EURO 2024 Copenhagen
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1241. COVID-19 quantitative processes and vaccine inventory policies

Invited abstract in session WC-21: Infectious diseases and pandemics 2, stream OR in Humanitarian Operations (HOpe).

Wednesday, 12:30-14:00
Room: 49 (building: 116)

Authors (first author is the speaker)

1. Bela Vizvari
Industrial Engineering, Eastern Mediterranean University

Abstract

COVID-19 is the first epidemic in the history of mankind such that daily data are available in all countries. It makes possible to get an understanding of the quantitative processes of pandemics.

A pandemic is a saturation process. This fact makes it possible to find good approximations of the quantitative processes of the pandemic including the total number of cases, and the number of vaccinations. The method is applied to 18 countries. The approximation has good quality even in the case of multiple waves.

The procurement of vaccines is made on the level of countries. Based on the obtained approximation, inventory policies are elaborated for countries. The first model minimizes the total inventory cost in the case of deterministic consumption and delivery.

The second model keeps the probability of shortage under a prescribed level in case of stochastic delivery. This model is a generalization of the so-called Hungarian inventory model.

Rich countries purchased huge quantities from vaccines. They could not use completely all these vaccines. On the other hand, poor countries could not get enough vaccines. Therefore, they repeatedly infected the population of rich countries. It was a reason of the multiple waves. It is assumed in the third model that one producer delivers to several countries. A fair distribution is the aim of the model with minimal total shortage.

Keywords

Status: accepted

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