PONE-D-23-04678Effects of inbound attendees of a mass gathering event on the COVID-19 epidemic using individual-based simulationsPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Saitoh,

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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ACADEMIC EDITOR: Kindly address the comments and suggestions of the 3 reviewers. Please ensure that your decision is justified on PLOS ONE’s publication criteria  and not, for example, on novelty or perceived impact.

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Please submit your revised manuscript by Aug 24 2023 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.

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We look forward to receiving your revised manuscript.

Kind regards,

Ian Christopher N Rocha, MD, MBA, MHSS

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

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"This work was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Numbers JP18K11541."

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Please remove any funding-related text from the manuscript and let us know how you would like to update your Funding Statement. Currently, your Funding Statement reads as follows:

"One of the authors, Masaya M. Saito was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Numbers JP18K11541."

Please include your amended statements within your cover letter; we will change the online submission form on your behalf.

3. Thank you for stating the following financial disclosure:

"One of the authors, Masaya M. Saito was supported by JSPS KAKENHI Grant Numbers JP18K11541."

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Additional Editor Comments :

Kindly address the comments of the 3 reviewers. Thank you.

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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: Partly

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: Thank you for submitting your article on the potential measures to prevent the acceleration of an outbreak of an infectious disease during mass gathering events. While your research presents important findings, I would like to request some clarification on certain points to help strengthen your work.

Could you please provide further detail on how the individual-based simulator was built and the specific assumptions used in the model?

Can you elaborate on the reasons behind the choice of the hypothetical city used in the simulation?

Were any limitations or assumptions made regarding the potential spread of the infectious disease beyond the event and the city?

While the results of your study suggest that the increase in the number of COVID-19 patients can be suppressed to a level equivalent to that if the event were not being held, can you discuss any potential challenges or limitations to implementing the suggested controls and restrictions on visitors?

Your responses to these questions will help provide a deeper understanding of your research and contribute to the broader scientific discourse.

Thank you for your attention to these points.

Reviewer #2: Review Report

Title: Effects of inbound attendees of a mass gathering event on the COVID-19 epidemic using individual-based simulations

Manuscript ID: PONE-D-23-04678.

Review Comments

� The study methos for assessing and predicting the transmission of the COVID-19, the settings and contexts and the whole means seems inappropriate with the way researches assess and predict the transmission of new respiratory pandemics E.g., mobility.

Regards,

Reviewer #3: Dear Authors,

Thank you for submitting an interesting manuscript. After thorough review, I am recommending some revisions. In this regard, kindly address the following comments and suggestions to further improve your manuscript:

1) In this paper, the authors identified that the effects of inbound attendees of a mass gathering event. The authors were also able to present and demonstrate their findings very well. I congratulate them for doing a good job.

2) A mass gathering event can be superspreading events (SSE) and it has a fairly formal definition in infectious disease epidemiology literature, first requiring an estimate of R, and then identifying events where the number of secondary infections from a single case is substantially above the average (i.e. substantially above R), a minimum threshold might be at least 2x R or 3x R. In this regard, I would like you to read on this paper and cite to further improve the introduction and discussion sections, https://doi.org/10.1080/03007995.2022.2125258

3) Additionally, the authors may also use these papers in describing and citing SSEs from other countries, such as what happened in India (the Kumbh Mela massive SSE which infected millions of people) https://doi.org/10.4269/ajtmh.21-0601 and in Thailand (the scattered SSEs during holidays) https://doi.org/10.34172/ijtmgh.2021.33

4) It is also nice to include some recommendations and to further improve the conclusion.

Thank you and best regards,

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Reviewer #1: No

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: No

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PONE-D-23-04678R1Effects of inbound attendees of a mass gathering event on the COVID-19 epidemic using individual-based simulationsPLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Saitoh,

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.

Because of the conflicting opinions of Reviewers 1 and 2, we have engaged an additional reviewer. Please address the comments by Reviewer 4, and provide a point-by-point rebuttal.

Please submit your revised manuscript by Jan 15 2025 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,

Siew Ann Cheong, Ph.D.

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.

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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

Reviewer #4: (No Response)

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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: Partly

Reviewer #4: Partly

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

Reviewer #1: Yes

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #4: No

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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 #2: Yes

Reviewer #4: 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

Reviewer #4: 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: (No Response)

Reviewer #2: Review Reports

Title :Effects of inbound attendees of a mass gathering event on the COVID-19 epidemic using

individual-based simulations

Review Comments

-The title should be in line with the scope of the study E.g. Is thar transmission , infectiousness or morbidity or what type of study?

-If WHO have scenarios approach to project the rate of transmission and possible morbidity, and If SEIRS approach is in place what new body of knowledge can a reader grasp?

-The background is slightly I can guess not actually a background of scientific paper.

- On the methods section:

-The scenario's are incomplete e.g. the second scenrio and the magnitude and probality of visiting other area E.g. Shops.

- Tge background assumption is lacking E.g. The magnitude of the pandemic and the wave at which Japan is facing at that time

-Contact and tge way they contact each other as well as the use of PPEs is missed/The whether use of PPEs

-HICs Vs infectious disease prevalence is also missed.

- Variation by other sociodemographic variabke should be also imputed e.g. indiginious Vs visitors. Probability of use of train and the ctual distance travelled in the hyoothetical city should be empahsized.

-Lacks practical considerations E.g. estimated number of population in the five hypothetical towns..etc

- The resut is too short and lacks full explanation. E.g You are expected to put at least one figure in the main documents .

-The dicussion is short and mainly focused on the limitations and recommendations of qulaitative approach .

-In general it is incomplete E.g. the author's contributions, conflict of interest is is lacking

Regards,

Reviewer #4: Dear author

Some issues have been identified in your manuscript. Please refer to the annotated details in the enclosed document.

Thank You

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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:  Nguyen Tran Minh Duc

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #4: Yes:  Norhayati Rosli

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[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.

Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: PONE-D-23-04678_R1.pdf

Effects of inbound attendees of a mass gathering event on the COVID-19 epidemic using individual-based simulations

PONE-D-23-04678R2

Dear Dr. Saitoh,

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,

Siew Ann Cheong, Ph.D.

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

Reviewers' comments: