Risk Groups for SARS-CoV-2 Infection among Healthcare Workers: Community Versus Hospital Transmission

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

the manuscript authored by Fatihan Pınarlık et al. study if medical secretary and janitorial staff were under increased risk of SARS-CoV-2 infection in the pre-vaccination era. Despite the manuscript is interesting, here below I reported my comments and sugestions

-I suggest modifying the title and being more detailed. As for example including the  place or name of the hospital where  the study has been conducted.

-Introduction needs to be more precise. In detail in the first paragarpah (line 35-39). 

-Line 43-45, rephrase the sentence. 

-Methods should be better detailed. Blood drawing details? swab?

-Why authors decided not to share data? Privacy of patients is always maintained when data are shared thanks to ID code and reference numbers. Please also modify the sentence in the manuscript since that statement can be misleading to the belief in the clinical trials. 

detail? swab 

Author Response

Comment: I suggest modifying the title and being more detailed. As for example including the  place or name of the hospital where  the study has been conducted.

Response: The title was revised.

Comment: Introduction needs to be more precise. In detail in the first paragarpah (line 35-39). 

Response: Introduction was revised. The first paragraph was deleted (line 35-39).

Comment: Line 43-45, rephrase the sentence. 

Response: Line 43-45 was rephrased.

Comment: Methods should be better detailed. Blood drawing details? swab?

Response: The method was revised as:

“We screened HCWs for past SARS-CoV-2 infection via serum antibody levels using Elecsys Anti-SARS-CoV (Roche Diagnostics) kits. For detection of current infection in symptomatic HCWs, nasopharyngeal swab samples were examined for viral RNA via reverse-transcription polymerase chain reaction (RT-PCR).”

Comment: Why authors decided not to share data? Privacy of patients is always maintained when data are shared thanks to ID code and reference numbers. Please also modify the sentence in the manuscript since that statement can be misleading to the belief in the clinical trials. 

Response: We can share data, so that we revised the related section.

Reviewer 2 Report

There are some unexpected results in the paper: why medical secretaries or janitorial stuff have a higher risk of infection than doctors or nurses having a direct contact with infected patients. I cannot find an explanation for this in the paper. 

Furthermore, the authors should compare their results to those of similar studied, also from other countries. It would be interesting to see if other researchers obtained similar results.

Author Response

Comment: There are some unexpected results in the paper: why medical secretaries or janitorial stuff have a higher risk of infection than doctors or nurses having a direct contact with infected patients. I cannot find an explanation for this in the paper. 

Response: We explained our findings with the strict protection of the healthcare workers in our hospital, so that acquisition of the infection from the community is more than the acquisition from the hospital.

Comment: Furthermore, the authors should compare their results to those of similar studied, also from other countries. It would be interesting to see if other researchers obtained similar results.

Response: A similar study from a French hospital by Contejean et al. was included in the discussion and the discussion was revised. References were reordered by EndNote software program.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

Authors provided most of the corrections required from the reviewers. Now the revised version of the manuscript can be considered for a possible publication.

Author Response

Authors provided most of the corrections required from the reviewers. Now the revised version of the manuscript can be considered for a possible publication.

Reviewer 2 Report

The authors have revised the manuscript mostly according to the referees' reports. In my opinion, a couple of more modifications are needed. My main concern is still the comparison with other similar works. The authors have now included a short paragraph on a similar paper by Contejean et al., I think that a more thorough comparison of the results could be performed and a couple of similar references could still be collected. 

A couple of minor comments: spaces are missing before citations in page 1;  it should be "Delmas et al." in line 151; strange character in line 237 and initials should be capitalized in the same line. 

Author Response

The authors have revised the manuscript mostly according to the referees' reports. In my opinion, a couple of more modifications are needed.

Comment: My main concern is still the comparison with other similar works. The authors have now included a short paragraph on a similar paper by Contejean et al., I think that a more thorough comparison of the results could be performed and a couple of similar references could still be collected.

Response: First paragraph of discussion is revised. Additional references are provided.

Comment: A couple of minor comments: spaces are missing before citations in page 1;  it should be "Delmas et al." in line 151; strange character in line 237 and initials should be capitalized in the same line. 

Response: Missing spaces are added. Line 151 is revised. Non-Latin character in line 237 is replaced.