Increased mask adherence after important politician infected with COVID-19

Deborah A. Cohen; Meghan Talarowski; Olaitan Awomolo; Bing Han; Stephanie Williamson; Thomas L. McKenzie

doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0261398

Peer Review History

Original SubmissionDecember 9, 2020
7 Jul 2021 Decision Letter - Kingston Rajiah, Editor PONE-D-20-38624 Increased Mask Adherence after President Trump Infected with COVID-19 PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Cohen, 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. Your manuscript has undergone the peer-review process and the reviewers have provided their comments/suggestions. Kindly address these points/concerns before we make a decision. Please submit your revised manuscript by Aug 21 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. 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Please see our Supporting Information guidelines for more information: http://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/supporting-information. [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 Reviewer #2: Partly Reviewer #3: Partly ******** 2. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #1: Yes Reviewer #2: I Don't Know Reviewer #3: 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 Reviewer #2: Yes Reviewer #3: 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 Reviewer #2: Yes Reviewer #3: 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: The article presents a relevant and innovative theme. Some small adjustments must be made, they are: - Improve the introduction, putting an international panorama on the theme (how is the relation of the use of masks in other countries)? - Improve at the end of the discussion, what are the limitations of the study. - Create a paragraph at the end of the discussion with the practical / clinical implications of your study. - Improve completion by detailing in a topic. Reviewer #2: I am pleased to share my comment, for the article entitled: Increased Mask Adherence after President Trump Infected with COVID-19 Use the word leader or politicians instead of the names of people in the title. The necessity and importance of the study is not properly explained. Why Philadelphia was studied What is the importance of the study results? Who will benefit from the research results? In the introduction, use more studies and explain the importance of study. The method part should be described step by step and in more detail. How was the correct use of the mask by people examined? Did people know they were being watched by the research team? People are constantly moving and reorienting, how did you measure the appropriate social distance? 30 locations, why only parks, playgrounds and shopping streets? Are restaurants, passages (shopping malls) and entertainment centers less important? How can you verify the accuracy of your observations? How many days were the survey days? How many hours were observed each day? Were the weather conditions different between the review days and the days before? Mention study limitations? Conclusions should be based on the findings of the study. What are the benefits of the study for the health system? In the discussion section: in addition to describing the study and its important findings, Compare the findings with other studies and describe the solutions and challenges in this context Reviewer #3: Title: appropriate Abstract: appropriate and adequate Introduction: Authors have indicated the justification to do the study. Methodology: It was not stated the number of adequate sample size for this research. The justification in choosing the location to be observed was not clearly expelled in the methodology. The characteristics of observers in the study were not clearly stated and various background may promotes bias that may affect the findings of the study. It must be addressed as limitation if there is. The SOMAD protocol showing that authors made attempt in standardising the research tool and data collection. Results: appropriate Discussion: the limitation of the study ie potential bias, limitation on generalisation of the findings were not discussed. ****** 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:** Mateus A. Reviewer #2: No Reviewer #3: 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. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261398.r001
Revision 1
17 Nov 2021 Author Response We revised the cover letter to include the funding statement. (RAND is not a commercial company but a non-profit research institute.) Reviewer #1: The article presents a relevant and innovative theme. Some small adjustments must be made, they are: - Improve the introduction, putting an international panorama on the theme (how is the relation of the use of masks in other countries)? We added Brazil as a country where mask adherence has been politicized. - Improve at the end of the discussion, what are the limitations of the study. We added additional limitations. - Create a paragraph at the end of the discussion with the practical / clinical implications of your study. We added this. - Improve completion by detailing in a topic. Not sure what this means, but hope we provided sufficient detail. Reviewer #2: I am pleased to share my comment, for the article entitled: Increased Mask Adherence after President Trump Infected with COVID-19 Use the word leader or politicians instead of the names of people in the title. We changed to world leader. The necessity and importance of the study is not properly explained. The importance is due to prevention of spread of a deadly virus. Mask adherence is critical. Countries that have higher adherence have lower case rates. Why Philadelphia was studied. This was a matter of convenience, it is where our staff was located. We had instituted surveillance prior to President Trumps Covid-19 infection. What is the importance of the study results? The findings demonstrate the importance of messaging and media. People paid more attention when President Trump was infected than to health department warnings. Possibly giving examples and making the consequences more real maybe more effective. Who will benefit from the research results? Leaders, public health professionals and health care providers who want to increase adherence to public health guidance. In the introduction, use more studies and explain the importance of study. We added information on the importance of our study, but there are no similar studies that have used direct observation to monitor mask adherence. The method part should be described step by step and in more detail. We expanded. How was the correct use of the mask by people examined? By observation. Correct use was defined as covering both mouth and nose. Did people know they were being watched by the research team? This is unknown. We had no interaction with those being observed. People are constantly moving and reorienting, how did you measure the appropriate social distance? This was a visual estimate. 30 locations, why only parks, playgrounds and shopping streets? Are restaurants, passages (shopping malls) and entertainment centers less important? We stuck to outdoor locations for safety of the data collectors. How can you verify the accuracy of your observations? We conducted reliability testing. The results have been published and these are now referenced. How many days were the survey days? How many hours were observed each day? Each site was observed for one hour on the day and time of day over time. Were the weather conditions different between the review days and the days before? Yes, weather follows the seasons and the summer is typically warmer than the fall. Mention study limitations? We added some more limitations. Conclusions should be based on the findings of the study. We agree What are the benefits of the study for the health system? We added a paragraph on the implications. In the discussion section: in addition to describing the study and its important findings, Compare the findings with other studies and describe the solutions and challenges in this context. We are not aware of other published studies that have conducted serial observations of mask adherence. Nevertheless, there are multiple other studies employing direct observation that successfully document behavioral trends. Reviewer #3: Title: appropriate Abstract: appropriate and adequate Introduction: Authors have indicated the justification to do the study. Methodology: It was not stated the number of adequate sample size for this research. The justification in choosing the location to be observed was not clearly expelled in the methodology. The characteristics of observers in the study were not clearly stated and various background may promotes bias that may affect the findings of the study. It must be addressed as limitation if there is. Because this is an innovative study there were no prior data informing sample size calculations. Our sample size was based on three considerations. First, the number of observation locations was similar to our previous studies of direct observations of human physical activity behavior in built environment. In many of our past studies, we usually selected anywhere between 6 to 50 sites (e.g., neighborhood parks, recreation centers), in a city for direct observations. Second, the number of observed subjects needs to be sufficient to draw inference for the outcome of interest. Since our outcome is a binary random variable in this paper, a total of 1000 or more subjects yielded sufficient power under the regular power setting of 2-sided p<.05 and power>.8 and for a small to medium effect size. As shown in Table 2, in retrospect we did have sufficient statistical power to declare significance for many substantive predictors. Third, the sample size was also constrained by the available manpower we could deploy during the critical study period. We were not able to further increase the number of locations given the available and trained observers. We added this to the limitations. The SOMAD protocol showing that authors made attempt in standardising the research tool and data collection. Results: appropriate Discussion: the limitation of the study ie potential bias, limitation on generalisation of the findings were not discussed. We expanded the discussion of limitations. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: response to reviewers.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261398.r002
22 Nov 2021 Decision Letter - Kingston Rajiah, Editor PONE-D-20-38624R1Increased Mask Adherence after World Leader Infected with COVID-19PLOS ONE Dear Dr. Cohen, 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 reviewer has suggested minor revision. Kindly address the comments ============================== Please submit your revised manuscript by Jan 06 2022 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: A rebuttal letter that responds to each point raised by the academic editor and reviewer(s). You should upload this letter as a separate file labeled 'Response to Reviewers'. A marked-up copy of your manuscript that highlights changes made to the original version. You should upload this as a separate file labeled 'Revised Manuscript with Track Changes'. An unmarked version of your revised paper without tracked changes. You should upload this as a separate file labeled '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: https://journals.plos.org/plosone/s/submission-guidelines#loc-laboratory-protocols. Additionally, PLOS ONE offers an option for publishing peer-reviewed Lab Protocol articles, which describe protocols hosted on protocols.io. Read more information on sharing protocols at https://plos.org/protocols?utm_medium=editorial-email&utm_source=authorletters&utm_campaign=protocols. We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript. Kind regards, Kingston Rajiah 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 #2: 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 #2: Yes ****** 3. Has the statistical analysis been performed appropriately and rigorously? Reviewer #2: 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 #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 #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 #2: The title of the study will become more general by changing the form below: Increased Mask Adherence after Important politicians Infected with COVID-19 Other corrections appear to have been made. ****** 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 [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. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261398.r003
Revision 2
26 Nov 2021 Author Response I changed the title as suggested. Attachments Attachment Submitted filename: Response to reviewersPO.docx https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261398.r004
2 Dec 2021 Decision Letter - Kingston Rajiah, Editor Increased Mask Adherence after Important Pollitician Infected with COVID-19 PONE-D-20-38624R2 Dear Dr. Cohen, 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, Kingston Rajiah Academic Editor PLOS ONE Additional Editor Comments (optional): Reviewers' comments: https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261398.r005
Formally Accepted
20 Dec 2021 Acceptance Letter - Kingston Rajiah, Editor PONE-D-20-38624R2 Increased Mask Adherence after Important Politician Infected with COVID-19 Dear Dr. Cohen: 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. Kingston Rajiah Academic Editor PLOS ONE https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0261398.r006

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