PONE-D-22-07757CALMS: Modelling the long-term health and economic impact of Covid-19 using agent-based simulationPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Anastasia Anagnostou,

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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: 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: This paper examines the lifelong health and economic impacts of Covid-19 and assesses the impact of related government interventions. The CoronAvirus Lifelong Modelling and Simulation (CALMS) model, an agent-based model, is used. The model is demonstrated by assessing the impact of multiple layered vaccination scenarios and/or lockdown measures on health and economic outcomes for the Covid 19 pandemic in the UK (UK or England please clarify). The results, i.e. the predictions for hospitalisations, ICU admissions and deaths, are plausible. This is a well-written paper whose strength is the use of the ABM model and the different scenarios. I have only a few comments.

Specific comments

The abstract is a bit long and only one third of the abstract deals with the results (which I find the most interesting). Report a bit more the results of the five scenarios.

“The aim of this paper is to demonstrate our approach and present the long-term health and economic impact of Covid-19 in the UK.”

Please add a sentence or two (data, method etc)-

At the end of the introduction, the authors state the aim of the paper, which is to present the long-term health and economic impact of Covid-19 in the UK using an agent-based model. Please add a sentence about the contribution of the paper to the literature. Is it the first study to use ABM in this field? Is the CALMS model new? Maybe this is the contribution (it is mentioned before):

This model takes into account the impact of individual health status on disease progression and also the long-term or lifelong health impact of Covid-19 on the population.

“CALMS input parameter names and values, sources and additional information”

How sensitive are the results when the assumptions vary?. This is a crucial issue for all ABM applications.

Check formula 1: No subscripts for i and t?

The discussion section contains all the elements, a brief summary of the results, implications, limitations and future work. There is little I could suggest for improvement.

This is a great study.

Reviewer #2: Comments on “CALMS: Modelling the long-term health and economic impact of Covid-19 using agent-based simulation” (Manuscript Number: PONE-D-22-07757)

This paper develops a Covid-19 analysis system, which consider the long-term health and economic impact. The model is interesting but still has some problems that need to be explained, which are list as following:

1. Authors should explain how to set these parameters in Tab. 2

2. This model considers the economic impact of covid-19, but it only shows the impact of the disease on cost, how would the economic impacts the cure of disease?

3. The model consider intervention. Such intervention would influence the spreading of disease, so is the transmission probability variable?

4. Please consider the following related papers

[1] Chuangxia Huang, Jie Cao, Fenghua Wen, Xiaoguang Yang. Stability analysis of SIR model with distributed delay on complex networks[J]. PLOS ONE, 2016, 11(8).

[2] Huang C, Zhang H, Cao J, et al. Stability and Hopf bifurcation of a delayed prey–predator model with disease in the predator[J]. International Journal of Bifurcation and Chaos, 2019, 29(07): 1950091.

[3] Jie Cao, Fenghua Wen, H E Stanley, Xiong Wang. Multilayer financial networks and systemic importance: Evidence from China[J]. International Review of Financial Analysis, 2021: 101882.

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Martin Thomas Falk

Reviewer #2: No

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Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: Comments on.docx

CALMS: Modelling the long-term health and economic impact of Covid-19 using agent-based simulation

PONE-D-22-07757R1

Dear Dr. Anastasia Anagnostou,

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,

Wen-Wei Sung, M.D., Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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: I am satisfied with the revisions. I suggest that you mention the sensitivity analysis as future work (variations in the death rates, parameter heterogeneity etc).

Reviewer #2: The authors have revised the manuscript according to the reviewer's suggestion, and the quality of this paper is quite improved. I am happy to recommend the publication of this paper.

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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: Martin Thomas Falk

Reviewer #2: No

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