PONE-D-21-16234

Designing optimal COVID-19 testing stations locally: a discrete event simulation model applied on a university campus

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Saidani,

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.

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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Thippa Reddy Gadekallu

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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University of Illinois or the SHIELD Team."

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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: Partly

Reviewer #2: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: 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

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: No

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: The authors have presented the research on. DESIGNING RESOURCE-EFFICIENT COVID-19 TESTING STATIONS LOCALLY:

A DISCRETE EVENT SIMULATION MODEL APPLIED ON A UNIVERSITY CAMPUS

1. The authors are advised to check the error in the title ( By mistake 0 is added in the title)

2. Secondly, overall, the language of the paper and grammatical error needs to be fixed throughout the paper, At present it is not upto the mark of the journal's expectations.

3. The font size and font style of the research paper needs to be according to the template instructions

4. Related work and literature review is very weak in the paper, authors are advised to be detailed in this section.

5. Authors have mentioned Fig 2. Overview of the modeling approach, but there is not figure 2 in the paper,

Lastly, authors are advised to format the references section and add below references

a) Srivastava D., Kohli R. and Gupta S. 2017 Advances in Computer and Computational Sciences (Springer) Implementation and statistical comparison of different edge detection techniques 211-228

b) Gomathi, S.; Kohli, R.; Soni, M.; Dhiman, G.; Nair, R. Pattern analysis: Predicting COVID-19 pandemic in India using AutoML. World J. Eng. 2020

Reviewer #2: • Introduction section can be extended to add the issues in the context of the existing work

• Literature review techniques have to be strengthened by including the issues in the current system and how the author proposes to overcome the same.

• There are some grammatical and editing problems in English. English presentation should be further polished

• The objective of the research should be clearly defined in the last paragraph of the introduction section.

• Add the advantages of the proposed system in one quoted line for justifying the proposed approach in the Introduction section. The authors can add the few advantages of deep learning for COVID -19 diagnosis. The following papers can be referred. Deep learning and medical image processing for coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic: A survey.

Authors can refer An Incentive Based Approach for COVID-19 planning using Blockchain Technology.

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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

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Designing optimal COVID-19 testing stations locally: a discrete event simulation model applied on a university campus

PONE-D-21-16234R1

Dear Dr. Saidani,

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,

Thippa Reddy Gadekallu

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 #1: All comments have been addressed

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 #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

**********

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: 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 #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: 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 #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: All comments have been addressed. However, it hits at strongly recommended to a th reference suggested previously

Reviewer #2: The authors have addressed all of my comments. The paper can can be accepted in the current format. Thank you

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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 #1: No

Reviewer #2: No