PONE-D-21-40289Risk perception, community myth, and practices towards COVID-19 pandemic in Southeast Ethiopia: Community based crossectional studyPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Aliyi,

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Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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Additional Editor Comments:

This study aims to assess risk perception, community myths, and preventive practice towards COVID-19 in Ethiopia, 2020.

A community-based cross-sectional study was conducted among 854 participants selected using a multistage sampling technique.

From 854 respondents included in this study, 428 (50.1%) have a wrong tale about COVID-19, and 366 (42.9%) have poor practice, respectively. Thus, the study lays out high-risk perceptions, false community myths, and relatively low utilization of available methods towards COVID-19 and their associated factors.

1. On time, I evaluate it is good to investigate the awareness level of the country, in informing the international community that has a wrong tale about COVID-19.

2. Please supplement the discussion further to reinforce the direction of improvement for health promotion against problems of COVID-19 in Ethiopia.

See also the following paper:

In Kim, J., Kim, G. & Choi, Y. Effects of air pollution on children from a socioecological perspective. BMC Pediatr 19, 442 (2019). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12887-019-1815-x

Kim, J.I., Kim, G. Effects on inequality in life expectancy from a social ecology perspective. BMC Public Health 18, 243 (2018). https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-018-5134-1

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PONE-D-21-40289R1Risk perception, community myth, and practices towards COVID-19 pandemic in Southeast Ethiopia: Community based crossectional studyPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Aliyi,

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.

Please submit your revised manuscript by May 07 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,

Jong In Kim

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.

Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

Please supplement the discussion further to reinforce the direction of improvement for health promotion against problems of COVID-19 in Ethiopia.

[Note: HTML markup is below. Please do not edit.]

Reviewers' comments:

[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.

PONE-D-21-40289R2Risk perception, community myth, and practices towards COVID-19 pandemic in Southeast Ethiopia: Community based crossectional studyPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Aliyi

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.

 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,

Soham Bandyopadhyay

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.

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: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: (No Response)

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: I Don't Know

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

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6. Review Comments to the Author

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Reviewer #1: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: The manuscript adds useful information about the risk perception, community myth, and practices towards COVID-19 pandemic in the Africa setting. I have the following specific comments for the authors' consideration:

a. The introduction section of the manuscript needs revision with emphasis on style of English. Some of the sentences are not written in standard English.

b. Line 51 - replace “.” and “And” with ","

c. Line 67 - replace "can transmit" with “can also be transmitted”

d. Line 200 - remove “shows”, include "N" and remove "female" from table 1

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Mohammedaman Mama Hussen

Reviewer #2: Yes: Ms. Catherine Okoi

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Risk perception, community myth, and practices towards COVID-19 pandemic in Southeast Ethiopia: Community based crossectional study

PONE-D-21-40289R3

Dear Dr.  Aliyi

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.

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Kind regards,

Soham Bandyopadhyay

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE