Dear Mr Hilton,

Thank you very much for submitting your manuscript "Estimation of country-level basic reproductive ratios for novel Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19) using synthetic contact matrices" for consideration at PLOS Computational Biology. As with all papers reviewed by the journal, your manuscript was reviewed by members of the editorial board and by several independent reviewers. The reviewers appreciated the attention to an important topic. Based on the reviews, we are likely to accept this manuscript for publication, providing that you modify the manuscript according to the review recommendations.

It would be great to update the github repository to include R0 estimates, as suggested by Reviewer 2.

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Jennifer A. Flegg

Associate Editor

PLOS Computational Biology

Virginia Pitzer

Deputy Editor

PLOS Computational Biology

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It would be great to update the github repository to include R0 estimates, as suggested by Reviewer 2.

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Authors:

Please note here if the review is uploaded as an attachment.

Reviewer #1: Thank you for the opportunity to review “Estimation of country-level basic reproductive ratios for novel Coronavirus using synthetic contact matrices.” The authors estimate the basic reproductive ratio of SARS-CoV-2 for 151 countries and illustrate the need to better understand age-specific transmission patterns of SARS-CoV-2 (specifically age-dependent susceptibility, age-dependent symptomatic probability) and the transmission profiles dependent on physiological response to infection. The introduction, methods, and results are well-written, clear, concise, and appropriate to evaluate the objective. This paper adds important nuance to the growing scientific literature and estimation of the basic reproductive ratio. It was a nice read.

I do not have any revisions except that I noticed a handful of typos that I suspect if accepted will be caught prior to publication. For example, lines 154, 189 - probability instead of probably; line 153 - add "the".

Reviewer #2: The review is attached.

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Have all data underlying the figures and results presented in the manuscript been provided?

Large-scale datasets should be made available via a public repository as described in the PLOS Computational Biology data availability policy, and numerical data that underlies graphs or summary statistics should be provided in spreadsheet form as supporting information.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No: The github repository linked to contains the scaling factors under both models as CSV files, but not the $R_0$ values used to create the maps. It would be worth the authors including the estimated $R_0$ values so that users do not have to apply the scaling themselves.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: Yes: Samuel Clifford

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Attachments

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Submitted filename: PCOMPBIOL-D-20-00579.md

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Submitted filename: PCOMPBIOL-D-20-00579.pdf

Dear Mr Hilton,

We are pleased to inform you that your manuscript 'Estimation of country-level basic reproductive ratios for novel Coronavirus (SARS-CoV-2/COVID-19) using synthetic contact matrices' has been provisionally accepted for publication in PLOS Computational Biology.

Before your manuscript can be formally accepted you will need to complete some formatting changes, which you will receive in a follow up email. A member of our team will be in touch with a set of requests.

Please note that your manuscript will not be scheduled for publication until you have made the required changes, so a swift response is appreciated.

IMPORTANT: The editorial review process is now complete. PLOS will only permit corrections to spelling, formatting or significant scientific errors from this point onwards. Requests for major changes, or any which affect the scientific understanding of your work, will cause delays to the publication date of your manuscript.

Should you, your institution's press office or the journal office choose to press release your paper, you will automatically be opted out of early publication. We ask that you notify us now if you or your institution is planning to press release the article. All press must be co-ordinated with PLOS.

Thank you again for supporting Open Access publishing; we are looking forward to publishing your work in PLOS Computational Biology. 

Best regards,

Jennifer A. Flegg

Associate Editor

PLOS Computational Biology

Virginia Pitzer

Deputy Editor

PLOS Computational Biology

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The comments from both reviewers have been addressed fully.