Dear Editor

Thank you for the invitation for this review. I am not able to comment on the phylodynamic analysis because it is above my knowledge. You will need to consider another reviewer for this field of expertise.

Regards.

Manuscript by Di Giallonardo et al. presents the complete genome characterization of Human Respiratory Syncytial Virus isolated in New South Wales, Australia. Overall manuscript is well written. Title is concise, informative, and specific to the subject. Recent key publications that take into account multiple geographical areas are cited in the introduction to set the scene and explain the contribution of the current study in supporting the development of HRSV vaccine. Data analysis approaches are appropriate and well presented in the methodology section. The results are well related to previous studies both for HRSV type/sub-type classification and for evolutionary analysis. I have only few comments.

Major points.

1. Authors should mention a brief summary of the laboratory method, how the data were collected and analyzed, and a conclusion in the abstract. Abstract must be succinctly separate in the following sections: Background, Methods, Results, and Conclusion.
2. Please consider give the clinical case definition of patients that were tested for HRSV detection in methodology section
3. If it is possible, I personally believe that it is better to describe HRSV subgroup and genotype specific clinical characterization. In general, HRSV subgroup and genotype specific clinical information is limited worldwide. Therefore, having this information in the current manuscript would definitely add important value in both molecular and clinical epidemiology.
4. If available, it will be good to describe the number of patients tested for the selection of HRSV-positive samples for the study.

Minor points.

1. Authors should consider removed “(RSV)” abbreviations in the title
2. When author describe about the company information of the experimental kit used in the study, please make sure that the information included is consistent throughout the manuscript. For example, at line 111 “SuperScript™ IV cDNA synthesis system (Invitrogen, ThermoFisher Scientific)”. In general, it is preferred to describe the following information: (company name, City, State. Country). For example for the commercial viral nucleic acids extraction kit, QIA viral RNA Minikit (QIAGEN Inc., Valencia, CA, USA). Please go through the manuscript and edit this issue elsewhere in the manuscript.
3. For Table 1, could the authors consider only two numbers after the decimal point?