COVID-19 Control in Highly Urbanized Philippine Cities: Leveraging Public Health Open-Source Government Data for Epidemic Preparedness and Response
, Lorraine Joy L. Bernolo 3,4, Refeim M. Miguel 5, Zypher Jude G. Regencia 1,6,7, Lyre Anni E. Murao 8 and Emmanuel S. Baja 1,9
Round 1
Reviewer 1 Report
minor revision
- The use of JAMA benchmarks to assess data quality is mentioned, but it would be helpful to briefly clarify what these benchmarks measure (e.g., credibility, transparency). Also when authors mention JAMA in the abstract they should put up the full name.
- The income requirement for HUCs is based on "1991 constant prices." If this criterion remains unchanged, mention if and how this impacts the classification of cities today.
- The five categories of PHIs (case management, contact management, etc.) are based on previous literature (Liu et al., 2021), but no details are provided on modifications. Briefly describe what adjustments were made and why.
Author Response
Dear Reviewer 1,
Thank you for your invaluable comments.
Please see the attachment for our reply.
Author Response File: 
Author Response.pdf
Reviewer 2 Report
Right now, your paper does a great job of presenting data, but it would help if you clearly stated how your study adds something new. How does it compare to similar research on COVID-19 responses in other countries? If you can highlight what makes your work unique, it’ll be even more impactful.
I see that you’ve used JAMA benchmarks to assess data quality, which is great. But it would be even stronger if you acknowledged the potential gaps in the open-source data. Were some cities better at reporting than others? Were there inconsistencies? Being upfront about these limitations makes your findings more credible.
Since your study focuses on open data, it’s worth mentioning any privacy concerns. Were there debates about how much information should be made public? Did data transparency ever clash with citizen privacy? A short discussion on this would add depth to your paper.
Your conclusion sums up your findings well, but I think you could push it further by making it more forward-looking. What specific steps should governments take to make sure they’re better prepared for the next pandemic? If someone in public health or policy reads your paper, what should they take away from it?
Your study is data-driven, but bringing in insights from urban planning, behavioral science, or disaster response could add another layer. For example, how did factors like income levels or digital literacy affect the success of interventions like QR-based contact tracing? Connecting these dots would make your analysis even richer.
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Author Response
Dear Reviewer 2,
Thank you for your invaluable inputs. Please see the attached file with our reply and corresponding revisions.
Author Response File: Author Response.pdf
