PONE-D-20-15888

Political and personal reactions to COVID-19 during initial weeks of social distancing in the United States

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Magnusson,

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Geilson Lima Santana, M.D., Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments:

Dear author, thank you for your submission about such an important issue.

However, I believe some work needs to be done in order to improve it.

I suggest structuring your paper according to the Strobe Guideline for cross-sectional studies: https://www.strobe-statement.org/index.php?id=available-checklists

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Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

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2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: No

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3. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data 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 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—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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4. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #1: Comments to authors

In this article, authors investigated perceptions, behaviors and impacts surrounding COVID-19 early in the pandemic response in the U.S. general population. A web-based survey was administered to 1030 U.S. adults. The survey assessed political ideology, scientific trust, and media consumption, as well as demographic information, mental health, attitudes, anxieties, impacts, and knowledge related to COVID-19. Results showed that factors such as political ideology played a large role in the attitudes and behaviors adopted by U.S. adults early in the pandemic. Further, one-third of respondents reported worse mental health than before COVID-19.

The study is well designed. The methods are adequately described and the results are clearly presented.

The manuscript has the potential to provide a beneficial addition to the current research concerning the impact of the COVID-19 global emergency. However, there is one main suggestion below.

- There are some key citations left out. Since the study also evaluated mental health outcomes such as depressive symptoms, recent literature concerning the impact of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health should be considered. In the Introduction section, it would be good to provide a brief overview of the few available studies investigating COVID-19-related mental health outcomes.

In this regard, some recent articles:

Qiu, J., Shen, B., Zhao, M., Wang, Z., Xie, B., and Xu, Y. (2020). A nationwide survey of psychological distress among Chinese people in the COVID-19 epidemic: Implications and policy recommendations. Gen. Psychiatry 33, 19–21. doi:10.1136/gpsych-2020-100213.

Rossi R, Socci V, Pacitti F, et al. Mental Health Outcomes Among Frontline and Second-Line Health Care Workers During the Coronavirus Disease 2019 (COVID-19) Pandemic in Italy. JAMA Netw Open. 2020;3(5):e2010185. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.10185

Wang, C., Pan, R., Wan, X., Tan, Y., Xu, L., Ho, C. S., et al. (2020). Immediate Psychological Responses and Associated Factors during the Initial Stage of the 2019 Coronavirus Disease (COVID-19) Epidemic among the General Population in China. Int J Env. Res Public Heal. 17. doi:10.3390/ijerph17051729.

Talevi D, Socci V, Carai M, Carnaghi G, Faleri S, Pacitti F (2020) Mental health outcomes of the COVID-19 pandemics. Gli esiti della salute mentale della pandemia di CoViD-19. Rivista Psichiatria 55(3):137-144 doi: 10.1708/3382.33569.

Lai, J., Ma, S., Wang, Y., Cai, Z., Hu, J., Wei, N., et al. (2020). Factors Associated With Mental Health Outcomes Among Health Care Workers Exposed to Coronavirus Disease 2019. JAMA Netw. open 3, e203976. doi:10.1001/jamanetworkopen.2020.3976.

Reviewer #2: The manuscript lacks a solid theoretical foundation and the exposition of the background is limited, the introductory section is insufficient to justify the need to carry out the investigation.

The methodology section has not been described in detail, nor the characteristics of the sample, nor statistical aspects for the estimation of the sample size, nor are data provided on the validity and reliability of the instruments used for data collection ...

The results are based on descriptive statistics, so the scope of the derived statements is limited.

Finally, the discussion and conclusions do not meet the minimum standards, one of the reasons is the poor theoretical foundation in the introduction, and this does not allow a good discussion of the data.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Political and personal reactions to COVID-19 during initial weeks of social distancing in the United States

PONE-D-20-15888R1

Dear Dr. Magnusson,

We’re pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been judged scientifically suitable for publication and will be formally accepted for publication once it meets all outstanding technical requirements.

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Kind regards,

Geilson Lima Santana, M.D., Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments:

Reviewer's Responses to Questions

Comments to the Author

1. If the authors have adequately addressed your comments raised in a previous round of review and you feel that this manuscript is now acceptable for publication, you may indicate that here to bypass the “Comments to the Author” section, enter your conflict of interest statement in the “Confidential to Editor” section, and submit your "Accept" recommendation.

Reviewer #2: All comments have been addressed

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2. Is the manuscript technically sound, and do the data support the conclusions?

The manuscript must describe a technically sound piece of scientific research with data that supports the conclusions. Experiments must have been conducted rigorously, with appropriate controls, replication, and sample sizes. The conclusions must be drawn appropriately based on the data presented.

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously?

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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4. Have the authors made all data underlying the findings in their manuscript fully available?

The PLOS Data policy requires authors to make all data 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 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—e.g. participant privacy or use of data from a third party—those must be specified.

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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5. Is the manuscript presented in an intelligible fashion and written in standard English?

PLOS ONE does not copyedit accepted manuscripts, so the language in submitted articles must be clear, correct, and unambiguous. Any typographical or grammatical errors should be corrected at revision, so please note any specific errors here.

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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6. Review Comments to the Author

Please use the space provided to explain your answers to the questions above. You may also include additional comments for the author, including concerns about dual publication, research ethics, or publication ethics. (Please upload your review as an attachment if it exceeds 20,000 characters)

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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7. 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