https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4437-0201
Peer Review History
| Original SubmissionJune 12, 2020 |
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PONE-D-20-17953 Evolving public behavior and attitudes towards COVID-19 and face masks in Taiwan: A social media study PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Chin, 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. ============================== The reviewers suggest: (1) to make sure the number of searches does not necessarily reflect the number of individuals searching for the item; (2) to discuss about the search trends in other South East Asian countries. In light of the reviewers' suggestions, I invite you to make a revision. ============================== Please submit your revised manuscript by Nov 21 2020 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:
If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter. If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Chang Sup Park, Ph.D. Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements. 1. Please ensure that your manuscript meets PLOS ONE's style requirements, including those for file naming. The PLOS ONE style templates can be found at https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/file?id=wjVg/PLOSOne_formatting_sample_main_body.pdf and 2.Thank you for stating the following in the Financial Disclosure section: [This manuscript was supported by the Ministry of Science and Technology, Taiwan, under grant number MOST 108-2410-H-033-043. The corresponding author, CY, is the principal investigator of the research project. The URL of funder website is https://www.most.gov.tw/?l=en. Finally, the funder had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript.]. We note that one or more of the authors are employed by a commercial company: Big Data Co., Ltd.,
Please also include the following statement within your amended Funding Statement. “The funder provided support in the form of salaries for authors [insert relevant initials], but did not have any additional role in the study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript. The specific roles of these authors are articulated in the ‘author contributions’ section.” If your commercial affiliation did play a role in your study, please state and explain this role within your updated Funding Statement. 2. 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Please follow this link to our website for more details on competing interests: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/competing-interests Additional Editor Comments (if provided): The reviewers suggest: (1) to make sure the number of searches does not necessarily reflect the number of individuals searching for the item; (2) to discuss about the search trends in other South East Asian countries. In light of the reviewers' suggestions, I invite you to make a revision. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] 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 ********** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes ********** 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 ********** 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 ********** 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: a. This is an interesting study, that used search trends using terms related to face mask in google data base. The number of searches in the google database, not necessary a reflection of number of individuals searching for that item. A particular person, who needs an item, may search it several times on the google database and it adds to the number of searches on that particular time period. This way the google trends may not provide accurate information. b. The authors may discuss about the search trends related to face mask during the defined period in other countries of the SE Asian region. This will give an idea that Taiwan is successful in containing the panic buying behavior through its policy, whereas other countries, were unable to do so. ********** 6. 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: Yes: Sujit Kumar Kar [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment 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. Registration is free. 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 PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. |
| Revision 1 |
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PONE-D-20-17953R1 Evolving public behavior and attitudes towards COVID-19 and face masks in Taiwan: A social media study PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Chin, 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. ============================== Reviewers acknowledge that the revised manuscript improved somewhat compared with the original submission. But they still have lingering concerns. They point out that you need to create theoretically more justifiable hypotheses and take the time series nature of the data more seriously. They also suggest you mention all the methods you used in the analysis. I concur. For your information I attach the reviewer comments at the bottom of this email. I hope you will find them to be constructive and helpful, in revising the manuscript. ============================== Please submit your revised manuscript by Feb 20 2021 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:
If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter. If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Chang Sup Park, Ph.D. Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (if provided): Reviewers acknowledge that the revised manuscript improved somewhat compared with the original submission. But they still have lingering concerns. They point out that you need to create theoretically more justifiable hypotheses and take the time series nature of the data more seriously. They also suggest you mention all the methods you used in the analysis. I concur. For your information I attach the reviewer comments at the bottom of this email. I hope you will find them to be constructive and helpful, in revising the manuscript. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] 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 #1: All comments have been addressed Reviewer #2: (No Response) ********** 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 #1: Yes Reviewer #2: No ********** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: No ********** 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 #1: Yes Reviewer #2: (No Response) ********** 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 #1: Yes Reviewer #2: Yes ********** 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 #1: This is an interesting article. The authors had responded to all the queries raised. Revision made is satisfactory Reviewer #2: The manuscript “Evolving public behavior and attitudes towards COVID-19 and face masks in Taiwan: A social media study” presents a correlational analysis of COVID-19 and mask related search behaviour in Taiwan and South East Asian countries as well as a content analysis. I was given this manuscript to review after a round of revision with a different reviewer. Normally at this stage I simply address whether or not the authors have addressed the reviewers' concerns in a satisfactory manner. But it seems very little substantive ground was covered in the previous round. I have some serious misgivings about the manuscript as currently constituted. Theory I don’t have a clear sense of the argument the authors are advancing or the hypotheses they are testing. At various points the authors make claims about the effects of awareness on pandemic mitigation, but of course their design is not set up to test that possibility. Is it that COVID-19 cases caused awareness, and then mask usage for prevention? Relatedly, what are the expectations related to fear and the outcomes? I get that fear may be associated with awareness and mask usage, but the authors construct some typology of fear without any clear purpose in mind. All of this needs to be much more strongly motivated by theory. I had no clear sense of what expectations the authors wanted to test, so the rest of the manuscript felt like a fishing expedition. The authors make an assumption that mask usage (or searching) can act as an indicator that the public is taking steps to protect themselves. I understand that is a reasonable assumption in Taiwan. It might be worth discussing the variation that exists on this dimension cross-nationally. We wouldn’t be able to use mask searching or usage as such an indicator when public health authorities actively dismissed their usage in many other countries until several months into the pandemic (see Merkley & Loewen, 2020). Which brings me to a much more substantive point: government communications are notably absent from this analysis. As noted, I’m not entirely clear on the argument advanced here. But it seems like there is an assumption that cases generated media and public awareness, and subsequently searching related to masks. Of course, cases increased in other Asian countries, but not the same level of searching for masks, which could be in large part due to the seriousness and promptness with which their governments acted on the pandemic and the mitigation strategies they communicated to their mass publics. I think there would be a lot of value added to the analysis if there was some effort to identify a link between government communication and media/the public, along the lines of what we see in agenda setting literature (see Soroka 2002 and many others along those lines). Data and Method My biggest concerns relate to the data and methods. First, much more information needs to be given about the precise nature of the data being used in this manuscript, especially related to social media. We need more information on what data KEYPO collects and from what platforms. “Social media” is a very broad term. What exactly is the structure of the data that is provided? How is it accessed? What keywords are used? What are its limitations? None of this is transparently discussed in the manuscript. - A minor, but related point. Wikipedia is not an acceptable source for students, and is not an acceptable source for published research. These data need to be verified from the original source Second, I do not think the authors are taking the time series nature of their data seriously enough. There is temporal dependence between these data that do not lend themselves well to simple correlations. For example, confirmed cases will be mechanically related to prior values (in fact, these variables are unit root by definition), while others, like social media and news reports may be (trend) stationary. Autocorrelation likely also needs to be accounted for. All of their series display evidence of trending with a clear structural break when COVID-19 arrived on the scene. I see no reason to see these correlations as evidence of anything other than co-trending. I would expect a linear trend would also be strongly correlated with cases and the other indicators used here. The authors need to estimate models that meet the assumptions of time series analysis. Third, the authors need to make a stronger case for using social media data to infer behaviour. We know that online behaviour and social media usage is occurring among non-representative segments of the population (i.e. younger, more educated). An alternative strategy would be to survey individuals over the course of the pandemic. Other scholars have done this, so it cannot be dismissed out of hand because it is “hard” (see Merkley & Loewen, 2020; Sides, Tausanovitch and Vavreck 2020; Clinton et al. 2020 Science Advances, etc.). More validation is needed to justify using social media data as a proxy for public opinion or at least a more thorough discussion of the limitations. Why is the time frame for stage 1 different from stage 2? The content analysis stretches an entire month longer. Why not collect more data over a longer time frame? Why does N=38 in Table 1 if data is collected over two months There is not nearly enough detail on the content analysis. What does it mean that KEYPO provides samples of “popular events”? Are these article headlines? Who coded each event as to whether they met criteria for inclusion in the fear based categories? What were these fear dimensions chosen, and what does each represent? What is the coding scheme? How have the authors validated the reliability of the coding? Structure and Contribution The authors need to be much more attentive to limiting the claims they make to what the simple correlational data they present can sustain. Their research design lacks causal identification or even any strategy to make such claims plausible. These are simple bivariate correlations with small N. They cannot use this data to sustain an argument that public awareness in Taiwan mitigated the pandemic. The paper was hard to follow. The authors cycle back and forth between discussion of results and commentary on Taiwan’s governmental response to COVID-19. Certain methods and analysis were also not introduced in the relevant section, so they appeared as a surprise when describing the results. This should be revised and a larger effort at signposting is needed throughout to guide readers step by step through the manuscript. ********** 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 #1: Yes: Sujit Kumar Kar Reviewer #2: No [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment 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. Registration is free. 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 PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. |
| Revision 2 |
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PONE-D-20-17953R2 Evolving public behavior and attitudes towards COVID-19 and face masks in Taiwan: A social media study PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Chin, 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. ============================== The reviewers find a significant improvement was made in this revision, but still point out lingering issues. Particularly, the Introduction needs to clarify how this study builds on past hypotheses. Please address the reviewers’ remaining concerns. ============================== Please submit your revised manuscript by May 02 2021 11:59PM. If you will need more time than this to complete your revisions, please reply to this message or contact the journal office at plosone@plos.org. When you're ready to submit your revision, log on to https://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/ and select the 'Submissions Needing Revision' folder to locate your manuscript file. Please include the following items when submitting your revised manuscript:
If you would like to make changes to your financial disclosure, please include your updated statement in your cover letter. Guidelines for resubmitting your figure files are available below the reviewer comments at the end of this letter. If applicable, we recommend that you deposit your laboratory protocols in protocols.io to enhance the reproducibility of your results. Protocols.io assigns your protocol its own identifier (DOI) so that it can be cited independently in the future. For instructions see: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Chang Sup Park, Ph.D. Academic Editor PLOS ONE Journal Requirements: Please 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. [Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.] 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 #3: (No Response) Reviewer #4: All comments have been addressed ********** 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 #3: Partly Reviewer #4: Yes ********** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #3: I Don't Know Reviewer #4: I Don't Know ********** 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 #3: Yes Reviewer #4: Yes ********** 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 #3: Yes Reviewer #4: Yes ********** 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 #3: General comment This paper is quite innovative in its focus on the use of the social media to measure public reaction to epidemics, and a good resource material for governments and health workers. However, the near absence of organized progression of thoughts in the introduction makes it hard for a reader to understand the hypotheses the authors are testing. 1) I would like to suggest editing the introduction section. What the authors intend to achieve with this paper could be better aligned; clearly and succinctly reflected at the relevant place in the manuscript – at the end of the introduction. 2) The authors need to clarify whether this article is building on past hypotheses or examining the role of the media and government in increasing public epidemic awareness or both. The above is not clear from the introduction. 3) The aims of the study could be carefully pulled together and distinct from the Introduction in lines 102-105, 132 - 137, 166 -172 and 182 -184. And the statement in 181-184 on content analysis should be reflected as an objective of the study if that was the intention. Please refer to aims of the study mentioned in different sections. These are listed below. I think they can be pulled together/aligned. (i) Lines 102 – 105. “Given that, one of the purposes of the study is to examine the dynamic relationships between epidemic development and the disease related information spread on the Internet, and to explain how it contributes to the epidemic control during the early period of the COVID-19 epidemic in Taiwan.” (ii) Lines 132 -137 -Thus, this study aims to fill the gap in the literature on the diffusion of various fear-related messages on the Internet, including mistrust, severity, loss of control, uncertainty, and susceptibility, drawing from previous literature on fear and risk perception [14, 21-23], and their effects on public epidemic awareness along with the development of the COVID-19 epidemic. (iii) Lines …166 -172………….. This naturalistic study aimed to capture public epidemic awareness of COVID-19 through collecting social media- and Internet-based data, and attempted to elaborate on how the public epidemic awareness rose, and how it played a role in contributing to the successful epidemic prevention in Taiwan during the spread of COVID-19. (iv) Lines 181 – 184 … Moreover, this study attempted to analyze the transmission of different types of fear information of COVID-19 on the Internet from December 31, 2019 to March 29, 2020, and their effects on the public epidemic awareness by conducting a content analysis. 4) There are doubtful assumptions in this manuscript. (i) Awareness will most likely lead to adoption of appropriate preventive measures (ii) The more the media coverage and social media comments the more likely a reduction of prevalence will be achieved due to increased adoption of preventive measures by the public – without taking into consideration the contents of the social media/mass media (iii) Fear predisposes positive action. (iv) Increase in case incidence (or rather the announcement/reporting of it) during a pandemic/epidemic will lead to greater media attention and social media activity on that epidemic. It may, on a very short period. Incidentally, the authors indicated that government actions such as the banning of export of facemasks rather than the number of new cases led to rise/decrease in social media activities/mentions. These may have as well influenced adoption of preventive behaviours by the public. Some of these assumptions have been acknowledged by the authors but the evidence put forward in this paper do not support most of the assumptions. It is important the authors rethink these and provide additional evidence. Specific Comments Lines 22 – 23: “This study aims to capture public epidemic awareness of COVID-19 through collecting social media” – ‘document’ maybe a better word to use rather than ‘capture’. Lines 24 – 26: … “and elaborating on how public epidemic awareness rose and played a role in epidemic prevention in Taiwan during the initial phase of the spread of COVID-19”. This needs to be rephrased. How "awareness" played a role in epidemic prevention (i.e. risk mitigation) is not sufficiently documented in the paper. Lines 40 – 41: “Moreover, online social media promptly reflect public epidemic awareness, which can be used as a reference for epidemic prevention”. This should be rephrased to indicate the social media activities could be a reflection of public epidemic awareness which can be harnessed for epidemic control. Lines 58 – 60: “Combining various viewpoints to look at the effectiveness of COVID-19 prevention in Taiwan might be instructive for other countries in dealing with the next crisis resulting from emerging infectious diseases.” This conclusion is not based by the data. Perhaps, the essence of this paper should be on assessing information-seeking by the public during the COVID-19 pandemic. Lines 67 – 69: ‘However, COVID-19 is more contagious than severe acute respiratory syndrome (SARS) and is infectious even through asymptomatic carriers’ – while this is not in doubt one wonders why this comparison is coming up without previous reference to SARS in this paragraph. A simple sentence on the fact that COVID-19 is very contagious will be helpful. Lines 72 – 73: ‘Public epidemic awareness has been recognized as a crucial determinant of public epidemic prevention’ – this needs to be supported by literature Lines 76 – 79: ‘Recent research on public health awareness during the COVID-19 epidemic also showed that one’s awareness of how to prevent COVID-19 significantly contributes to one’s behavioral chance of fighting against COVID-19 [10]’. Only one article is cited to support this statement. I recommend the statement be modified to reflect this e.g. citing the publication specifically. Lines 166 – 188: These lines can better be summarized and synchronized with information in other parts as to what the study intends to achieve. Lines 218 -225. Justify the selection of two out of seven indicators (volume of mentions of COVID 19 and the volume of mentions of face masks) as indicators of public epidemic awareness. Lines 301 – 302: Some repetition - edit Lines 461 -500. This is a well-articulated section. 3) Lines 488 -491. However, the concluding statement in lines 488-491 “Such positive actions reduced public anxiety about not being able to buy face masks; accordingly, the volume of the mentions and search query of face masks dropped significantly and became less affected by new cases of infection” needs a reference or a supporting data of this study to justify the claim that a “search query of face masks dropped significantly and became less affected by new cases of infection”. 4) Lines 497-500. I am not convinced the data of this study justifies the authors conclusion that masks prevent epidemic of fear —see authors concluding statement “…masks, thus preventing an epidemic of fear.” Lines 509 – 510: ‘It should be noted that keeping the public epidemic awareness at a high level might be crucial for combating COVID-19.’ This, in my opinion, is the best conclusion of this study. Lines 516 -517. This is unclear, please explain “According to the ANOVA results (Table 2), the types of fear had a significant effect on the Google search volume of face masks [F(3,358) = 5.67, p < .05].” Lines 554 – 555: I think this is an overgeneralization. There are other factors that contribute. Lines 693 – 695 essentially the same as lines 703 – 705. I suggest to edit Reviewer #4: The authors have done a fine job in revising and enhancing their manuscript and completing their shortcomings. I enjoyed reviewing the manuscript. My only comment is that although the authors' data doesn't cover practice among the general population, I was wondering if it was possible if they could add a paragraph in the discussion section based on literature regarding the practice towards face masks during their study period and whether it was inline with their evidence? ********** 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 #3: No Reviewer #4: Yes: Reza Shahriarirad [NOTE: If reviewer comments were submitted as an attachment file, they will be attached to this email and accessible via the submission site. Please log into your account, locate the manuscript record, and check for the action link "View Attachments". If this link does not appear, there are no attachment 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. Registration is free. 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 PLOS at figures@plos.org. Please note that Supporting Information files do not need this step. |
| Revision 3 |
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Evolving public behavior and attitudes towards COVID-19 and face masks in Taiwan: A social media study PONE-D-20-17953R3 Dear Dr. Chin, 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. An invoice for payment will follow shortly after the formal acceptance. To ensure an efficient process, please log into Editorial Manager at http://www.editorialmanager.com/pone/, click the 'Update My Information' link at the top of the page, and double check that your user information is up-to-date. If you have any billing related questions, please contact our Author Billing department directly at authorbilling@plos.org. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org. Kind regards, Chang Sup Park, 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 #4: All comments have been addressed ********** 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 #4: Yes ********** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #4: Yes ********** 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 #4: Yes ********** 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 #4: Yes ********** 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 #4: (No Response) ********** 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 #4: Yes: Reza Shahriarirad |
| Formally Accepted |
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PONE-D-20-17953R3 Evolving public behavior and attitudes towards COVID-19 and face masks in Taiwan: A social media study Dear Dr. Chin: I'm pleased to inform you that your manuscript has been deemed suitable for publication in PLOS ONE. Congratulations! Your manuscript is now with our production department. If your institution or institutions have a press office, please let them know about your upcoming paper now to help maximize its impact. If they'll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team within the next 48 hours. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information please contact onepress@plos.org. If we can help with anything else, please email us at plosone@plos.org. Thank you for submitting your work to PLOS ONE and supporting open access. Kind regards, PLOS ONE Editorial Office Staff on behalf of Dr. Chang Sup Park Academic Editor PLOS ONE |
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