Antibody Titer Correlates with Omicron Infection in Vaccinated Healthcare Workers
, Riccardo Sarti 2,3, Riccardo Levi 2,3, Chiara Pozzi 3, Elena Azzolini 3, Letterio S. Politi 2,3, Alberto Mantovani 2,3,4, Riccardo Barbieri 1 and Maria Rescigno 2,3,*Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
The paper from Mollura and coworkers focuses on the correlation between antibody titer detected after mRNA-vaccination and Omicron infection rate in healthcare workers from 7 different hospitals in Italy. In this short research report, the authors tested a large cohort of subjects, identifying some statistically significant interesting correlations between population characteristics and Omicron infection. Moreover, thanks to the wide cohort studied, they were also able to define an antibody titer cut-off to identify the subject at higher risk of Omicron infection even if in the presence of a full vaccination schedule.
As the COVID-19 pandemic is still an evolving condition, in my opinion this study, highlighting that in some subjects the full vaccination schedule is not sufficient to assure a complete protection form the viral infection, is worh of publication and is of particular interest for the Italian readership, for who could represent a interesting document in fighting vaccine hesitancy and in supporting the need of a complete vaccination schedule, reduce the risk of potential new infections related to the new emerging viral variants.
Author Response
We thank the reviewer for his really rewarding comment.
Reviewer 2 Report
The introduction needs some information, regarding variant and it would be great if authors describe proper nomenclature of each variant instead of saying alpha, beta or delta. I also feel there is lack of citation in introduction, that can be improved.
In material section author only provide the name of vaccine but not enough details like how its work, whether it is mRNA vaccine or something else?
Also, some abbreviation needs more clarification for general audience such as BAU/ml? Why 33.8 was used as a threshold, could you give a proper citation for it.
The results need little bit more clarity like why younger age group is more associated with omicron and what kind of allergies have been considered during this study.
Moreover, the fold reduction by neutralising antibody needs more details and clarification.
Author Response
Please see the attachment.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
