Content of review 1, reviewed on December 13, 2021

COVID-19 is still threatened human lives. Abdullah J et al. identified clinical and epidemiological characteristics of 22 patients who had a repeat positive PCR test for SARS-CoV-2. They found that interval between the two positive episodes of COVID-19 ranged from 4 to 117 days, and individuals with repeat SARS-CoV-2 positivity tend to experience milder illness during the second episode than the first episode. This study suggested that COVID-19 patients should continue social distancing, using face masks, and practicing hand hygiene. Overall, I am glad to review this paper which give a reminder to the people with repeat SARS-CoV-2 positivity should continue social distancing, using face masks, and practicing hand hygiene. This is very important for stopping the pandemic transmission. However, some issues should be revised before publication. 1. The biggest problem of this study is that the author only listed the results from these 22 patients in tables, but failed to analyze and compare these data between groups. Although authors have claimed that the Shapiro-Wilk test was used to test for normality of the distribution of continuous variables (age, illness duration, and interval time between the first and second episodes), I did not find any P values in any tables. The conclusion reached by the author is based only on a few descriptive statements. It is suggested that the authors make correct statistical analysis of these data. 2. As a “Article” study, the sample size of this study is too small, I would like to suggest that the type of this study should be changed from “Article” to “Case report”. 3. The data should be updated to the latest, such as line 37 “As of July 23, 2021, over 190 million confirmed cases and over 4 million deaths in 216 countries”. 4. There is a mismatch in the use of brackets and parentheses in Tables 1 and 2. Please correct it. Such as “14 [100)” should be “14 (100)”. 5. Table 4 should be moved to supplementary materials.

Source

    © 2021 the Reviewer (CC BY 4.0).

References

    J., A. A., M., A. D. M., A., O. A., L., M. A., M., A. A., M., A. I., O., N. W., M., A. R. 2021. Clinical and Epidemiological Characteristics of COVID-19 Patients with SARS-CoV-2 Re-Detected on PCR Test after Discharge from Isolation. Clinics and Practice.