PONE-D-22-28420Risk of and duration of protection from SARS-CoV-2 reinfection assessed with real-world dataPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Reynolds,

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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Cecilia Acuti Martellucci, M.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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"Aetion was funded by the National Cancer Institute to conduct this study."

  

Please state what role the funders took in the study.  If the funders had no role, please state: "The funders had no role in study design, data collection and analysis, decision to publish, or preparation of the manuscript." 

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"Shannon L. Reynolds, Carly Kabelac, and Christopher Bush are employees of and own stock in Aetion, Inc. Harvey W. Kaufman and William A. Meyer III are employees of and own stock in Quest Diagnostics. Oren Cohen and Steve Anderson are employees of and own stock in Labcorp Drug Development. Steve Anderson has received consulting fees from Luminex. Sandy Leonard is an employee of and owns stock in HealthVerity. Douglas Lowry has received royalty-related payments from NIH. Kathy Cronin, Valentina Petkov, Norman Sharpless, and Lynne Penberthy report no conflict of interests."

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Additional Editor Comments:

I believe the manuscript can be considered favourably for publication, provided that the suggestions by Reviewer 2 are addressed.

Secondly, I suggest to comment this work on the same subject, which also had a long follow-up: https://doi.org/10.3389/fpubh.2022.884121. Finally, it is advisable to provide information about the ethics clearance or its potential waiving.

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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: No

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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: Thanks very much for this very interesting and informative article. I feel that overall the paper was well written and without significant flaws. The study objectives and the methods section are clearly defined, the article is easily readable, and the topic is relevant to the readership. Limitations are adequately addressed. Conclusions are appropriate for the scope of the study.

Reviewer #2: This is an interesting retrospective study on SARS-CoV-2 reinfection risk in the general population. I have only a few minor comments.

The authors should provide some data on potential vaccination against SARS-CoV-2 that may have already been the case in the beginning of 2021. If they have no data on this, they should acknowledge this as a limitation.

Do the authors have specific data on the severity of the infections (e.g. severe COVID-19, ICU admissions etc.) and whether this differed between first infections and re-infections?

The authors used 60 days and not 90days as the minimum interval between a first positive test and a re-infection. As 90 days is the CDC recommendation to diagnose re-infections the authors should explain why they used their approach.

I would suggest including a figure showing a flow chart of the participants.

The authors should describe in more detail why their study was needed and what their findings add to the existing literature.

Page 9: “HR =0.13, 95% CI: 0.13-0.13”; is the CI for the HR correct, please check.

The authors should reference the first study on this issue from Austria (Eur J Clin Invest. 2021 Apr;51(4):e13520. doi: 10.1111/eci.13520. Epub 2021 Feb 21).

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Mumoli Nicola, Department of Internal Medicine, Magenta (MI), Italy.

Reviewer #2: No

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Risk of and duration of protection from SARS-CoV-2 reinfection assessed with real-world data

PONE-D-22-28420R1

Dear Dr. Reynolds,

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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If your institution or institutions have a press office, please notify them about your upcoming paper to help maximize its impact. If they’ll be preparing press materials, please inform our press team as soon as possible -- no later than 48 hours after receiving the formal acceptance. Your manuscript will remain under strict press embargo until 2 pm Eastern Time on the date of publication. For more information, please contact onepress@plos.org.

Kind regards,

Cecilia Acuti Martellucci, M.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

All reviewers comments were addressed and the manuscript is now 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 #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

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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: No

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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 #2: 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 revision the manuscript is worthy to be published. I feel that overall the paper was well written and without significant flaws. The study objectives and the methods section are clearly defined, the article is easily readable, and the topic is relevant to the readership. Limitations are adequately addressed. Conclusions are appropriate for the scope of the study. The paper is formally correct and it is clear its clinical relevance, and what this article should add to the body of knowledge on this topic.

Reviewer #2: The authors have addressed all my comments. I have no further criticism and congratulate the authors for their great work!

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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: Mumoli Nicola

Reviewer #2: No

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