PONE-D-20-34140

The efficiency in the ordinary hospital bed management: A comparative analysis in four European countries before the COVID-19 outbreak

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Pecoraro,

Thank you for submitting your manuscript to PLOS ONE. After careful consideration, we feel that it has merit but does not fully meet PLOS ONE’s publication criteria as it currently stands. Therefore, we invite you to submit a revised version of the manuscript that addresses the points raised during the review process.

Several reviewers were approached. Regretfully, onlly one reviewer agreed and his overall impression is included below.  I took upon myself to act as a second reviewer and I do have some issues that need to be dealt with before accepting this manuscript for publication:

1. The manuscript needs some language revisions.  Sometimes the journal language editor may suggest the needed changes.  However, I suggest you find someone proficient in the English language who understands the subject, who will not change the meaning of the sentence. I will give you one example from the discussion.  You wrote: 

At the moment (i.e. October 8th, 2020), in Europe the virus, after a relative deceleration during the summer period, has continued to rise reaching 5.644.987 (15% over the world cases) confirmed cases and causing 228.053 (21%) deaths [1,4].

What does it mean 15% over the world cases.

2. The heading for figure 5 indicates taht 5b is a map while it is a histogram.  In 5c there is something the authors wanted to show at the right side - but what is it?

3. The heading for figure 6 indicates there are three components to the figure, while only one is presented.

Please review if your headings are correct.

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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Itamar Ashkenazi

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Landsat: http://landsat.visibleearth.nasa.gov/

USGS EROS (Earth Resources Observatory and Science (EROS) Center) (public domain): http://eros.usgs.gov/#

Natural Earth (public domain): http://www.naturalearthdata.com/

4. We note you have included a table to which you do not refer in the text of your manuscript. Please ensure that you refer to Table 1 in your text; if accepted, production will need this reference to link the reader to the Table.

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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

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

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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

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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

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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: Its an interesting article and well written. It is unique in that it looks at the COVID-19 response from a perspective of already existing health systems capacity as it pertains to bed availability and bed management. And it gives an important perspective on health systems resillience.

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Samuel Kidane,MD

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The efficiency in the ordinary hospital bed management: A comparative analysis in four European countries before the COVID-19 outbreak

PONE-D-20-34140R1

Dear Dr. Pecoraro,

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.

Within one week, you’ll receive an e-mail detailing the required amendments. When these have been addressed, you’ll receive a formal acceptance letter and your manuscript will be scheduled for publication.

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Kind regards,

Itamar Ashkenazi

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments: