Understanding Factors to COVID-19 Vaccine Adoption in Gujarat, India
Round 2
Reviewer 1 Report
In the revised version, the manuscript has improved in readability and overall quality.
Thank you for addressing my comments.
Reviewer 2 Report
The authors of this manuscript have addressed all the comments and concerns raised during the review process.
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
In this interesting manuscript, the authors aimed to to evaluate the perceptions of Gujarati residents on vaccination and propose strategies from a social marketing lens to help the government of India effectively reduce the skepticism concerning the vaccines among the mass and increase the uptake of COVID-19 vaccine shots.
This is an important topic as there COVID-19 vaccination around the world has been one of the most important topics since early 2021 and achieving high vaccination coverage rates everywhere is a key factor to finally win the battle against the pandemic.
Some comments are made below:
- the introduction is a tad confusing, as it jumps from one theme to another and from a general perspective to a particular perspective (and vice versa) without linking things up. I suggest reorganising it using this topic-flow:
- Vaccine hesitancy (definitions and contextualisation) and factors that influence it
- data on COVID-19 vaccination and vaccine hesitancy in India and specifically in Gujarat. Here, I would also say something more specific about he vaccination campaign in India. You correctly mentioned that frontline workers were the first who could get vaccinated. Was it mandatory, otherwise they would be suspended? Or not? And what about the rest of the population?
- One clear paragraph on the study aims
- The method section is well written but lacks of details on how you analysed the interviews. E.g. you may specify how you decided to organise themes and sub-themes and why. You may also specify what (and why) you decided to represent certain results in tables and figures.
- The results section is well described and organised
- Paragraph 4 is interesting, my main concern is the absence of continental European countries in your comparison. I think it would be interesting to have one or two European countries in which the same issues were addressed (e.g. factors influencing COVID-19 vaccine hesitancy and specifically mentioning the importance of religion, trust in institutions and governments, etc.), to compare to your results.
Author Response
See attached file.
Reviewer 2 Report
In the manuscript by Tolia et al, the authors present data collected from interviews conducted on different people from Gujarat, India. The manuscript is very well written with few typos and lack of punctuation in some sentences. The authors provide a great introduction on the vaccination programs established in India and highlight vaccine hesitancy in rural towns. However, the authors do not explain why out of all the rural or small towns in India, Gujarat was chosen to do this research. In many sections of the manuscript the authors lack to relate to the specific situation in Gujarat. For instance, nothing is mentioned regarding the presence of ayurvedic dispensaries and vaccine hesitancy. It is possible that when comparing to the rest of India or other parts of the world, the practice of such health care system may have a significance impact on the fear of vaccination. The population size is too small (44) for such a large population of almost 70 million. The authors also did not disclose the specific questions that were asked during these interviews.
The authors also provide a pollyannish statement regarding the government efforts to increase uptake of vaccines in India. Eradication of the SARS-CoV2 is hard to predict at this stage. Only one virus that infects humans has been eradicated from the earth (i.e., smallpox). Vaccination efforts are targeted to contain the spread and prevent severe disease. The practical implications to reduce vaccine hesitancy proposed by this study are contingent to the use of internet, social media and funds that may not be feasible for this region in India.
Author Response
See attached file.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.docx
