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PONE-D-21-04796

“MASS GATHERING EVENTS AND COVID-19 TRANSMISSION IN BORRIANA (SPAIN): A RETROSPECTIVE COHORT STUDY.”

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Arnedo-Pena

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.

I have read the comments provided by two expert reviewers and I read the mansucript myself too. I will not reiterate the Rs comments but I will add mine. I strongly recommend consulting PlosOne styling guide for submissions. At the moment, the ms looks like a draft: arbitary spaces, no line numbers, tables included in the main text, some of the tables are tilted, e.g. Table 7; as well as overal language. As Rs mention, there is merit in this study but it needs to substantial amount work on style.

Please submit your revised manuscript by May 23 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.

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Huseyin Cakal

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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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: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: N/A

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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: No

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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: The manuscript entitled “MASS GATHERING EVENTS AND COVID-19 TRANSMISSION IN BORRIANA

(SPAIN): A RETROSPECTIVE COHORT STUDY” aims at estimating the incidence of COVID-19 disease, its association with MGEs and quantifying the potential risk factors of its occurrence.

The manuscript is interesting, nevertheless, it presents some flaws which make me conclude that before it is ready for publication in PLOS ONE the authors need to address some minor issues. Below are my comments to the authors and I hope these ideas will be helpful to them for improving their manuscript.

Abstract

The abstract seems clear, although I would recommend describing in more details the purpose of the study and the aims that are to be achieved. Additionally, it is important to highlight the novelty of the study.

Introduction

Although very short the introduction is also mostly clear and well written. However, I have some suggestions or inquire to clarify some minor issues:

1. The Introduction should present the literature to date and identify a gap in this research area, therefore I´m sure it would benefit from editing some of the content. Please, at least mention the definition of mass gatherings and some of its characteristics.

2. In the same vain, for instance, if the existing empirical evidence regarding the effects of mass gatherings provide ambiguous results, please explain what is unclear and why.

Method

The method section in exhaustive and well explained.

3. Would be helpful to have some more details regarding how the participants were recruited.

4.What other variables was used in the project, only those presented in the paper?

Results

The result section is well described and explained.

Discussion

5. Although the findings are interesting, and they do confirm the hypothesis I am not exactly sure how the current paper adds to what we already know. Therefore, it would be nice to introduce a short paragraph, which resumes the unique contributions of the study.

8. The writing is sometimes problematic and hard to understand and the flow a bit choppy. Therefore, I would recommend a thorough spell and grammar check of the entire paper.

12. In general, I think especially the discussion currently does not do a good job at all in highlighting the unique contributions of the paper.

Reviewer #2: The present research is devoted to analyze how mass gathering events linked to the “Falles” festival in Borriana are related to COVID-19 incidence, while also examining a number of relevant risk factors. The results highlight the importance of these mass gathering events in explaining COVID-19 incidence.

Although the article stated in the discussion section that studies estimating COVID-19 risk factors are limited, a broad range of them can be observed in the literature.

Overall, limitations of this research relate to the lack of a solid structure in the introduction section. This section only makes a brief reference to the general aim of this research.

Clear theoretical foundations and literature review closely related to topic under study are needed.

Description of MGEs during “Falles” festival in Borriana should be covered in further detail (as a complement, the creation of a summary table might be considered).

It is stated that the study was conducted from 14th May to 31st, June 2020, and that it comprises two phases. However, later on is mentioned that the fir phase started on April. In addition, at the same page it is stated that the study period ranged from January to June 2020. A more detailed, comprehensible, and homogenous description of the study’s design should be provided.

2.3% of participants were between the age range 0-4, and 14.2% between 5 and 14 (under legal minimum age in Spain). Could these participants adequately fill out the questionnaire survey? What procedure was followed? How certain sociodemographic variables (e.g., social class) were calculated on the basis of the abovementioned fact?

These aspects must be addressed as there is a considerable number of participants under 5 and 14 years old, thereby reflecting the need to provide more detailed description on procedure and methodological aspects.

Did the authors collect participants’ educational level? It should have been included as a control variable in the light of its connections with COVID-19 social behavior.

The inclusion of each potential risk factor (confounding factors) should be previously explained/justified.

The section Analysis of COVID-19 outbreak and MGEs should be divided in to “smaller” sections so as to facilitate a clear picture of the current results.

The discussion section should be addressed considering prior comments.

Certain grammatical and reading errors are still observed. This version must be proofread and edited by a native English-speaking expert.

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Anna Wlodarczyk

Reviewer #2: No

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“MASS GATHERING EVENTS AND COVID-19 TRANSMISSION IN BORRIANA (SPAIN): A RETROSPECTIVE COHORT STUDY.”

PONE-D-21-04796R1

Dear Dr. Arnedo-Pena,

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,

Simone Lolli

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

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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

**********

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

Reviewer #1: 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

**********

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

**********

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: (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 #1: Yes: Anna Wlodarczyk