Review Reports

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Overall, I enjoyed reading this paper by Arora et al. It nicely describes the impact of lockdown and wastewater treatment processes on SARS-CoV-2 detection in wastewater samples in 14 treatment plants in Northern India. The introduction, methods and results as well as interpretation of the findings are sound. This paper represents an important addition to the wastewater literature, particularly in India where wastewater surveillance of SARS-CoV-2 is starting to be recognised as an exceptionally useful epidemiological surveillance tool.

 

I have a few minor suggestions:

Line 29 – spelling of coronavirus (all one word)

Lines 33-34 – more information on the districts; which states?

Lines 35-36; change to correlation of SARS-CoV-2 RNA with incident inpatient and community cases of COVID-19

Line 45 - state when outbreak emerged in Wuhan

Line 70 - remove brackets around Wurtzer

Line 105 - remove 'h' after Uttarakhand

Univer section 2.2 - please convert rpm to g

Lines 158-159; please amend degrees Celsius with appropriate superscript

Line 203 – separate out words some variation in..

Line 368 - please remove 'were' that comes before successfully reduced

 

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.doc

Reviewer 2 Report

In the this form the novelty of the paper is hard to find, and in any case it must be better highlighted.  Without this clarification, it is difficult for me to recommend the manuscript for publication in its present form.

 

ABSTRACT

The abstract should be concise and specific and consequently should be revised. The abstract should provide background knowledge focused on the topic to be addressed, state the objectives of the study.

Authors should summarize the central core of knowledge that is the focus of the paper and better discuss the importance and relevance of their main findings.

 

INTRODUCTION

Authors should be reenforce the introduction with environmental concentration, current state of the art as well as gaps-of-knowledge and not repeat the abstract

 

CONCLUSIONS

Conclusions should be reenforced considering the main findings of the study.

 

Hope my comments will help authors to improve their manuscript!!!

Author Response

Please see the attachment.

Author Response File: Author Response.doc