or external reviewers see it. Full Manusights reviews include a 60-day money-back guarantee, and we do not train models on your manuscript.
We have found that the strongest CID revisions make the clinical decision point visible in the abstract and then prove it through complete checklist traceability in the methods, results tables, and supplement.
In our pre-submission review work across infectious-disease, clinical-epidemiology, and general-medicine targets, CID-bound drafts most often failed when the abstract promised a clinical decision point but the methods, results tables, and supplement did not make the decision usable. In our review work we see that mismatch as a recurring failure pattern, especially for observational studies with incomplete STROBE traceability.
Source limitation: official guidance explains IDSA editorial routing and review mechanics, but it cannot diagnose whether your specific evidence package is strong enough for CID rather than OFID or JID.
Methodology note
Use this guide when you need to separate normal CID review silence from a true follow-up moment before you submit, withdraw, or prepare an IDSA transfer plan.
This page was created from IDSA's public CID author guidelines at Oxford Academic author instructions, IDSA editorial documentation (1-week desk rejection target, initial quality check + EIC or deputy editor editorial review + associate editor external-peer-review management, single-anonymous peer review, IDSA transfer pathway for papers previously reviewed and rejected by high-impact medical journals outside the IDSA portfolio), and Manusights pre-submission review experience with CID-targeted manuscripts.
What to read next
For the infectious-diseases landscape beyond CID, see Open Forum Infectious Diseases (IDSA open-access cascade), The Journal of Infectious Diseases (IDSA basic-translational), Clinical Microbiology and Infection (ESCMID), and external infectious-diseases alternatives (JAMA, Lancet Infectious Diseases, NEJM).
The choice across these titles depends on whether the central contribution is top IDSA clinical infectious-diseases (CID), IDSA open-access (Open Forum), basic-translational (JID), European clinical microbiology (CMI), top AMA general-medicine (JAMA), top global-impact infectious-diseases (Lancet Infectious Diseases), or top evidence-changes-practice (NEJM).
CID aims to recruit at least two independent infectious-disease reviewers under a single-anonymous model, and may add a third. Editors screen and triage manuscripts before any external reviewer sees them, and preparing a response template that addresses both clinical-infectious-diseases priority and reporting-checklist perspectives accelerates revision rounds substantially.
For a pre-upload check of your manuscript against the CID clinical-infectious-diseases-priority bar before submission, our Clinical Infectious Diseases pre-submission diagnostic flags the framing and checklist-compliance weaknesses most likely to surface in reviewer reports.
Frequently asked questions
Your manuscript has cleared CID's initial quality check and is being evaluated. The IDSA journals' review process begins with an initial quality check to ensure that all necessary materials are present, followed by the manuscript being sent to the editor-in-chief or a deputy editor for editorial review. Papers that are accepted for peer review are assigned to an associate editor who manages the external peer review process.
CID has a 1-week desk rejection target: if the paper is not a good fit for any IDSA journal, the editors will desk reject the paper prior to peer review, with a goal to make these desk rejection decisions within one week of submission. External peer review is a single-anonymous process. IDSA's journals offer a submission pathway for papers previously reviewed and rejected by high-impact medical journals outside of the IDSA portfolio, which may see faster review times.
Wait at least 6 weeks before inquiring. Contact the CID editorial office, quoting your manuscript ID; the author guidelines list the editorial-office contact details.
No. CID reports a median of 39 days to first decision when desk rejects are excluded, so 6 weeks is close to that median. Reports may already be in editorial synthesis with the associate editor preparing the recommendation.
Your paper passed the deputy editor desk screen, was assigned to an associate editor or another appropriate editor who manages the external peer review process, and reviewers whose expertise aligns with the focus of the manuscript have been invited; CID aims to recruit at least two independent reviewers, and a third may be added. External peer review is single-anonymous.
Yes. CID reports a median of 72 days to final decision when desk rejects are excluded, and a median of 39 days to first decision, so many papers take 60 days or more. The journal does not publish a time to acceptance.
Past 10 weeks is the right moment for a polite inquiry. Past 14 weeks suggests a reviewer dropped out and the associate editor needs a replacement. Silence in the first 6 weeks is normal at CID given the multi-stage IDSA editorial workflow.
Sources
Free guide
Waiting is not the same as being ignored, and there is a way to tell.
Reviewers usually get ten days. When it has been months, an appeal and a complaint are different instruments with different addresses, and only one of them fits a delay. This is which to use, and the wording that gets an answer.
Final step
Done interpreting the status? Put the wait to work.
The Clinical Infectious Diseases decision will arrive on the journal's clock. What you control is what's next: scan your next manuscript free, or run this paper through the scan so the likely reviewer pushback is mapped before the revision request lands.
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Turn a decision into a clear next step.
Use the practical response workflow when a manuscript needs revision, or the process guide when you need to understand what the editorial status means.
Where to go next
Same journal, next question
- Clinical Infectious Diseases Review Time: What Authors Can Actually Expect
- Clinical Infectious Diseases Submission Process: What Happens From Upload to First Decision
- How to Avoid Desk Rejection at Clinical Infectious Diseases
- Is Clinical Infectious Diseases a Good Journal? Impact, Scope, and Fit
- Clinical Infectious Diseases Response to Reviewers: How to Write a Rebuttal That Wins (2026)
- Clinical Infectious Diseases Submission Guide: Scope, Format & Tips