PONE-D-20-23334

The good, the bad and the ugly of lockdowns during Covid-19

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Tamanna Adhikari,

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PLOS ONE

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Additional Editor Comments (if provided):

Dear Authors, follow reviewer suggestion you can improve your 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: No

Reviewer #2: Yes

Reviewer #3: Yes

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

Reviewer #1: I Don't Know

Reviewer #2: I Don't Know

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: No

Reviewer #2: No

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: No

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 giving me the opportunity to review your paper.

The paper attempted to validate the data source by comparing the gross national happiness index to other country circumstances. However, the happiness for a population can't measured by such a method! it should be based on scientific background.

The manuscript is mixed in most the sections. As the result should stands alone then the discussion comes to explain the results and link it with the earlier literature. Also, discussing the strengths or defending the limitation should lie under the discussion section not before.

Reviewer #2: This is a very interesting article covering an often overlooked factor in society - happiness. Using Twitter activity as a proxy, it seeks to assess the impact of the prevailing covid-19 pandemic lockdowns on happiness of the general population in a nation with pre-existing societal well-being challenges. It is thus both timely and pioneering in its approach as well as meet for the moment and useful for guiding public policy.

Further, the authors employ a unique dataset and did well in providing explanations for their analytic decisions. These would help inform the interpretations by the readers, post-publication, and add to the analysis pool in general.

1) Major Comments

a) The paper would be enriched if the graph visualising the 'inverted U-shape relationship' were added as this would provide some clarity about the variables on the axes. Moreover, the authors should comment on whether there might be other factors at play in/confounders to this relationship between happiness and COVID-19 deaths? The duration of the lockdown presumably aligns with the rising number of deaths and could perhaps impact happiness.

b) Figures should be placed properly in the body of the manuscript and not at the end.

c) Please include the units (e.g. New Daily Deaths per million) for each variable in Table 1.

d) When reporting results, could the authors please indicate the relevant p-values in the text and not just in the tables?

e) Could the authors please indicate the particular (qualitative) methodology adopted for the analysis of Tweets mentioned where the paper states "On analysing the contents of the tweets, we find the following. South Africans are wary...". Please state how many tweets were assessed and also clarify if it was the research team itself that did this analysis.

f) In saying "Also, people in the suburbs seem to be more colloquial [Should this read 'convivial'?], with strangers greeting one another.", could the authors mention if the strangers were meeting in person outside their homes during the lockdown or online?

g) Could the authors please include some limitations to the study at an appropriate position/in the conclusion section.

2) Minor Comments

a) In the introduction, the authors mention "what matters most"; a brief clarification of what it is that matters most would be helpful.

b) The authors also repeatedly make mention of 'Big Data'; a sentence or two explaining what constitutes Big Data would also be useful.

c) In section 2.1, could the authors please clarify what well-being in the South African context comprises? What are the indicators/dimensions they consider besides income?

d) In the first sentence of Section 2.3 'policy' should perhaps read 'policy-makers'.

Although the authors state that 'Yes - all data are fully available without restriction' and 'Data can be provided separately' I did not find any underlying data within the manuscript or as an addendum. Perhaps this might be due to the statement 'Tick here if your circumstances are not covered by the questions above and you need the journal’s help to make your data available.; Tick here if the URLs/accession numbers/DOIs will be available only after acceptance of the manuscript for publication so that we can ensure their inclusion before publication.' The reason notwithstanding, the absence of the underlying data makes me unable to comment on it in depth. I thus limit my comments to the data contained in the manuscript.

Reviewer #3: A very novel topic, with a very sound methodological analysis. Interesting findings; but I am concerned about the suggestions to reinstate the sale of alcohol and tobacco in order to increase happiness. Not only due to their impacts on public health, but also because the reported finding about them could be due to a confounding factor with social gatherings (where these items are usually consumed). I would suggest delving deeper about this in the discussion and I encourage you to align a message about responsible consumption of these substances.

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Eman Almaghaslah MBBS MPH

Reviewer #2: No

Reviewer #3: Yes: eduardo alvarado

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The good, the bad and the ugly of lockdowns during Covid-19

PONE-D-20-23334R1

Dear Dr. Rossouw

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,

Francesco Di Gennaro

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

dear authors congratulations

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

**********

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

Reviewer #1: I Don't Know

Reviewer #2: 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 #2: 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: No

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: Thank you for considering all the comments. I read some economic styles and it is true it is different than the academic/ science-based style.

Please check for repetition, as some phrases were repeated more than two times.

Reviewer #2: Th authors have provided good responses to my comments and I do not object to the publication of the manuscript.

However, I wish to mention that the authors state that "All data has subsequently been uploaded to the correct PLOS ONE repository." They also state "ll relevant data are within the manuscript and its Supporting Information files."

As I was unable to find any special repository, again, I can only base my assessments on the data in the manuscript.

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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: Eman Almaghaslah MBBS. MPH.

Reviewer #2: No