PONE-D-21-01565

Estimating the effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions on the number of new infections with COVID-19 during the first epidemic wave

PLOS ONE

Dear Dr. Banholzer,

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PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments:

First of all I apologize for the delay in peer-review process, but even if COVID-19 studies are prioritized, the resources are still limited in terms of finding available reviewers due to the large number of manuscript submitted on this topic.

Regarding the manuscript, please note that the two reviewers came to diverging conclusions (minor revisions vs. reject). The paper originality is questioned by Reviewer #2, i.e. no significant advancement with respect to Brauner et al. study. Moreover, also some methodological aspects should be addressed. However, as recognized by Reviewer #2, the study is interesting and for this reason I reached the "Major Revision" decision. The authors should address and respond point-by-point to the reviewer issues/comments when drafting the new version.

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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

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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?

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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: Please see attached pdf. I will now add random letters to fill the required character count. sdoinev9ghureiabnaoin498nnv9p2q4meomug pr98qut qp3 9 iug89 983u qjoizn389 4u3g8imajmguieu 983 jivgzmh3pjiow 9w845w gmjeg 3p.

Reviewer #2: Review comments for the manuscript, “Estimating the effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions on the number of new infections with COVID-19 during the first epidemic wave” by Banholzer et al.

• A semi-mechanistic Bayesian hierarchical model to assess the effectiveness of seven NPIs in curtailing the number of COVID-19 cases in 20 countries using data for first wave is proposed. This is an interesting study, but in addition to the comments below, I believe that it does not provide significant advancement in the field beyond that in the study in Brauner et al. mentioned in the paper.

• No motivation on why using data for the first pandemic wave at a time when many countries have or are already experiencing second or third waves is appropriate has been provided. Hence, it is not clear how useful this study is in the current fight against the pandemic, especially since most of the measures considered in this study were relaxed or completely discontinued months ago in most of the study countries.

• Use of the phrase NPIs in this manuscript is misleading. NPIs are broadly defined to include social-distancing, lockdowns, wearing of masks in public, contact-tracing, quarantine, isolation, hand-washing, etc. I believe the seven measures in the study fall under one or two broad kinds of NPIs, e.g., social-distancing and lockdowns, especially since most of them overlap. Strangely, the manuscript is silent on how these overlaps between the selected control measures were handled or eliminated.

• The authors say, “On the one hand, the national strategies consisted of similar NPIs, which we can expect to work in a similar manner, despite cultural and organisational differences between countries.” This is not true, since not all the countries, e.g., the US, implemented the identified strategies nationally. Different states in the US implemented different strategies with different stringency levels. I also think it is not reasonable not to consider some of the countries that have been able to manage the pandemic successfully through the use of NPIs in this study.

• I am not sure I understand what is going on from Figure 2, especially since the flow branch 1 has no direction.

• It is strange that the new infections as modeled in Eq. 1 are generated only from the transmission rate, and the number of contagious subjects, but not also the uninfected. Also, introducing NPIs as in this equations leads to unidentifiability, where different inputs can lead to the same output. How was this issue handled?

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Reviewer #1: Yes: Jan M. Brauner

Reviewer #2: No

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Attachments

Attachment

Submitted filename: review Banholzer.pdf

Estimating the effects of non-pharmaceutical interventions on the number of new infections with COVID-19 during the first epidemic wave

PONE-D-21-01565R1

Dear Dr. Banholzer,

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,

Simone Lolli

Academic Editor

PLOS ONE

Additional Editor Comments (optional):

The manuscript is now ready 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

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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

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

Reviewer #1: 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

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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

**********

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: All my comments have been addressed. Congratulations to the authors for the nice paper.

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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: Jan Brauner