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All the reviewers' concerns have been correctly addressed.
[# PeerJ Staff Note - this decision was reviewed and approved by Paula Soares, a PeerJ Section Editor covering this Section #]
Still pending some modifications suggested by one of the reviewers.
[# PeerJ Staff Note: Please ensure that all review comments are addressed in a rebuttal letter and any edits or clarifications mentioned in the letter are also inserted into the revised manuscript where appropriate. It is a common mistake to address reviewer questions in the rebuttal letter but not in the revised manuscript. If a reviewer raised a question then your readers will probably have the same question so you should ensure that the manuscript can stand alone without the rebuttal letter. Directions on how to prepare a rebuttal letter can be found at: https://peerj.com/benefits/academic-rebuttal-letters/ #]
The quality of writing is clear and unambiguous.
Methods described with sufficient detail and information to replicate.
The impact and the novelty of this study is not so great, but it is interesting to compare the Rs among different cities.
The quality of writing is clear and unambiguous. The impact and the novelty of this study is not so great, but it is interesting to compare the Rs among different cities. Please add the Rt of Shenzhen city in the Abstract section (results).
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The author made some improvements in this revised manuscript, but did not specifically answer the previous questions.
Still pending some minor points to be considered in a new revised version of the text.
The writing quality of the revised manuscript has improved.
no comment
no comment
This revision is much improved after adding more background information and more references on R0. I suggest authors could provide more details (e.g.: numbers of migrant workers, the proportion of number left cities) between Shenzhen and Hangzhou.
Dear authors,
I have read the reviewers' reports and I think you manuscript could be suitable foe PeerJ. However, there are critical issues which you must address in a revised version of the text.
Best regards,
Dr Palazón-Bru
[# PeerJ Staff Note: Please ensure that all review comments are addressed in a rebuttal letter and any edits or clarifications mentioned in the letter are also inserted into the revised manuscript where appropriate. It is a common mistake to address reviewer questions in the rebuttal letter but not in the revised manuscript. If a reviewer raised a question then your readers will probably have the same question so you should ensure that the manuscript can stand alone without the rebuttal letter. Directions on how to prepare a rebuttal letter can be found at: https://peerj.com/benefits/academic-rebuttal-letters/ #]
[# PeerJ Staff Note: The review process has identified that the English language must be improved. PeerJ can provide language editing services - please contact us at editorial.support@peerj.com for pricing (be sure to provide your manuscript number and title) #]
Q1: The quality of writing needs improvement, especially for grammar and typo. The following are only examples - the full text needs such review.
a. The authors name of the first page. Change “Hengyan Liu1” to “Hengyan Liu”
b. Line 191-192. Change “…the disease is useful in 1. Determining whether there is sustained community transmission in a population and 2. evaluating whether the…” to …the disease is useful in determining whether there is sustained community transmission in a population and evaluating whether the…”
Q2:Please include a formal case definition for “import case”. It is not clear whether the definitions in Hangzhou and Shenzhen are consistent. Besides, I note that none of the authors listed are from Shenzhen. How do you know the case definition of Shenzhen?
Q3: Your introduction needs more detail. I suggest that you improve the description at this part to provide more justification for your study (specifically, you should expand upon the knowledge R).
Q4: A short explanation on the disparity of Rs between the regions in China and other countries would be useful in the Introduction or Discussion section.
The article appears to lack novelty, and most of conclusions also seem hard to draw easily from the results. I suggest that authors could amplify in the Introduction and the Discussion on the added value of this study and how it is novel for this field. Besides, I don’t clearly understand the main objective of this study. However, it is also an interesting experiment to compare Rs in different regions. I suggest that you can change this article type into a Letter and resubmit it.
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There was not a sufficient causation inference in the paper.
This article introduces us to an interesting topic. The author tried to test the hypothesis of this phenomenon with mathematical theory. But in general, there was not a sufficient causation inference in the paper. Therefore, I suggest that the author resubmit the article as a short report.
1. Line 124 to 126 .The definition of imported case was very important to the present study. The authors defined this only based on the travel history. The authors should consider the possibility that one patient was infected locally (not imported case) while he had a travel history to other provinces 14 days prior to symptoms onset. Whether the case was local or impoted should be based on the epidemiological investigation.
2. Line 201-203, 250-252. The author speculated that the low transmission intensity of COVID-19 in Shenzhen in early January was likely due to the decrease in number of local susceptibles as residents left the city during Chunyun. Was this phenomenon also occurred in other big cities such as Beijing or Shanghai? The authors should find more studies related to Chunyun to further demostrate its high influence on the transmission of COVID-19.
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