PONE-D-21-33926Rapid screening for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infection with a combined point-of-care antigen test and an immunoglobulin G antibody testPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Mori, 

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. Both reviewers have commented on your statistical analysis. You need to explain your data and also to provide a justification for the used test in each graph. Maybe you can do that in the Legend to Figures. 

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Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Reviewers' comments:

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Comments to the Author

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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: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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5. Review Comments to the Author

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Reviewer #1: In the study design section:

1- You mentioned the history of admitted patients from April 2019 – March 2020. However, the study period is a year later. Updating this information to include the studied period would help in better reflecting the prevalence of COVID19 positive cases.

2- Please add why you chose these two particular tests and more details, example; detect antibodies against which protein and the detection limit.

In the statistical analysis section:

3- You mentioned that you performed the analysis using other cutoff values then identified by the kits, please elaborate why these particular values were selected.

In the result section:

4- Line115: Add the total number and percentage of COVID-19 cases in text.

5- Line 126: Mention that percentage was calculated from total number of tested cases.

6- Line 141 you stated that only 4 tested positive on both rapid tests which doesn’t align with your data. In Line 169-175 as well as in line 210-211 you mentioned that these four cases were negative. Please correct the information.

In the discussion section:

7- Line 199-200; you could include more details about the synthesis time of each of the antibodies.

8- Line 233: state the actual accuracy of RT-PCR in this context.

In the references section

9- There are two set of references! Please revise and combine them.

Reviewer #2: The manuscript described the performance of combined rapid antigen and antibody test. The results showed an improved diagnostic accuracy, with 92.9% sensitivity, 98.0% specificity. These data can be useful to clarify the role and the potential utility of the combination of rapid antigen and antibody tests that could be an alternative to RT-PCR testing. The manuscript is well written.

However, the paper needs some minor revision before being published.

The authors should indicate which statistical test used when they made the comparison of the number of days after symptom onset for rapid antigen testing and IgG antibody testing. The authors report only the significances with a p equal to 0.0001. They also report the mean and standard deviation values, where sometimes the standard deviation is higher than the mean. Perhaps they need to check the distribution of the data and choose the most appropriate statistical test.

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Fatiha Benslimane

Reviewer #2: No

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Rapid screening for severe acute respiratory syndrome coronavirus 2 infection with a combined point-of-care antigen test and an immunoglobulin G antibody test

PONE-D-21-33926R1

Dear Dr. Mori,

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,

Gheyath K. Nasrallah

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments: