PONE-D-22-11264Dynamic Livelihood Impacts of COVID-19 on Different Rural Households in Mountainous Areas of ChinaPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Wang,

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 paper is certainly addressing a topical issue related to the global pandemic in rural households in China. I agree with Reviewer 1 that it carries novelty, thus, has the potential to add to existing literature. However, there are numerous fundamental shortcomings the author must devote more time to. Reviewer 2 is right in pointing out that the paper overgeneralizes the research results (2 villages looked at vs. 700,000 villages in the country). It is therefore highly recommended to introduce and detail this work as a case study, adding the right methodology explanation, too. The scientifically sound and correct contextualization of the sample is crucial. Comments 4 and 5 of Reviewer 2 are also important to properly respond to. You need to expand your lit review and include many more relevant papers on rural China - this was also underscored by Reviewer 3. All other comments made by Reviewer 3 must be dealt with seriously in a major revision. In sum, I do not support to reject the paper – although it is close to it – but rather ask you to add more precious time to thoroughly review and improve the manuscript.

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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: No

Reviewer #3: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: 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

Reviewer #3: 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

Reviewer #3: 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 is technically solid, the data obtained by the authors supports the investigation and its conclusions, and thus the study exhibits novel research findings: i find it especially important to focus on those households, those individuals, who were not in the center of attention of different government policies, especially the vulnerable groups we should talk about, in order to understand the real consequences of the global pandemic and the lockdowns.

According to the given data, the authors have not previously published this study. The paper's format is logical, i would say a bit short, but the main elements were included. The studies are carried out to a high technical degree and are sufficiently detailed within the publication, demonstrating that the analysis was carried out appropriately and systematically. The authors have included all data supporting their findings in their publication in tables, along with explanations for those tables. Additionally, the conclusion is given in the appropriate manner, the evidence supports the conclusions. The research complies with all applicable ethical and research integrity standards, and the work adheres to appropriate reporting criteria and community standards for data access.

Reviewer #2: In this paper the authors seek to document the impacts of COVID on the rural economy. They claim their objective is to show that there are heterogeneous effects to the pandemic and the measures taken by the government to fulfill it. They look at the impact one year (approximately 12 Months) after the lockdown (which lasted for 2 months strictly / 4 or so months less strictly). To achieve their goal, they used a survey of 95 families in 2 villages in one county in southern China. The survey had 21 questions. The study found negative impacts … and said that on average families suffered 13% fall in income … as well as other impacts (such as higher prices).

Although this is an important topic and the paper is fairly well written, there are a number of serious issues. Here they are below:

Major Comment 1:

The sample size is a severe problem. There are three sub problems:

1a: The study is supposed to look at impacts on rural China. Unfortunately, rural China has 700,000 villages. This study went to 2 of them. This needs to be addressed. It might be a fatal flaw (we really learn nothing about anything more than 2 villages).

1b: The authors do not put their village in the context of other villages. This at least needs to be done.

1c: The authors only survey 95 households and then divide them into 4 groups. This means on average there are less than 25 sample observations per group. I again dear this undermines the convincing nature of the study.

Major Comment 2:

The authors only asked 21 questions. In a standard survey of farm households it takes an entire section of questions to get a good estimate of income. Not to mention the other issues (eg, impact on child’s education; impact on consumer prices; etc). Plus, the authors were comparing to the year before. I have high doubts about the ability of such a data set to cast clear light on the issues at hand.

Major Comment 3:

In the discussion section, the authors compare their results to other countries. This is good. However, we need to know more about the papers and comparisons. More discussion is needed.

Major Comment 4:

There are many papers on rural China that are not cited. For example, there are three papers by Dr. Huan Wang and her team from Stanford that use data from 700 villages and 7 provinces that are published in SCI and SSCI journals that are not cited. This illustrates a problem in their literature review. Have they missed other papers?

Major Comment 5:

There is no set of limitations and strengths in the paper. These are needed.

Reviewer #3: The outbreak of global COVID-19 pandemic has brought about severe negative impacts on livelihoods of the poor. Under this content, this is an interesting work. The study focuses on the impact of the global outbreak of COVID-19 on the livelihoods of vulnerable populations. The MS could provide a comprehensive livelihood appraisal on China. The study is worth being published, but there are some shortcomings.

1. Data on victims of the pandemic need to be updated at line 26-29, Page 1.

2. Introduction: add some recent studies, especially related studies of China.

3. Reasons to select the study case need to be highlighted.

4. Discussion: the spatial difference of the livelihood impacts should be emphasized. Especially, the Shanghai City has experienced 2 months lockdown. If the livelihood impacts and responses of rural households around the city were similar to these of the research.

5. Policy implication of the study should be supplemented in the last section.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

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Dynamic Livelihood Impacts of COVID-19 on Different Rural Households in Mountainous Areas of China

PONE-D-22-11264R1

Dear Dr. Wang,

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,

István Tarrósy, PhD

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

I can see that the author has dealt with the issues and critical points raised by the reviewers and made the manuscript fit for publication.

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 #3: 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 #3: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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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 #3: 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

Reviewer #3: 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: After reading the submission, the adjustments, and the requests made by the other reviewer, I am certain that the authors have responded to all of the changes. I have no further requests, I believe that the changes have made this submission acceptable - from my side. While I believe the other reviewer's point regarding the number of settlements in China is significant, it should also be noted that data from hundreds of remote villages with varying social, geographical, and climatic characteristics would not contribute to study or clarity.

Reviewer #3: The authors have addressed well with all my suggestiones. I have no other comments. It is suggested to be accepted.

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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

Reviewer #3: No

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