Dear Dr. JIAO,

Thank you very much for submitting your manuscript "How public reaction to disease information across scales and the impacts of vector control methods influence disease prevalence and control efficacy" 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.

Please prepare and submit your revised manuscript within 30 days. If you anticipate any delay, please let us know the expected resubmission date by replying to this email.

When you are ready to resubmit, please upload the following:

[1] A letter containing a detailed list of your responses to all review comments, and a description of the changes you have made in the manuscript. Please note while forming your response, if your article is accepted, you may have the opportunity to make the peer review history publicly available. The record will include editor decision letters (with reviews) and your responses to reviewer comments. If eligible, we will contact you to opt in or out

[2] Two versions of the revised manuscript: one with either highlights or tracked changes denoting where the text has been changed; the other a clean version (uploaded as the manuscript file).

Important additional instructions are given below your reviewer comments.

Thank you again for your submission to our journal. We hope that our editorial process has been constructive so far, and we welcome your feedback at any time. Please don't hesitate to contact us if you have any questions or comments.

Sincerely,

Alex Perkins

Associate Editor

PLOS Computational Biology

Virginia Pitzer

Deputy Editor-in-Chief

PLOS Computational Biology

***********************

A link appears below if there are any accompanying review attachments. If you believe any reviews to be missing, please contact ploscompbiol@plos.org immediately:

[LINK]

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Authors:

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

Reviewer #1: Good subject material.

I think that the TITLE should have "model" added to it - either at the end or beginning.

Please include in the discussion section commentary on insecticide resistance with regard to the impact of this model - any speculation (possibly before the concluding paragraph)?

Please describe on the Figures (1,2,and 3) what the "Time" interval unit is.

Please describe on Figure 4 what the Y-axis units are and what is a "concern level of adult mosquitoes". I was unaware how 1 was different from 200.

Please make the following minor corrections:

Line 51: remove "s" from "...largely depends..." (largely depend)

Line 54: add "the" between ",or Internet" ("or the Internet")

Line 69: "available breeding environment breeding capacity" - should both those breedings be in that sentence or can one be cut out?

Line 75: mosquitoes do not have 2 life stages, they have 4.

Line 76: remove "the" from "live in the standing water".

Line 81: reduce "contamination based that are specific to the type" to "contamination specific to the type"

Line 86: remove "concerns" in "This tradeoff concerns can..."

Line 87-88: Cite the statement: "Larval control has proven to be very effective to control mosquito population" and give the stipulation.

Line 91: insert "the" in "...control of adult mosquito..." to read "...control of the adult mosquito..."

Line 337: insert ")" after "(46)" to close the parenthetical statement started in line 336.

Multiple concerns:

Please elaborate on the statement in line 350-351: more expensive pesticides would expect lower efficacy... ? I would not necessarily agree with that statement - is there an assumption not discussed regarding cost of control measures?

Reviewer #2: Review is uploaded as an attachment.

Reviewer #3: This paper raises an interesting question, and models fairly simply yet convincingly the impact of public attitudes towards a raising threat by a vector-borne disease such as Zika.

A few remarks nonetheless:

- even from the abstract on, the authors focus on "social media" and its impact. Yet, the model does not seem to address specifically this problem. There is no explicit modeling, for instance, of a "viral" transmission of information on a social media platform. Here, the focus is mostly on public attitudes ("reactions" if you will) towards a new epidemics in their area or not that far from them. But these reactions could be driven by anything else (traditional media, rumors etc.), and the model would still be correct.

- the "overreaction" term seems unsuitable for the situation described. Individuals are indeed correct in assuming that their situation is connected to the situation in an area close to them. Talking about "overreaction" would then imply that there is a proper level of reaction, i.e. an adequate value for "risk aversion".

- the conclusion regarding impact on public policy seems overly optimistic, as the the realism of this model seems still precarious. A few assumptions are still very strong, some mechanisms are ignored (no explicit way to determine whether "overreaction" will occur in a certain epidemic or not ; no feedback between actions taken by the government / the population and the attitudes towards the epidemic ; no sens of the politisation of a crisis - whatever the authorities recommend is perfect/disastrous depending on your political opinion etc.)

This article is however a good first step towards a better understanding of these situations.

Reviewer #4: The overall messaging of the study is interesting. Calculations and conclusions drawn from model agree with underlying theme of the work.

This thesis is nicely argued, I have some minor points:

The omega (line 145) parameter in the main equations 1-9 is not explained in the text. Perhaps that’s a typo and is meant to be delta? If not then I do not see any transfer rates from infectious compartment (I_H)to seriously infected compartment (D^H). Some typos in Eqns 7-9 probably. If not for the typos then the notation for control parameters and control change in larvae/adult mosquitoes is confusing.

Notation of total control effort line 170 with equations 8-9 could be better, specially given hat small 't' is used for time, Again some inconsistency with notation between parameters in the table and in equations--makes for a difficult reading.

Equations in line 193 could be written in separate lines perhaps, right now equation numbering has crept into the main text. Make the notation of I_scale (from lines 159 to 153) consistent with the notation used for local, regional and global scale used at line 193, Eqs. 13 and 14.

Figure 4(c) and the text explaining it is currently not consistent. There is a dip in 4c at local scale, could that be explained somehow? Also the legends, labels, and captions need to be improved for all figures. It is very hard to understand them in the current format.

The results subsections could use better titles, my suggestions would be: Early intervention and delayed intervention. I leave to the authors to come up with better titles.

**********

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: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: Yes

**********

PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

Reviewer #4: No

Figure Files:

While revising your submission, please upload your figure files to the Preflight Analysis and Conversion Engine (PACE) digital diagnostic tool, https://pacev2.apexcovantage.com. PACE helps ensure that figures meet PLOS requirements. To use PACE, you must first register as a user. Then, login and navigate to the UPLOAD tab, where you will find detailed instructions on how to use the tool. If you encounter any issues or have any questions when using PACE, please email us at figures@plos.org.

Data Requirements:

Please note that, as a condition of publication, PLOS' data policy requires that you make available all data used to draw the conclusions outlined in your manuscript. Data must be deposited in an appropriate repository, included within the body of the manuscript, or uploaded as supporting information. This includes all numerical values that were used to generate graphs, histograms etc.. For an example in PLOS Biology see here: http://www.plosbiology.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pbio.1001908#s5.

Reproducibility:

To enhance the reproducibility of your results, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io, where a protocol can be assigned its own identifier (DOI) such that it can be cited independently in the future. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option to publish peer-reviewed clinical study protocols. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols

References:

Review your reference list to ensure that it is complete and correct. If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text, or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references. Any changes to the reference list should be mentioned in the rebuttal letter that accompanies your revised manuscript.

If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.

Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: plos_review_3_8.docx

Dear Dr. JIAO,

We are pleased to inform you that your manuscript 'How public reaction to disease information across scales and the impacts of vector control methods influence disease prevalence and control efficacy' 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,

Alex Perkins

Associate Editor

PLOS Computational Biology

Virginia Pitzer

Deputy Editor-in-Chief

PLOS Computational Biology

***********************************************************

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Authors:

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

Reviewer #2: The authors have adequately addressed the points I raised and I have no further comments.

Reviewer #3: Thank you for the answers and the few changes made.

Reviewer #4: I am satisfied with the changes made

**********

Have the authors made all data and (if applicable) computational code underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data and code underlying the findings described in their manuscript fully available without restriction, with rare exception (please refer to the Data Availability Statement in the manuscript PDF file). The data and code should be provided as part of the manuscript or its supporting information, or deposited to a public repository. For example, in addition to summary statistics, the data points behind means, medians and variance measures should be available. If there are restrictions on publicly sharing data or code —e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

Reviewer #4: Yes

**********

PLOS authors have the option to publish the peer review history of their article (what does this mean?). If published, this will include your full peer review and any attached files.

If you choose “no”, your identity will remain anonymous but your review may still be made public.

Do you want your identity to be public for this peer review? For information about this choice, including consent withdrawal, please see our Privacy Policy.

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

Reviewer #4: No