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PONE-D-21-19497An Adaptive, Asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 Workforce Screening Program Providing Real-Time, Actionable Monitoring of the COVID-19 Pandemic.PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Hijano,

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PLOS ONE

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“SSC, PGT, and RJW are partially supported by the National Institutes of Health, under CEIRS contract no. HHSN272201400006C, SSC under CIVIC contract no.75N93019C00052 and PGT under R01 AI121832. The described work was partially supported by the American Lebanese Syrian Associated Charities (ALSAC).”

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7. One of the noted authors is a group or consortium [L Kercher TP Fabrizio J Franks P Freiden B Sharp, RC Mettelman A Springer M Mori SR Dennis Y Sun Y Su V Rajagopal J Massey PE Mead MP Gann Z Gu J Brazelton de Cardenas B Mathieson K Lahmon S Suganda]. In addition to naming the author group, please list the individual authors and affiliations within this group in the acknowledgments section of your manuscript. Please also indicate clearly a lead author for this group along with a contact email address.

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Additional Editor Comments:

I am sorry for the delay response of your paper due to the absence of an your assigning editor. Do the revision quickly please.

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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: 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: An Adaptive, Asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 Workforce Screening Program

Editorial comments

• Lines 65-66: Local and regional containment strategies are important to allow safe reopening of the country [10]. Which country? Or do you mean countries?

• Line 66: …. …regional containment strategies are important to allow safe reopening of the country [10]. Line 66: SARCoV-2 has been described in fully vaccinated individuals. There is a jump from one idea to the next. There is a need for connector between these two sentences.

• Line 70: SARS-CoV-2 PCR-based.

• Line 71: turnaround times aimed at asymptomatic

• Line 154: ….CoV 2 PCR testp positive….

• Line 164: “One in two”, may be half?

General comments

• According to Line 7, the aim of this paper is to “describe a sustained and adaptable SARS-CoV-2 PCR based testing program with rapid turnaround aimed at asymptomatic workforce members, as part of a multilayered institutional COVID-19 mitigation strategy at a pediatric specialty hospital that treats immunocompromised patients”. This is not a sufficient aim for a paper. For the paper to be impactful, it should not only describe but also critically assess or analyze the program.

• The methods section, as currently presented, does not describe the methods used in the paper or study. Rather, the section describes the Asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 Workforce Screening Program as part of a wider Covid-19 management program. Therefore, the section should correctly be given the heading Program description. On the contrary, the results section presents various statistical measures as part of the evaluation of the program. The methods used in the calculation of the statistical parameters and the overall analysis or evaluation of the program should be presented in the methods section. How were asymptomatic workers identified, how were vaccinated employees identified? How was sequencing conducted? How was follow-up conducted?

• The paper has some time-to-event data in form of “median time from second vaccine dose to positive SARS CoV-2 PCR test. How was this assessed? Was a survival analysis conducted

• Why are demographic data only provided for vaccinated employees?

• Is it possible to tabulate some of the information provided in the results section?

• In the results section, vaccination results are presented by name or type of vaccine. Is it not necessary to discuss the results by type of vaccine.

Reviewer #2: This is excellent paper. I read it with great interest and I have no further comments.

#1. Update your paper's reference on the latest date.

#2. Please discuss about the vaccination program (booster or and so on) breifly.

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Wells Utembe

Reviewer #2: No

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Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: An Adaptive, Asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 Workforce Screening Program.docx

An Adaptive, Asymptomatic SARS-CoV-2 Workforce Screening Program Providing Real-Time, Actionable Monitoring of the COVID-19 Pandemic.

PONE-D-21-19497R1

Dear Dr. Hijano,

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,

Dong Keon Yon, MD, FACAAI

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Congratulation on your mesmerizing paper.

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

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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

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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

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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: The paper can now be accepted as the authors have restructured the paper and addressed all my concerns.

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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