Gender gaps are a problem in science, impeding the advancement of women. While some progress has been made in recent years, the COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020 could aggravate the gender gap even more, with female researchers taking on more responsibilities of care work and domestic labor than men while working from home. The present study analyzed the number of proposals submitted by women to the Chilean Young Investigator Grant (Fondecyt de Iniciación en Investigación) competition 2020, whose application period closed four weeks after the start of the lockdown in Chile. Compared to the years from 2010-2019, in which 35.6% of all proposals were submitted by women, in 2020 this percentage was 38.5%, and thus higher than usual. Women’s success rate in 2020 was 4.1 percentage points lower than that of male applicants, compared to an average gap of 2.3 percentage points in previous years, despite the implementation of a partly double-blind evaluation procedure in 2020. This might suggest that some of the women who submitted a proposal may have sent a non-finished or non-polished version, thereby increasing the likelihood of rejection, or that there was gender bias in evaluation. While the total share of female applicants increased in 2020, there was a decrease of applicants under 40 years, which may indicate that women with small children applied less than usual. These findings complement other evidence showing that the COVID-19 lockdowns in 2020 could aggravate the existing gender gap in science, but that the picture is more complex than previously assumed.