COVID-19 Mortality in Patients with a Ward-Based Ceiling of Care

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Good job, I suggest you improve your discussion by citing some of these articles: 

• Autopsy findings in COVID-19-related deaths: a literature review

• Risk Management and Treatment of Coagulation Disorders Related to COVID-19 Infection

• Management of the corpse with suspect, probable or confirmed COVID-19 respiratory infection – Italian interim recommendations for personnel potentially exposed to material from corpses, including body fluids, in morgue structures and during autopsy practice

• COVID-19 Risk Management and Screening in the Penitentiary Facilities of the Salerno Province in Southern Italy

there is a too much space between line 111 and 112.

Author Response

Dear Reviewers,

Thank you for your feedback on our manuscript titled COVID-19 mortality in patients with a ward-based ceiling of care, which was submitted to Stresses. We are grateful for your insightful comments and have been able to incorporate changes to reflect most of your suggestions. We have highlighted these within the manuscript. Here is a point-by-point response to your suggestions.

Reviewer 1

‘I suggest you improve your discussion by citing some of these articles: 

• Autopsy findings in COVID-19-related deaths: a literature review
• Risk Management and Treatment of Coagulation Disorders Related to COVID-19 Infection
• Management of the corpse with suspect, probable or confirmed COVID-19 respiratory infection – Italian interim recommendations for personnel potentially exposed to material from corpses, including body fluids, in morgue structures and during autopsy practice
• COVID-19 Risk Management and Screening in the Penitentiary Facilities of the Salerno Province in Southern Italy.’

Response:

We found all of these articles interesting, thank you for your suggestion. We felt that the addition of information from the first and second articles helped our discussion (lines 136-138 and 147-150, respectively). We did not feel that the addition of information from the third and fourth articles would be beneficial, particularly due to the shortened format of a brief report, as they did not directly relate to the study findings.

Reviewer 2 Report

The manuscript is well structured, covering very common topics but specifically addressed in characterizing a population not amenable to organ support. Therefore, the results presented are very interesting in assessing the association of independent factors with the number of deaths. 
In listing the results I would like attention to line 30 where I would better specify whether the number 55 is the number of deaths or the median age of deaths. 
I would recommend that you consider reading and citing the following articles:
PMID: 32986136
PMID: 33498701

With the appropriate proposed changes and a more detailed review of the vocabulary used, I consider the article publishable in the journal in question. 

Author Response

Reviewer  2

‘In listing the results I would like attention to line 30 where I would better specify whether the number 55 is the number of deaths or the median age of deaths.’ 

Response:

Thank you for bringing attention to this, we have reworded this sentence.

‘I would recommend that you consider reading and citing the following articles:
PMID: 32986136
PMID: 33498701’

Response:

We found both of these articles interesting, thank you for your suggestion. We felt that the addition of information from the first article helped our discussion (lines 147-150). Given the shortened format and that our article did not directly relate to Multidrug-Resistant (MDR) Bacterial Infections, we did not include information from the second article.

In addition to the above comments, your suggestions regarding grammatical and formatting errors have been acted upon. We hope you agree with our changes and look forwards to hearing from you in due time.

Yours sincerely,

Dr Matthew Ingram

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.