COVID-19 Severity among Healthcare Workers: Overweight Male Physicians at Risk

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

The topic is great, but work done is inadequate.

Intro is 7.3 lines, conclusion is 2.85 lines and abstract is 10 lines.

It is good health care workers from 2 hospitals are combined and studied. But for what purpose? how does it compare with normal public?

there is a lot more to be done and throughly with the available info.

The authors can compare HCW males with normal males, HCW females with normal females, and so one for each category and also indicate what is the purpose of this study-other than publishing it.

the results and findings should be/must be used for something-correct?

The intro should elaborate giving all numbers, stats, as how much for normal and how much for HCW-as reported by other researchers, and etc.

 

need more work-both quantitatively and qualitatively and with high/rich/scholar technical content.

Author Response

Comments and Suggestions for Reviewer I

Comment I:

• It is good health care workers from 2 hospitals are combined and studied. But for what purpose?
• How does it compare with normal public?

Response I:

• The study was conducted in two hospitals (one private and one university hospital), which are parts of the VKV Koc Healthcare Foundation and and similar infection control measures were implemented during the COVİD-19 pandemic.
• By this study, we aimed to describe the severity level of the SARS-CoV-2 infection among HCWs, compare the risk factors defined for the community.

Comment II:

• The authors can compare HCW males with normal males, HCW females with normal females, and so one for each category and also indicate what is the purpose of this study-other than publishing it.

Response II:

• The case fatality rate in our study was 0%. The proportion of the severe or moderate patients in our study was %15, however in community level it was between 19 % and 69 %. The fatality rate is higher among males than females (13% vs 10%) among the hospitalized patients[1].

Comment III:

• The intro should elaborate giving all numbers, stats, as how much for normal and how much for HCW-as reported by other researchers, and etc.

Response III:

• Thank you for the comment, we re-wrote the introduction. We improved the section about the importance of severity level of the clinical course of HCWs.

Reviewer 2 Report

The paper is concise and it is good. However, the English editing is bad. Ask professional copywriting to revise your text. The paper's introduction is too short. Give your readers an extensive review of what has been published before. 

n Introduction should contain the following three parts: (1) Background: Authors have to clarify the context. Ideally, the authors should give an idea of the state-of-the-art the report is about. (2) The Problem: If there were no problem, there would be no reason for writing this manuscript and no reason for reading it. Explain to the readers why they should proceed reading this paper. (3) The proposed solution: authors must outline the manuscript's contribution, i.e., the authors have to make sure what are the novel aspects of this paper. Authors should place the paper in proper context by citing relevant papers. Add some references from this journal related to this work's topic.

Results and discussion section: The presentation of results should be simple and straightforward in style. You should improve your analysis and present the comparisons between your approach's performance and other research if any. If it is not possible to make a comparison, explain why. A figure should contain a self-explanation that clarifies its meaning on its own. Add a subsection that clarifies the most important findings, including results of statistical analyses, whenever appropriate. It is important to emphasize that your manuscript has a significant value and it is not trivial. I suggest adding the data publicly available. By doing so, other researchers can assess the paper's statistics and take their own conclusion. In summary, the paper has potential. But it requires extensive editing.

Author Response

Comments and Suggestions for Reviewer II

Comment I: The paper is concise, and it is good. However, the English editing is bad. Ask professional copywriting to revise your text.

ResponseI: English was revised

Comment II: The paper's introduction is too short. Give your readers an extensive review of what has been published before. Introduction should contain the following three parts: (1) Background: Authors have to clarify the context. Ideally, the authors should give an idea of the state-of-the-art the report is about. (2) The Problem: If there were no problem, there would be no reason for writing this manuscript and no reason for reading it. Explain to the readers why they should proceed reading this paper. (3) The proposed solution: authors must outline the manuscript's contribution, i.e., the authors have to make sure what are the novel aspects of this paper. Authors should place the paper in proper context by citing relevant papers. Add some references from this journal related to this work's topic.

Response II: Thank you for your comment, we have revised and organized the introduction according to your advises. 

Comment III: Results and discussion section: The presentation of results should be simple and straightforward in style. You should improve your analysis and present the comparisons between your approach's performance and other research if any. If it is not possible to make a comparison, explain why. A figure should contain a self-explanation that clarifies its meaning on its own. Add a subsection that clarifies the most important findings, including results of statistical analyses, whenever appropriate. It is important to emphasize that your manuscript has a significant value and it is not trivial. I suggest adding the data publicly available. By doing so, other researchers can assess the paper's statistics and take their own conclusion. In summary, the paper has potential. But it requires extensive editing.

Response III: We revised the discussion section. We re-organized the discussion, compared our results with published reports, added limitations and strengths, and highlighted our findings.

Reference:

1. Nguyen, N. T., J. Chinn, M. De Ferrante, K. A. Kirby, S. F. Hohmann and A. Amin. "Male gender is a predictor of higher mortality in hospitalized adults with covid-19." PLoS One 16 (2021): e0254066. 10.1371/journal.pone.0254066. https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34242273.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Good work

Reviewer 2 Report

This reviewer suggests the paper's acceptance.