PONE-D-22-25581Both trust in, and polarization of trust in, relevant sciences have increased through the COVID-19 pandemicPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Laurence D. Hurst,

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.

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Please submit your revised manuscript by 15th December 2022. 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.

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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Srikanth Umakanthan

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Journal Requirements:

When submitting your revision, we need you to address these additional requirements.

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4. 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 If you have cited papers that have been retracted, please include the rationale for doing so in the manuscript text or remove these references and replace them with relevant current references.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 If you need to cite a retracted article, indicate the article’s retracted status in the References list and also include a citation and full reference for the retraction notice.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:

Minor revision recommended by the esteemed reviewers.

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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: Abstract: Needs to be curtailed and specific.

Introduction and discussion can be strengthened by including the following points:

1. include a sentence on origin, transmission of COVID-19 (refer and cite: doi: 10.1136/postgradmedj-2020-138234)

2. The role of government in combatting COVID-19 in comparison with the other regions (refer and cite: doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2022.844333).

3. The role of social environmental predictors of COVID-19 in general (refer and cite: doi: 10.3390/vaccines10101749)

4. The effect of vaccine hesitancy in COVID-19 and its effects in trust in science (refer and cite: doi: 10.3390/vaccines9101064)

5. The calibre of predictors in COVID-19 (refer and cite: doi: 10.1136/postgradmedj-2021-141365)

Materials and methods: Explain more in detail about the survey, the target population, inclusion and exclusion criteria, if any missed cases were included?

Statistics: divide the covariates into dependent and independent variables.

Mention if bias was generated, and if yes, how was it limited/regressed.

The importance of choosing the statistical relevance should be addressed.

Limitations and strengths need to be included in the end of discussion.

Reviewer #2: The manuscript should include more figures and illustrations.

To add more details about survey analysis.

Was the survey validated? was a pilot study done?if yes those details need to be included.

The regional comparison should be included.

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

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Both trust in, and polarization of trust in, relevant sciences have increased through the COVID-19 pandemic

PONE-D-22-25581R1

Dear Dr. Hurst,

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,

Srikanth Umakanthan

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Accept in present revised format.

Reviewers' comments: