A Time Series Forecast of COVID-19 Infections, Recoveries and Fatalities in Nigeria
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 3)
sustainability-2015330-peer-review-v1
COVID-19 Pandemic: A forecast of Infections, Recoveries and Fatalities in
Nigeria.
In this paper, author shares a study on COVID-19 pandemic describing a forecast of infections, recoveries and fatalities in Nigeria. The topic is interesting. However, the paper needs minor corrections to meet expectations of a journal. Some of my concerns are as follows:
1. In abstract, some sentences are lengthy, and are written in past tense, for example < The study investigated>. The entire abstract should be in present tense. The author is suggested to revise all lengthy sentences available in abstract as well as in entire paper.
2. Novelty not clear. A comprehensive table for literature survey should be presented by the authors to show the literature review based on their assumptions, methods, and results.
3. The title is not clear, appealing, interesting and specific. I suggest to revise the paper title to make it more concise and suitable.
4. The structure of the introduction section is not good. It should have two separate paragraphs at its end, one of which presents the contribution and explanations of this work; and the other one outlines the coming sections.
5. The results were compared with known and good methods in this field and it is not clear or proven how to obtain better results for the whole research. There is no precise or clear detail of the new research idea.
6. There is a suggestion from the reviewer, the architecture of the manuscript needs to be rearranged. Please create a separate section for literature review other than the introduction section.
7. The authors should use reference form all of the world. Covid-19 is an international problem and there are many similar studies in the world.
8. I also recommend the authors to professionally get the paper proofread, as I have noticed sentences with typos and inappropriate choice of words.
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Author Response
Comment One: This manuscript will be greatly improved by identifying the main purpose whether it is for a statistics-related or subject-matter audience since there are some formulas included.
Response to comment One: The results of the study are for policymaking, the study modelled the changes in COVID-19 infections, recoveries and fatalities of the COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria using time series techniques in order to predict the possibility of convergence soon and thus provide insights for policymaking for the benefit of the entire citizenry. The whole essence was to provide an objective means for policymakers to evaluate the COVID-19 management strategies and thus know what next to do
Comment Two: This manuscript should follow the typical format. For example, the strength and limitations should be placed in the discussion section, rather than in the conclusion
Response to Comment Two: The manuscript has been revised to follow the typical format in line with the reviewer’s suggestion
Comment Three: There are also some grammatical or format errors throughout
Response to Comment Three: Extensive proofreading and copyediting has been carried out to enhance the grammatical quality of the work
Comment Four: The data should be described clearly and/or include example data since it's not easy to follow the process/methods.
Response to Comment Four: Some useful/brief description of the data has been provided
Comment Five: The results should be formatted in a way that corresponds to the hypotheses provided from the beginning
Response to Comment Five: The results have been formatted in line with the hypotheses provided from the beginning
Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)
To investigate the COVID-19 pandemic in Nigeria and to forecast future trends, the author applied a quantitative method with a longitudinal research design on the data obtained from the NCDC. The author concluded that with the predicted infections for the last five months of the year (August-December 2020), the cases of infections would decrease within the period and provided relevant suggestions to policymakers.
I read this paper with great interest. I agree that the motivating research question is relevant and essential, but I have a few comments and questions, that I hope will help improve the manuscript, about the methodology employed in this paper.
1. First of all, the format of the manuscript needs intensive work to revise. For example, the equation in 3.1.1. Please consider aligning up these equations and using a table to show the notations of the parameters, rather than using equal signs. For the figures, please use the same font for the titles and replot them with the correct aspect ratios. Units and legends are also missing for some plots.
2. I admit that the VAR model is popular in time series prediction. I am wondering how the author addressed the omitting variables and endogenous issues, which might have a dramatic impact on the analysis results. Please discuss this in the manuscript if possible.
3. I do not see the author discussing the missing data issue in the manuscript. I am wondering if there are missing data and what method is used to handle the missing data. Because an inappropriate approach may bias the conclusion.
4. The literature review is not thorough. For example, Wang, Q. et al. (2021). A Vector Autoregression Prediction Model for COVID-19 Outbreak. arXiv preprint arXiv:2102.04843 is addressing a similar question with VAR model. Please consider discussing this paper in the literature review section.
Author Response
Reviewer # 2
Comment One: I would advise them to carefully take into consideration the point raised to them especially regarding the technical content of the manuscript,
Response to comment One: Unfortunately the reviewer was not specific. In any case the revised manuscript has make some improvements on the technical aspect
Comment Two: the organisation of the introduction and the survey. For example, the last paragraph outlining the sections of the manuscript should be in the last paragraph of the introduction.
Response to Comment Two: the introduction has been reorganized. The last paragraph has outlined the sections of the manuscript. The methodology has also been sufficiently reorganized.
Comment Three: There are too many technical issues with the paper
Response to Comment Three: Attempts have been made to reduce the technicality. In any case, this is a quantitative paper, being a forecast oriented one. There is a limit to the extent to which technicalities can be reduced.
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report (Previous Reviewer 3)
No comment
Reviewer 2 Report (New Reviewer)
No further comments. Thanks.
This manuscript is a resubmission of an earlier submission. The following is a list of the peer review reports and author responses from that submission.
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
This manuscript will be greatly improved by identifying the main purpose whether it is for a statistics-related or subject-matter audience since there are some formulas included.
This manuscript should follow the typical format. For example, the strength and limitations should be placed in the discussion section, rather than in the conclusion. There are also some grammatical or format errors throughout..
The data should be described clearly and/or include example data since it's not easy to follow the process/methods. The results should be formatted in a way that corresponds to the hypotheses provided from the beginning.
Why are several methods to be suggested and which one is optimal to use?
Reviewer 2 Report
The manuscript is well written and brings an interesting methodology with mathematical models that can even be extrapolated to other studies.
Reviewer 3 Report
sustainability-1903733-peer-review-v1
COVID-19 Pandemic: A forecast of Infections, Recoveries and Fatalities in Nigeria.
After a careful evaluation of the revised manuscript, it is difficult to recommend the very manuscript for publication in its entirety. The authors should read manuscript published in related JCR ranked journals to see how the authors have presented their work. Should in case the authors may want to submit the manuscript to other venues for publication, I would advise them to carefully take into consideration the point raised to them especially regarding the technical content of the manuscript, the organisation of the introduction and the survey. For example, the last paragraph outlining the sections of the manuscript should be in the last paragraph of the introduction. There are too many technical issues with the paper. The authors should possibly consult scholars who have published in same areas for improvement on their work.
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